Electrical noise could help automate your home
By Darren Murph 
posted September 12th 2007 9:05PM
posted September 12th 2007 9:05PM
For those building a house from the ground-up, installing a slew of cameras and touch panels to automate it may not be all that burdensome, but new research is hoping to use electrical noise to enable current homeowners to reap the benefits of home automation without tearing the walls back down. Put simply, the new technology would recognize noise whenever a denizen flipped on / off a household appliance, thus enabling the house to react by automatically switching on lights, heat, or music in that very room. 'Course, even the creators realize that it has limitations in its current state, namely that the house won't even flinch if you enter a room but don't interact with an appliance.[Via SmartMobs, image courtesy of KrayTracing]
The loudest noise comes from the eletrical Sonic-Cult!
Couldn't the 'limitations' be overcome by plugging in a motion sensor? Just a thought.
so if everyone is asleep and i try to set my alarm clock, itl turn on the lights and music?
I just use the Clapper.
"We don't have a clapper"
"Sorry can't hear you Marge. I'm clapping"
Shouldn't we be trying to eliminate electrical noise?
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
If by noise, they mean electromagnetic fields emitted from the device and not the loading Windows sound then this is possibly useful.
Like most anal people I keep my phone in my pocket all the time and if the house could "sense" its presence in a room then it could know that someone's there. If it could recognize the specific waves emitted by my phone then I could personalize settings.
Would a motion sensor not do the trick?
Sorry didn't spot the earlier comment.
After reading the article, I think they are referring to noise as the slight variation in voltage your computer sees at the wall outlet. Turning a particular device on or off in the room will cause the computer's voltage to change with a unique pattern that the computer can learn.
Great so when an airplane goes over your house, it's like Poltergeist... Hooray.