Today is December 2nd, which means as of yesterday it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year! Families across the country have begun putting up their Christmas trees, decorating their homes with dazzling lights, and baking the day away. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be focusing on decorating safety – for your beloved tree, as well as for the interior and exterior of your home. Our goal is to ensure that you have a safe and happy holiday!

When it comes to decorating your tree, it’s important to follow certain guidelines so that you can help prevent electrical and fire hazards.

Home automation is the latest trend in electrical installations; it allows you the functionality to control various devices in your home, via a mobile device from any location (in your city or even from across the world). It’s true that the term home automation could be used for various programmable devices such as sprinkler systems and thermostats.

However, home automation is much more than that, and it encompasses a number of things in a home including:

All of these are connected to a network that can be remotely controlled. From the perspective of home security, this includes fixtures such as the alarm system in your home, as well as the windows, doors, smoke detectors, locks, the CCTV cameras as well as the other sensors that are connected to it.

Even up until the recent past, it was only commercial systems and high-end homes that had automated centrally-controlled systems. Typically, these included only the heating & cooling systems, lighting systems and they hardly ever provided anything more than just the standard controls, monitoring functions as well as scheduling actions. In addition, these were accessible only from certain control points from within the very same building.

While this was a definite convenience and advantage, home automation takes this concept and technology one step further; and is popularly called the – ‘ Internet of Things’. In this type of system, everything has a specific IP address that can be accessed and monitored remotely.

Smart devices and various smart appliances are the most obvious things that get connected to the LAN via Wi-Fi or Ethernet. However, it’s possible to incorporate electrical outlets and light switches into your home automation network.

In addition to the convenience factor, the energy efficiency factor is what makes home automation such an attractive option. While modern appliances provide convenience and comfort, many of them are also power guzzlers; home automation systems also address this issue. Thermostats help monitor the heating and cooling system in your home; similarly the lighting systems can also be programmed and set for various target temperatures.

This helps keep energy usage at the minimum levels during the times when you aren’t really going to be using them. In fact this scheduling can be broken down at a more micro level to distinguish between the seasons of the year and the weekends etc., in some instances. If required, ‘macros’ can also be programmed into the system and these can be controlled remotely as required.

In fact, you can add settings – like “coming home” etc. that can activate various appliances, equipment and installations at the tap of your smartphone and you can have the opposite set as a “leaving home’ event. This ensures you use only as much energy as required, which adds to the overall energy efficiency of your home.

If you are considering getting smart automation solutions for your home, it’s important that you get experienced and credible electricians to handle the job for you. We at Allround Electricals are a company that has been operating in this space for a number of years and know what it takes to provide our customers with the kind of solutions they need.

For any more information about home automation or simply speak with the experts at our company. You can take our advice on various aspects of electrical and wiring installations. The number to call is – 1300 169 263. You can also write to us at this email address.

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One of the limitations of some grid-tied photovoltaic systems is that the owner will only benefit as long as there is sunlight while the grid is functioning. Otherwise, if there is an outage, they may not even use the energy they are generating from the rooftop. During such times when the grid is disconnected, the owner can neither use the rooftop solar nor export the energy to the grid.

Owners of PV systems without backup functionalities can upgrade by adding AC coupling. This enables them to store energy and use it anytime, including during emergencies and grid outages. The AC coupling converts a simple grid-tied system into a Grid/hybrid or grid interactive system. This provides grid-ties savings whenever the grid is up and running, and off-grid independence, as well as security when there is a utility outage.

The main components of AC coupling include an energy storage system, a grid-interactive inverter/charger, a coupling device and the second panel with additional wiring for the critical loads to supply during outages.

Battery storage enables better power management by providing a number of benefits which include: