4 Essential Things About Home Cinema Automation

Contents

    – 1. Principle of home cinema automation

    – 2. Home automation audio and home cinema: operation

    – 3. Home cinema automation box

    – 4. Price of home automation audio and home cinema

A digital home network broadcasts music and radio throughout the house: it is the “multiroom”. 

A home automation installation allows you to connect, command and control domestic devices, called connected objects, to facilitate and centralize the tasks and leisure of daily life. Home automation for audio and home cinema controls and broadcasts sound (music, radio, podcast) in all the house rooms: “multiroom” use.

TV home automation is discussed separately, as its characteristics and needs go beyond the pure framework of “sound” quality. However, the basic home automation scheme remains the same.

1. Principle of home cinema automation

Audio and home cinema automation allows you to control and broadcast sound (music, radio, podcast) in “multi-room” use in all the rooms of your house. Broadcasting is done from the source (a device) of your choice: home automation box, smartphone, etc.

You thus have synchronization and sound quality combined with ease of use.

Once the home automation and home cinema installation are done, all your sound sources are easily accessible: radio, television, mp3 files on a computer, smartphone or mp3 player, etc. You can “switch” from one to another without having to access the devices concerned physically. The remote controls are also programmable, so it is possible to turn the sound on or off at a specific time.

For example, you can quickly and easily, from your smartphone, so without having to run to a particular room, pause the sound when you receive a phone call or someone rings at your door. In the same way and as easily, you can, for example, listen to the information between 2 pieces of music.

2. Home automation and home cinema: operation

You can control (broadcasting and control of sound) of home automation audio and home cinema from a home automation box, also called a control panel or simply remote control, or from your smartphone or tablet.

Connection

The communication between your equipment can be done in two ways:

    – wired: this is an Ethernet network, via cable and RJ45 port ;

    – or wireless: it’s a Wi-Fi network.

Your devices need to have the same language called protocol to communicate with each other.

Compatibility

To be connected and controlled, your multimedia devices must be compatible with home automation standards.

Your multimedia device (television, recorder, etc.) must be DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified: it guarantees the interconnection between the different devices. Your multimedia device must also have an Ethernet RJ45 socket (for a wired network) or a Wi-Fi module (for a wireless network).

The most common communication protocols are Z-Wave, X10, PLC Bus, Chacon DiO, ZigBee, EnOcean, or KNX. Depending on the manufacturer, the multimedia devices can have access to web services, such as Surf TV, SmartTV inter@ctive, Android TV, etc.

3. Home automation box

The home automation market is constantly evolving; new manufacturers and new proprietary protocols appear regularly.

Among the most widespread manufacturers (and home automation boxes), we can count: Connected Object (eedomus+), Jeedom (Jeedom), Orange (Homelive), Vera (VeraEdge, or VeraPlus), Fibar (home-centre), etc.

It is better to choose a home automation box compatible with one (or more) non-proprietary protocol, also called the open protocol. Indeed, in this case, your purchase does not depend on the durability of the brand you buy.

4. Price of home automation and home cinema

Even if the technology evolves quickly and new players appear regularly on the market, most home automation boxes for audio and video have a price between $120 and $300. As for the devices to be connected (TV, DVD player, etc.), you will find them at all prices. The only thing to check is that they are DLNA certified and connected (Ethernet or Wi-Fi).

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