After playing with my Zigbee-controlled IKEA FYRTUR Blinds, I wanted to experiemnt with automated lighting. Despite already having a functional Zigbee network, I wanted to choose high quality, reliable lighting components. After spending a ton of time researching on the internet, I decided to start a new Z-Wave network, using Inovelli dimmer switches. This project is my first attempt to get the network functioning. The Choice of a Network After my (somewhat poor) experience with Zigbee, I wasn’t eager to use Zigbee hardware again for something critical like lighting.

I am currently living in my parents house, which is fed water by a private well, and we have no way of knowing exactly how much water we use. Since I’m planning on building my own house, I wanted to know how much water I (and everyone else in the house) realistically used. In addition, I wanted to know how much hot water we use and how frequently we use hot water, so I could model hot water heating systems.

I am currently living in my parents house, which is fed water by a private well. Due to the mineral content in most well water, we use a water softener. For those of you with city water, a water softener is a type of ion exchange filter which uses salt (sodium chloride) to replace calcium, magnesium, and other metals in the water with sodium. None of these minerals are hazardous, but they do stain everything, so reducing them is desirable.