May 1/2000 -- So you're tired of hearing about the home of the future being "just around the corner" for the past decade or two. You may also be wondering how to automate your own house - or should you even bother. These and other mysteries about home automation will be addressed in the home automation mentor section. I will discuss different aspects of home automation such as power line communication essentials, integration options and device interoperability in the future and I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.


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Reza Raji
Director of Business Development
Echelon Corporation

Home Control Network
Resources
Articles
Automation & You
 The Lonworks Solution

References
LonWorks HA
Lonworks Live Demo

Standards
Standards Library

 Home Automation and You
Home automation and control deals with “light-weight” devices with very limited computing resources with high cost sensitivity such as light switches, dish washers, washing machines, thermostats, dimmers and motion sensors, to name a few.  Control devices are practically everywhere around us. Read more in my current article entitled "Home Automation and You"

About Control Networks
Control devices have a unique set of characteristics that are different than those for data networks. Compared to data networking devices (PCs, printers, laptops, etc.), there are more control devices that can be found in a typical home. Other attributes of control and automation networks are the relatively low network bandwidth (e.g. bit rate) requirements as well as the need to support multiple media (twisted pair, power line, RF, etc.). 

Reza Raji ( reza@echelon.com ) is the Director of Business Development at Echelon Corporation, a leader in providing solutions to extend the power and benefits of networking to everyday devices. He joined Echelon in early 1991 and has held various positions in technical and marketing roles within the company. In his current role he is responsible for fostering technical and business synergies between Echelon's LONWORKS® device networking platform and the latest technologies and product offerings in the industry, with specific focus on home networking and the Internet. He also serves on the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Steering Committee, an industry initiative designed to enable easy and robust connectivity among stand-alone devices and PCs from many different vendors.

Prior to joining Echelon, Reza worked at IBM Corporation where he worked on the design and development of the company's first super-computer project. He also was member of an IBM Fellow group working on bringing large-scale computing platform compatibility to the PC.

Reza holds two patents on computer cache design and embedded devices. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.