Generation Next (Build)Seven Big Ideas you'll want to have at the International Builder's Show's newest technology pavilion.

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Redundancy could prove key to wireless home controls.

ZigBee? Z-Wave? WiFi? How is a builder to decide among the latest wireless automation platforms? There's something to be said for not deciding at all.

Bellevue, Wash.–based Lagotek Corp. is one of many companies showing home control systems at IBS. (In fact, Lagotek recently inked a deal with Englewood, Colo.–based Village Homes to offer its Home Intelligence Platform as an upgrade in new and existing Village homes.) And it's one of more than 125 companies that have joined the Z-Wave Alliance to provide interoperable products based on Z-Wave wireless technology. (See Currents, page 14.) But as Ron Risdon, Lagotek's president explains, the company's products also use IEEE 802.11 WiFi technology for redundancy.

“Let's say you have a sophisticated lighting scene,” Risdon says. “We'll use WiFi to communicate with our controllers, which then have an association with Z-Wave devices closest to them. This gives real-time performance.”

The challenge that other, often client/server-based automation systems have is that because of how they're designed, they could encounter performance latency as more devices join the network. In a system like Lagotek's, each touchpanel is a server in a distributed mesh network.

“You can literally break all of them with a hammer except the last one, and the house will still be running,” Risdon says. (www.lagotek.com, booth W4646)

Today's wired systems integrate even more functions.

“There's a misconception out there that you can't put intelligence into a home for under $10,000,” says Jay McLellan, president of IBS exhibitor Home Automation Inc. (HAI). And it may be true if by intelligence you mean a handful of systems automating the home's separate functions.

In 1988, HAI launched its first system to integrate various home automation functions, such as security, lighting, and energy management. “All of these are stand-alone systems a builder can put in a home; we just think it's better when they all work together,” says McLellan. Today the company's OmniLink integrated automation system goes for about $1,000 retail.

In December, HAI added whole-home audio to its integrated bag of tricks with its new Hi-Fi by HAI system Hi-Fi isn't a separate A-Bus, Cat-5–based system, like many new distributed audio solutions. It can plug into HAI's OmniLink or Lumina control systems.