Introduction

The WebBrick Gateway provides a centralized management and control interface to an automated home. The system design avoids there being a single point of failure which leaves the user with no control over the home by devolving most control down to the individual WebBrick Controllers. The WebBrick Gateway is used to make the control of the home richer by providing access to the home over a wider range of User Interfaces (UIs) and a wider range of communication channels, e.g. web browser at work.

Our two primary design criteria are:

Features

The above diagram shows a basic WebBrick home automation setup:

• It uses WebBrick Controllers to take input and commands from the real world, e.g. switches and infra red controllers.
• It uses WebBrick Controllers to control the real world, e.g. lights and curtains.
• It has a WebBrick Gateway to provide richer user interfaces and a house wide scheduling system, e.g. central heating for the whole house.
• It has a Touch screen web browser from which a user can directly control devices and update scheduled activities, they can also look at the output from security cameras.
• The WebBrick Gateway also connects to a broadband Internet connection through which the user can remotely control and monitor the house.

Our WebBrick Gateway provides the following features:

• User interfaces (UI):

  This is used to create consolidated user interfaces for a collection of configured WebBrick Controllers and other functions such as media control. These interfaces can be web, XML or SMS based. Web interfaces can be used on touch panels, PC and Mac based browsers as well as PDAs and smart phones. XML based interfaces are used for menu schemes found typically on VOIP phones. SMS covers the world with a simple interface you are likely to have near you at all times - the mobile phone.

  The WebBrick Gateway is also capable of changing the UI displays dependant on time of day or any other state that may occur, i.e. The background may be different during night and day. At night the home page may be simpler, so that lights are easy to operate when half asleep.

  This is all tailorable to suit the end user environment.

• Scheduling:

  WebBrick Controllers handle local events, for example a heated floor has reached a comfortable temperature and the power to it should be reduced. A WebBrick Controller can be used to schedule the floor itself, however it does not know about the intentions of its users. These users could be on holiday or having an early start to the day. It is the WebBrick Gateway that holds the global schedule for the home and can pull in information from other sources, i.e. calendaring or weather forecast.

• Macros, Jobs:

  Some requests should set off a cascade of actions, perhaps over a selection of WebBrick Controllers or across other devices. For example a courtesy job for guests leaving might involve lighting around the home, the driveway and gate control. It is a function of the WebBrick Gateway to receive the request for a courtesy job and dispatch the relevant commands to WebBrick Controllers and other devices.

  Requests may be dependant on other information, i.e. security lights are only required at night and this information is gathered in the WebBrick Gateway.

• User Notification:
  

  The home owner may not want to manually inspect for issues requiring attention themselves but to be actively notified. The WebBrick Gateway is capable of providing notification using a mixture of methods e.g. email or by text message to a mobile. The WebBrick Gateway can put messages on the web interfaces for those environments are using always on browser displays. It may also make announcements on dedicated equipment such as the EggNunciator, which when the system is happy looks just like modern mood lighting but when something important in its operating environment i.e. Garage doors open after dark, it changes its illumination pattern.

• Integration:

  The WebBrick Gateway allows for integration with the homes other systems, at present anything that can respond to HTTP requests or can generate HTTP requests can be integrated with the WebBrick Gateway. The interface for this integration allows bespoke additions to be easily accommodated. For example when the phone rings the home owner may wish to have details of the call displayed on their user interface, then if the phone is answered for the audio in the room he is in to be muted automatically.

  An action can also execute any available command on the host platform through the use of a command shell interface, this allows for integration with anything that has a command line interface.

• Configuration management:

  To ease installation there are additional facilities that enable the management of WebBrick configurations. The configuration for each WebBrick can be downloaded and uploaded to the central server for backup. When a collection of WebBrick Controllers is first installed each WebBrick will have the same default delivery address, the WebBrick Gateway can be used to discover WebBrick Controllers and to give each WebBrick a different addresses. From here example and template configurations can then be downloaded to WebBrick Controllers. Once the specific configuration for a WebBrick is complete its configuration can be uploaded to the WebBrick Gateway for either backup or for use as a template in further configurations. This also enables an installer to prepare for commissioning offsite.

• WebBrick Time:

  The WebBrick Gateway monitors for WebBrick Controllers whose real time clock needs setting and will set the WebBrick time to the WebBrick Gateway time.

• Event logging:

  The WebBrick Gateway can be configured to log some or all events happening within the system for later investigation. This requires an WebBrick Gateway with a hard disk as storage requirements can build up very fast.

Since we have "Missing is not Broken" it is quite possible for a collection of WebBrick Controllers to function without a WebBrick Gateway present. The corollary of this is that it is possible (with some configuration caveats) to operate with more than one WebBrick Gateway. This provides a backup of the central functions in the case of WebBrick Gateway failure, e.g. the WebBrick Gateway is the system providing remote access so loss of the WebBrick Gateway in a single WebBrick Gateway setup would result in loss of remote control and remote monitoring. The failure of the WebBrick Gateway would still leave the home owner with control, he may not have access to some of the extended control.

Browser Support

The WebBrick Gateway will support any standards compliant browser and handle some of the quirks of browsers that do not fully comply. The user interface can be configured by browser family to avoid some features, e.g. Javascript.