From the Ground Up: Smart Home Networks

By: Max Alexander (Page 3 of 6)

Illustration: Ian Worpole

Enlarge this image Illustration: Ian Worpole

Photo: Mark Viker

Photo: Courtesy of USTEC

Smart Hub
Firewire is a super-high-speed cable used chiefly to transfer data between electronic devices with Firewire ports (typically computers and digital cameras; increasingly, TVs, stereos, DVD players, and cable boxes). But now, thanks to a new "smart hub," these devices can communicate directly through a house's Cat5e network, giving homeowners the ability to control everything remotely through a TV screen. Firewire also simplifies installation. "You plug in the device to the hub and the system will automatically 'see' it, find the drivers that control it, and give you the option of adding it to the network," says Tweeter Home Entertainment Group's Dave Tovissi, who's installing a Firewire-to-Cat5e system at the TOH TV project house in Carlisle.

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Wired or Wireless??

Considering the pace at which technology changes, burying home-networking wires in walls seems so last century. Especially when you can create a network out of invisible radio signals. But the experts who install both wired and wireless networks say wired is still the better way to go. It's not because of problems like electrical interference and dead zones: Those are largely things of the past for professional installations. The fact is even the best wireless systems simply don't have the bandwidth of a "hard" wire: They max out at 54 megabits per second (Cat5e and RG6 cables reach 100 mbps).

Then there's the problem of security. "Wireless is a major source of identity theft," says audiovisual contractor Steve Hayes of Custom Electronics. "There are guys who drive around looking for wireless hot spots, then download bank account information, credit card numbers, you name it." The solution, Hayes says, is to set up the transmitter in a location where the signal has only a short distance to travel.

Finally, as high-tech as wireless networks are, they can suddenly become obsolete. "In the last few years the wireless protocols and standards have changed many times," says Jason Frenchman of Crestron, a maker of high-end home network systems. That said, wireless still has its place. Even hardwired systems offer nifty gizmos like wireless touchscreens. And wireless setups can be used to "stretch" a wired network into unwired rooms, avoiding the need to tear into walls.