Automated System Feature Explanations - Continued

This explains the completely automated features of your Home Automation Control System.

Thumbprint reader
A thumbprint reader is another access control device that doesn't need anything but your thumb to get you in or out of a building or to access information from one of our information displays.

Lighting Keypads
A wall mounted keypad that is part of the lighting control system to control lights and other features such as window treatments, it can also be used to control audio video and other equipment through the use of an interface to the automation system controller.

Video Display
A device that can show video images such as a computer monitor, a television, a flat plasma display, or even an LCD display. It is not used to describe a video projector.

Multimedia Plates
Multimedia plates are wall plates that have jacks in them that allow the connection of telephones, television, VCR's, Fax machines, computers, and fiber optic appliances in the future.

Patch Panel
This is the panel in the utility room that all the cabling from the multimedia plates come to. It allow different services to be rapidly moved from one location to another simply by moving a few cables on the patch panel in the utility room, and moving the equipment in the building.

Computer Networking
This is a feature that is enabled by using our HLAN system in your building. It allows multiple computers to share data and peripherals without having to carry files on disk from machine to machine.

Video Distribution and Amplification
Your system will operate in conjunction with the housewide distributed video subsystem. You may distribute the picture from your VCR, laser disc player, front door cameras, gate cameras, and security monitoring cameras to televisions throughout the residence. You can watch any of these video sources by simply selecting the proper television channel for a given piece of video equipment.

You may control video source functions using touch pad buttons, touch screens, and hand-held remote controls. The audio from appropriate source (VCR's, laserdiscs, audio equipped security cameras) components may be heard through the distributed audio subsystem. Your hand-held remote can control local televisions, as well as provide security camera pan, tilt, and zoom control.

Your coaxial distribution network will have provision to distribute the audio, video and control signals to and from source equipment in rooms spread throughout the residence by accessing an unused cable channel dedicated to each source. We will design the video distribution system in such a way that any internally generated audio/video signals will not be back fed into the local cable system (your neighbors won't be able to see your home videos or security cameras).

Intranet Services
An Intranet is a data network within an company or building that handles files and documents the same way that files and documents are handled on the Internet. Documents have Hypertext links that cause your computer to jump from one place on your computer network to another without having to log into other machines or type cryptic commands.

CO Sensor
A sensor that detects dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide in a building or other closed in area, and alerts a control system to warn the occupants.

Driveway Loop
A driveway loop is a passive wire loop buried in your driveway or a tube like device called a magnetic anomaly detector buried along side your driveway. These devices pick up the change in magnetic field caused by a vehicle moving over or near them and pass that signal on to a processor. Some models of these devices are active and will cause a device attached to a vehicle to identify itself, allowing the processor to identify the vehicle.

Outdoor Security Sensors
Sensors that are used to detect an intruder outdoors such as microwave, seismic, and "E" field detectors.

PTZ Camera
A camera in a movable housing that is used to protect a camera from the elements.

CCTV Camera
A camera that gives us a closed circuit or dedicated picture, that is not a picture broadcast for all to see.

Spoken Responses
Your system can speak in a woman's voice (optionally we can record a special voice for you) to greet your guests at the main entry ("Welcome to the Smith residence" outside, "Excuse me, there is someone at the front door" inside), alert you and your guests during security or fire emergencies, inform you of special events (such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays), and to confirm that your commands have been executed ("The front door is now unlocked"). Spoken responses can be delivered over your normal audio speakers, or spoken response speakers where the spoken response area is not a distributed audio zone. We will work with you and your designer to select spoken response speaker faceplates and locations.

We will work with your audio video system designer to insure that the proper interfaces are provided to allow seamless integration with your distributed audio system.

Video Teleconferencing
Video Teleconferencing is essentially the video telephone, it allows audio communication with live video, although the video is sometimes "shaky" depending on the quality of the telephone lines available in the area. Video teleconferencing can connect one to one or many to many depending on the equipment being used at each end.

Distributed AV Zone
This is an area of your building that can have many speakers or just one, but is controlled as an area allowing only one source to be heard and controlled in the area.

Entertainment CCTV
This is a feature that takes in house CCTV cameras such as those watching a theme park ride, the top of a hotel, or a shark tank camera and puts the image on the normal television distribution network in the building for guests to watch.

Security System Partition
A portion of the security system that can be controlled separately from the entire system such as a workshop, office, wine cellar, etc. It will announce it's own alarm and can be armed and disarmed separately from the main system.

Telephone Control
Your system will allow any touch-tone telephone inside or outside your home to serve as a control and access control device. Selected system features may be activated by simply pressing a few numbers. Your system can be controlled remotely by the telephone and can indicate with a spoken response which button corresponds to each feature. When dialing into the system from outside a simple but secure passcode will be required to access telephone control.

Security Status Annunciator
A device that shows the status of a security system by showing the status of zones on the touch screen system and showing the armed status of the system.