Hi,
I'm hoping to get some leads on the types of components that might work to create an automation system for common incandescent building lights. A set of Googleable keywords would be enough, but more details would be great.
What I'd like to do is put a relay on most of the lights in my home and control each relay from a low-cost computer running Linux. The other criteria is that the system be hard-wired (not be an X10 based system).
So the components I would need are:
Relays -- 100-500 watts, that have 0 or low draw when not energized, controllable via a hard wired interface, as inexpensive as possible, safe, meets NEC
IO interface -- control 20 relays or more, reasonably priced, isolated from relays (optically ?)
I see a lot of X10 systems that can do this, but since this is going to be part of a security system, I'd like the control interface to be more secure than X10 allows.