Ubiquity™
Handsfree Automation and Residential System Control Software

The first handsfree automation application

Configurable software makes installation and
change quick and easy

Provides Follow-me™ Music and Follow-me TV
Ubiquity software from Destiny Networks
delivers handsfree automation and control for
residential electronics without the need to learn
or use a programming language.
Automation, Monitoring and Control
Ubiquity provides the capability to monitor and
control home electronics including: home
theaters, whole house music, lights, windows,
fans, curtains, fireplaces, keypads, gates,
fountains,
sprinklers,
heating
and
air
conditioning, and other electronic components.
Handsfree Automation
Handsfree automation is true automation that
does not require the push of a button or the
speaking of words. Walk into a room of your
home and the room responds to your
presence. The lights may turn on to provide
light, the music may begin to play, the heating
or air conditioning may turn on to make the
area more comfortable, the curtains may open
to let the sunlight in through the windows, the
fireplace may turn on to make it more romantic,
and many other components of home
electronics may respond to your presence.
Home Positioning™ System
Handsfree automation is enabled by
Destiny Networks’ Home
Positioning System. It
does this through a
patent
pending
architecture of sensors
and software located
throughout the
home.
This Just like the Global Positioning
(GPS) knows where you
enables
the System
are on the globe, Destiny
software
to Network’s Home Positioning™
know
which System (HPS) knows where
rooms
and people are in a home
areas of the
home are occupied.
Follow-me Music and Follow-me TV
In many homes today, whole house audio
and video systems have been installed. With
Ubiquity, the audio and video sources can be
carried from room to room thereby providing
the experience of Follow-me Music and
Follow-me TV. Just as importantly, Ubiquity
will turn off the TV or the Music when the
room becomes unoccupied.
Ubiquity’s
configurable software application also allows
convenient setting of default behaviors so that
Follow-me Music can enhance your home
without overtaking your lifestyle.
Scene Continuation
Destiny Network’s Ubiquity uses scenes to
simplify the control of the many types of
electronics in the home. When a room
becomes occupied, it changes from the “Off”
scene to one of a number of other scenes –
changing the operation of the selected
electronic components in the room. More over,
as you move from one room to another, the
“scene” travels with you. For example, if you
get up in the middle of the night, the bedroom
will go into “Path” scene (automatically when
your feet touch the floor) providing just enough
light for safe passage without disturbing other
occupants. As you walk from room to room,
Scene Continuation™ will enable the path
scene to follow you every step of the way –
providing true handsfree automation of lighting
and any other electronic components you
choose.
Energy Savings
Energy efficiency is improved when lights
brighten and heat is turned-up only when a
particular room or area becomes occupied.
Conversely, when a room becomes unoccupied,
Ubiquity will turn-off the lights and turn-down the
heat to save energy. The system also knows
how to properly control air conditioning, whole
house audio systems, and multi-room video
systems. Additionally, advanced HVAC settings
allow comfortable and aggressive set backs
based on the time of day.
Family Awareness
With a quick glance at any PC or Destiny
Network’s display, the homeowner will
instantly know where people are in the home
because each occupied room will be
highlighted on the floor plan of your home.
Never again walk through the house to know
that the doors and windows are closed. The
door and window status may be shown on the
floor plan.
Timed Events
The
Ubiquity
configurable
software
application provides an extensive set of
functionality for controlling your home
electronics by time of day or time relative to
sunrise and sunset. You can easily create
events to turn components and devices on
and off. Choices include:
Daily (eg., Every 4th day),
Weekly (eg., Every 3rd week on Mon),
Monthly by day (eg., the 4th Wed of the month),
Monthly by date (eg., the 16th of the month), and
Yearly by date (eg., the 9th of Sept).
Additionally, Ubiquity allows for events to
end after a specified amount of time.
Buttons
Creating events that happen when a button
is pushed is just as easy as creating timed
events. The buttons can be soft buttons that
are displayed on any browser interface, or
they can be buttons on a keypad in a
particular room of the house. For example,
create a button to turn on the TV to a
favorite channel, turn down the lights, and
close the curtains; or create one to turn on
all the outdoor lights and another one to
turn them off.
Browser Interface
Ubiquity’s Graphical User Interface runs on
the newer versions of most web browsers
(see system requirements below). Therefore,
PCs instantly become a platform for
monitoring and controlling your home.
