Home Automation – Networks
Wired Ethernet Network
The advantages of a wired network are...
- Connection speed.
- Reliability (unless you hammer a nail through the cable.)
The disadvantages of a wired network are...
- Difficulty of routing cabling in an existing house.
- You never put enough in.
Wireless Ethernet Network
The advantages of a wireless network are...
- Rather obviously, no wires.
- Flexibility. You can position a device anywhere you require (within reason.)
The disadvantages of a wireless network are...
- Connection speed.
- Not all devices you may wish to connect will have wireless connectivity built in.
- Not all wireless networks can interoperate.
- Signal may not reach to all parts of your house.
Nearly all wireless ethernet networks are based on a common specification 802.11 and currently come in 4 flavours
- b - Max. Speed of 11Mb/s. Communicates at 2.4GHz
- g - Max. Speed of 54Mb/s. Communicates at 2.4GHz
- a - Max. Speed of 54Mb/s. Communicates at 5GHz
- n - Max. Speed of 74Mb/s. Communicates at 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz
Power line networking relies on sending information over you house's electrical wiring. It does this by superimposing a high frequency signal over the 50 or 60Hz mains.
The advantages of a powerline network are...
- The wiring is already in place
- The speed is (generally) better than wireless
and the disadvantages are...
- Cost - adapters my be over the 50GBP mark per point
- Adapters of different brands may not talk to each other. Even different adapters of the same brand but a newer technology may have difficulty communicating.
- May not work in a 3-phase installation (although the vast majority of houses will only have a single phase installation.)
Radio Frequency (RF) Network
Like wireless ethernet networks, RF networks communicate over the airwaves however they don't use IP for their base communications protocol and generally use a vendor specific protocol.
Even simpler is the 1-wire protocol which only requires a single wire (the name's a bit of a give-away) though they usually require two to provide a return to ground and most 1-wire units use four.