Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part I: Wireless Networking Fundamentals
Figure 3-4:
Plug your
computer
into the
wall — and
that’s all.
PC
HomePlug
bridge
CAT-5e/6
Power cable
AC electrical outlet
Home router
HomePlug
bridge
Controlling Your Home without Wires
Throughout this book, we talk about using wireless networks to send data
around your home. This data could be what you traditionally think of as
data (Web pages, e-mail, Word documents, and so on), or it could be different
kinds of data (such as music MP3 files, digital photos, or video), but in the
end it’s all about getting one hunk of bits and bytes from one place in your
home to another. The bits and the bytes — the payload of your networked
communications — are the key here.
A completely different kind of wireless networking is control networking. In a
control network, you aren’t setting out to move data around the house; instead
you are using a wireless network to send commands to devices in your home.
In this instance you aren’t sharing a data file with someone (or some device
in your home) so much as telling it what to do (you bossy person you!).
Home control has been around a long time (we’ve been writing about it for
over a decade, and it existed for decades before that), but traditional home
control systems used complicated (and expensive) proprietary wiring systems
or an old powerline networking system called X10.