Eaton @ CES - HomeHeartbeat Doesn't Exactly Make Ours Skip
Eaton, who have been making big industrial machines and the computers that control them forever, have decided to dip their toes into the consumer market. Their first venture is the Home Heartbeat, which isn't exactly a home security system, or a home control system (a la x10), in fact we're not sure exactly what to call it. Here's how it works…
The main controller pretty much just collects all the status reports from all the sensors, which they have for all kinds of stuff: outlets to let you know if something is drawing power, doors and windows to tell you if they're open or closed, a water sensor, and a few others. Then the controller can relay those status reports to a key fob (if it's in radio range) or send any important changes (your front door was opened, your basement is flooding) to your cell phone via SMS. Which is pretty much the only useful thing this whole system can do.
The key fob is more than just a fob though, it serves as the programming device for all the sensors as well as the programming and status device for the main controller. When it's detached from the main controller, the key fob becomes a status screen for the system, until it leaves range of base's radio, after which it can only displays the last known status.
