This year’s Southeast Building Conference in Orlando Florida will feature the 2007 New Southern Home, a showcase house that includes an Insteon lighting control system. Insteon dimmers, switches, keypads and controllers populate the 10,200 square-foot construction (apparently minimizing living space is not going to be a part of 2007 Southern lifestyle), enabling the hypothetical homeowner to remotely control the home’s lighting system by turning lights on and off and reducing their intensity. The sell? Greater control over one’s lighting system reduces energy usage. And in a 10K sq-foot home, energy usage is no small matter.

Kudos to Insteon. There are plenty of lighting control options on the market, but apparently the designer and builder of the showcase New Southern Home chose Insteon for its affordability and ease of installation and use. I have to back the opinion of the designer—I have some lamp modules and a few controls from Insteon, and they were a breeze to set up and start using. I’ve never had a problem, and their products are quite affordable. This is a nice honor going to a deserving company.

Check out www.insteon.net for more info on the company and on the news of the New Southern Home, and check out www.newsouthernhome.com for more info on the showcase home.

Between watching re-runs of the “The Jetsons” and convincing his Insteon and Z-Wave controls to get along, Ben Hardy is immersed in the world of home automation, home control, and home networking.

Ben Hardy
Contributing Reporter, ElectronicHouse.com

Between watching re-runs of the The Jetsons and convincing his Insteon and Z-Wave controls to get along, Ben Hardy is immersed in the world of home automation, home control, and home networking.

Ben Hardy can be reached at ben.hardy@comcast.net