What is a Smart Home Design?

A Devicebook smart home design is a blueprint of a smart home that specifies the exact features and devices to be used in each location in a Smart Home.

You create smart home designs for your client using the smart home designer in Devicebook for Contractors. 

Devicebook will use your smart home design to automatically generate a custom smart home app (called a Home Controller) that will act as both the brains and the interface for your client's Devicebook Smart Home. The smart home app will be accessible to you and your client from the Devicebook app for iOS and Android.

Organization of a Smart Home Design

A smart home design defines the smart home solutions used in each location in the home, and the specific devices that will be used in each of those locations.

Fig. 1, "Example Design Summary". Tip: Click image to expand. Click again to zoom. Drag to pan.

Above, Fig 1 shows the summary of a complete example smart home design, as it appears in the Design Summary Page of the Designer. It shows, for each room in the home, the smart home solutions that are used in the room, and the count of specific device models used in each room.

The types of devices that are used in a location are dictated by the smart home solutions chosen in each of those locations. For example, a room that has the Devicebook Lighting Solution must have at least one light switch, dimmer, outlet, or plug. A room that has the Devicebook Surveillance solution must have at least one Camera device as well as one Motion Sensor device.

Notice that a single device can be used by multiple smart home solutions. For example, in Fig. 1, in the "Kitchen" location, a motion sensor is used both by Lighting as well as Security.

Note: the design in Fig. 1 uses device models that are "Emulated". These are example device models used solely for the purpose of the sample design. In a real design, device models might be, e.g. "TP-Link Light Switch", "Nest Thermostat," or "Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen."

You can find and modify an example design like the one above in the Jobs page of Devicebook for Contractors.

The Home Controller

A Home Controller is a personalized smart home app that's also the brain of a Devicebook Smart Home. There is always one Home Controller per Devicebook Smart Home. Home Controllers have a custom easy-to-use interface accessible via the Devicebook App for iOS or Android.

A Home Controller is the result of a smart home design. When your design is ready, you'll press the "Generate" button in Devicebook for Contractors. When you do, Devicebook will quickly and automatically generate the smart home app that will be the brains and interface of the smart home, based on the specifics of the chosen design. This smart home app is called the Home Controller, and you'll be able to see it immediately in the Devicebook App for iOS and Android.

Figs. 2,3,4, "Example Devicebook Home Controller" 

The figures above show three screenshots of the Home Controller that was generated based on the example design in Fig 1. Notice that the rooms, features, and devices in the design exactly match the features available in the Home Controller, because the latter was custom-generated based on the design.

To learn more about using about the Home Controller, see Getting Started using a Smart Home

Creating and Editing Designs

Note: Designs are always specific to particular smart home job in Devicebook for Contractors. So, you can only create and edit designs once you have started a smart home job. Learn how to do that here: Starting a New Smart Home Job.

You can create and edit smart home designs in the Smart Home Designer.

Next: Read about creating a design: Using the Smart Home Designer.