Current advances in home automation offer homeowners convenience, security, energy savings and a lot of impressive technology. With a fully automated home, you will be able to pick up your phone, call your house and instruct it to disarm the security system, start the spa and turn up the lights. The interest in home automation is not born out of a desire to create a space-age home, but to make houses safe, energy-efficient and more comfortable.

Take security for example, if there is a fire, an automated house will detect it, turn off the gas, close the dampers in the ventilation system, turn on the lights, unlock the doors, set off an alarm and call the fire department. More advanced systems might even tell you where the fire is and through which room you should escape.

With Home Manager, one of several automation systems on the market, you can warm up the master bedroom, kitchen and bathroom in the morning before the alarm goes off. Or you can program it to keep the nursery at a constant temperature. In midsummer, you can even instruct sensors in the house to open skylights, turn on ceiling fans and close the draperies when the house reaches a certain temperature. All of these functions can be controlled while in the house or remotely from a touch-tone phone or computer and modem.

In addition, home automation offers tremendous lifestyle improvement for elderly and disabled people. For those who cannot push a button or flip a switch, a voice command can be used to activate security cameras, turn up the stereo volume or drop the room temperature a few degree. The click of an infrared remote control could turn on the oven, close the blinds or open the door.