Designing a Home Automation System

There are six basic steps to design a home automation system. They start with selecting your House Controller and proceed with choosing the options that you want to go with it.

Do you want security included in your home control system ?

  • If you are looking for a built-in UL Listed burglar and fire system, choose an HAI Omni family home control system. The Omni family of home control systems includes the OmniPro II, the Omni IIe, and the Omni LT. Compare the Omni family of Home Control Systems.
  • If security is not important or you already have a security system, choose an HAI Lumina family home control system. The Lumina family can integrate with many security systems and includes all of the other great features that HAI home control systems support. The Lumina line includes the Lumina Pro and the Lumina. Compare the Lumina family of Home Control Systems.

Once you have decided which family of Home Controller to use, you then need to decide which member of the Omni or Lumina family to choose. The size of your home will determine which product you need to buy within either our Omni family or Lumina family of home control systems.

If you would like to include sophisticated lighting control, we recommend using our HAI Lighting Control (HLC) family of products. The affordable HLC line includes dimming switches, non-dimming switches, relay switches, auxiliary switches, scene switches, mode switches, and house status switches.

All HLC products are UL Listed and use Generation II Universal Powerline Bus (UPB™) – a digital communications standard for lighting and home control that ensures superior reliability. There is no need to run new wires as long as you have a neutral wire at the switch location.

HLC products do not require a home control system. However, when you add an HAI home control system to your HLC installation, you gain the ability to change your light settings by the time of day, a set schedule, by the triggering of events (including motion), via a telephone call, Touchscreen, or by a computer connected to the Internet.

Our Omni and Lumina families of home control systems have built-in support for UPB™ so there is no need to add on any modules for lighting. To design a lighting control system simply choose a dimmer or switch from our HLC product line for each load in your home. For example: choose a 35A00-1 600W Dimmer to control a light that you would like to be able to dim and uses less than 600 Watts of power.

HAI also has a number of Connectivity Partners whose lighting systems our home controllers support, including some wireless options.

If you are interested in Whole Home Audio, HAI offers Hi-Fi by HAI, which connects to any of our home control systems.. It comes standard as a 4 zone, 4 source system, but it is modular and may be expanded one zone or source at a time until it has reached its capacity of 8 zones and 6 sources.

Hi-Fi by HAI is a Central Controller Distributed Audio System, not an A-Bus system. The main unit is mounted on a closet wall or structured wiring enclosure for a neat professional installation.

Hi-Fi by HAI may be a stand-alone system, however when incorporated into an HAI home control system, you may set each zone’s source and volume for parties, watching television or to coordinate the audio system with your activities.

Hi-Fi by HAI is the first built-in unit with Remote Input Modules (RIM), so music can be located anywhere instead of in an audio rack. RIMs can be located throughout the house to pick up music from your home theater, kitchen TV, computer, personal music player, satellite radio, Media Center, CD player – any source with an audio output.

Placing Volume Source Controls (VSC) units in each room with speakers allows for control of volume, source, bass and treble with a simple turn of the knob. It also has a routed IR repeater.

RIM’s and VSC’s require a single Cat5 cable run back to the Hi-Fi. Speakers are homerun to the Hi-Fi using standard speaker wire.

For more audio options HAI has Connectivity Partners whose audio systems are supported by HAI’s OmniPro II and Lumina Pro home control systems.

HAI offers solutions for Energy Management with the Omnistat line of Communicating Thermostats. Omnistat thermostats are fully interactive with all HAI home control systems and may be controlled both locally and remotely.

Your HAI home control system can turn off lights, water heaters and pumps when the house is unoccupied.

Also, HAI sells temperature and humidity sensors that may be used for temperature based programming of events. The temperature may be used to activate programs for controlling temperatures in attics, garages, greenhouses, basements, wine cellars, coolers, etc.

All Omnistat thermostats may be standalone, but the functionality increases if you incorporate it into an HAI home control system.

Our home control systems may be managed via a variety of Interface Options, including Touchsreens, consoles, keyfobs, keypads, switches, and software.

Each Omni family home control system installation must include at least one Omni Console or Omni Console with Built-in Speaker/Microphone.

Each Lumina family home control system installation must include at least one Lumina Keypad or Lumina Keypad with Built-in Speaker/Microphone. A Lumina Keypad is included with every purchase of a Lumina family home control system.

HAI’s OmniTouch and OmniTouch with Video are simple-to-use Touchscreens that look beautiful on a wall. The OmniTouch with Video allows you to view the output from cameras on your Touchscreen.

If you would like to control your home remotely, HAI provides several different options. The first option is calling your system via the telephone while either in the home or outside the home and responding to voice prompts. This telephone access is standard in Omni family controllers and is an option for Lumina family systems.

HAI sells several different software products to interface with your home control system. Compare HAI’s software products.

If you select an HAI home control system with a built in Ethernet port, you may use our Snap-Link program to remotely access your home over the Internet. Snap-Link offers you the ability to securely access and control your home while leaving no trace behind by plugging a simple USB key drive into any computer in the world. HAI’s Web-Link II software can be used for remote access with any HAI Home Controller.

HAI’s Home Control for Windows Media Center allows you to sit in front of your television and use the Media Center’s remote to change your home’s automation settings.

Our Connectivity Partners offer other interface options for our home control systems.

HAI has a full line of Wireless Security Products and offers accessories for most of our main product categories, including expansion accessories for HAI’s Home Control Systems.

HAI’s Two-Way Voice Module allows your HAI System to make announcements by working in conjunction with the speakers located in a console/keypad or with a speaker/microphone module. You can have your HAI Home Control System remind you every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM that tonight is trash night.

With the help of our Connectivity Partners, you can expand your HAI home control system with other solutions including central vacuum, structured wiring, and window coverings.