Smarthome
Encyclopedia
Smarthome is a consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...

 company specializing in home automation
Home automation
Home automation is the residential extension of "building automation". It is automation of the home, housework or household activity. Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC , appliances, and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and...

 products, information, how-to videos and industry information.

It was created in 1992 by Joe Dada III, founder and CEO. It is based in Irvine
Irvine, California
Irvine is a suburban incorporated city in Orange County, California, United States. It is a planned city, mainly developed by the Irvine Company since the 1960s. Formally incorporated on December 28, 1971, the city has a population of 212,375 as of the 2010 census. However, the California...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

History

In 1992, Joe Dada and David Tan launched Smarthome.com, a subsidiary of SmartLabs, Inc. a fast-growing
Internet-based supplier of "smart home" products..

Using private funding from a series of friend and family donations, savings, and small loans from the bank, Dada was able to publish the first Smarthome catalog in 1992. In February, 1995, SmartLabs' Smarthome launched one of the first e-commerce sites on the Web. By the end of the summer in 1995, Smarthome.com had a full-functioning e-basket and search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...

, which it continues to build upon today. The company currently has about 100 employees and offers more than 9,000 items for the customized automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

 of the home via their website, catalog and retail store in Irvine, CA.
.

Smarthome, Inc. offers electronic home improvement devices such as X10
X10
X10 may refer to:* North American X-10, an unmanned technology demonstrator for advanced missile technologies* SL X10, a Swedish suburban train* X10 Wireless Technology, a vendor of home automation products...

 lighting and control systems, security devices, switches and home automation
Home automation
Home automation is the residential extension of "building automation". It is automation of the home, housework or household activity. Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC , appliances, and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and...

 controllers..

Dada and his team of engineers and designers have created a new standard of home control called INSTEON
INSTEON
Insteon is a system for connecting lighting switches and loads without extra wiring. INSTEON is a dual-band mesh home area networking topology employing AC-power lines and a radio-frequency protocol to communicate with devices...

, a two-way system which controls devices using both powerline
Powerline
Powerline or power line may refer to:* Overhead power line, used for electric power transmission* Power line communication, a computer networking technology* Power Line, a political blog* Powerline, a fictional singer in the A Goofy Movie musical...

 and radio frequencies (RF)..

According to Popular Mechanics' magazine article, Insteon is not only "an effective system for connecting lighting switches and loads without extra wiring, but it also forms the basis for a more sophisticated home automation network." .

Company growth

Smarthome started with 12 employees and a “shipping room”, which consisted of Dada’s living room coffee table, and has grown to 100 employees and a 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) facility. Co-founding Smarthome in 1992 as well as being the Chairman and CEO, Dada recently reorganized SmartLabs, Inc. into three companies: Smarthome Direct, which includes Smarthome.com; SmartLabs Design, creators of home control products; and SmartLabs Technology, the pioneering architects of INSTEON
INSTEON
Insteon is a system for connecting lighting switches and loads without extra wiring. INSTEON is a dual-band mesh home area networking topology employing AC-power lines and a radio-frequency protocol to communicate with devices...

..

Today, Smarthome prints more than four million catalogs per year and services customers in more than 130 countries..

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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