Similarly, the new Tablet PCs and
SmartDisplays, which are available in many
sizes, shapes, and prices, can also act as
your user interface.
Secure Internet Access
Just as any PC in your home can monitor and
control all of the electronic components in your
home, similarly, any computer connected to the
Internet may have access to the same
functionality. However, these computers require
multiple levels of authentication and use a
secure, encrypted protocol to communicate to
your home, thereby, ensuring the highest level of
protection while still providing the desired
functionality. With Ubiquity software in your
home, you can immediately know that the kids
got home from school safely or that someone just
entered your vacation home. A wide range of
VPN and remote access products are compatible
with Ubiquity.
Configurable Keypads
A beautiful interior design should not be marred
by multiple keypads for each intelligent
subsystem.
Using the Ubiquity software,
keypads from many manufacturers may be used
to control multiple independent subsystems.
When installed, information about the press of
keypad button is transmitted to the Domain
controller.
The controller then executes
homeowners
preferences.
For example, a
lighting
system’s
keypad would
be connected
to the lighting
system’s
processor unit.
The lighting system processor would be
connected to the Domain controller over
RS-232. When a keypad button is pushed, the
Domain controller is informed of which keypad
and which button was pushed, and the necessary
actions are performed. The actions may be for
lighting, entertainment, HVAC, security, window
coverings, or any other action that the controller
can reach.
Lutron and LiteTouch Lighting Systems
Ubiquity controls Lutron and LiteTouch
lighting system using RS-232 serial
commands from the Domain controller to
the
lighting
system’s
processor.
Additionally, Ubiquity gets information about
keypad button push events attached to the
lighting systems.
Device Description Wizard
Modern entertainment equipment, whether it
is a DVD, receiver, TV or projector may be
controlled by RS-232 or infrared (IR)
commands.
Typically these commands
include power on, play, pause, etc. Destiny
provides a software wizard to step through
the process of creating a file to describe the
particular entertainment equipment in detail.
The wizard captures the IR or RS-232 codes,
the number and type of inputs and outputs,
and how the device responds to multiple
commands. The output of the wizard is an
XML file that may be reused and shared
with other projects.
Integration with Web-based
Entertainment
Today’s entertainment content is being
delivered on a wide range of medium from
CDs, DVDs, satellites, cable, and hard
disks. With systems that provide a webbased interface, Destiny launches the
native interface of the entertainment
system. This provides a full range of
control for the entertainment content
including play lists and advanced search
capabilities.
Additionally,
Destiny
automatically launches a small menu to
control volume and other vital functions that
compliment the specified source in the
chosen room.
No Programming Required
Destiny Networks’ Ubiquity configurable
software application is an off-the-shelf
application, not a programming language. The
floor plan of your home is captured by Ubiquity
and then, electronic components are
“configured” by pointing and clicking them into
place. While other applications may take this
initial approach, they then require you to use a
programming language to program how they
should behave. However, Ubiquity’s roomspecific defaults immediately know how to
operate all of the electronic components you’ve
configured based on the scene the room is in.
Many people find that the default behaviors are
right most of the time. For the other times,
Ubiquity provides a homeowner-friendly
graphical user interface to change the behavior
to what is wanted. This same methodology is
used for configuring home theaters and whole
house music – providing the easiest to use and
configure entertainment equipment available.
Tools for your Network
An integral part of every Ubiquity configurable
software application is the set of tools to analyze
and use the components of your network. The
“Find My Destiny” application provides the
utilities to simplify the installation and use of the
IP-based system. By scanning the local area
network Find My Destiny, locates the IP address
of the Domain 5000 controller quickly and easily,
even on a DHCP-based subnet.
Another component of Ubiquity, “Check My
Destiny”, takes analysis of your home to the next
level. It continuously analyzes the connected
home and the communications associated with it.
If a problem arises, Check My Destiny is there to
tell you what occurred. Ubiquity has the tools to
get your connected home up and running and
keep it up and running.
Industry Standard Platforms
The
Ubiquity
configurable
software
application is based on open, industry
standards including Ethernet, RS-232,
TCP/IP, Windows, Linux, Java, XML, and
Web browsers to provide future-proof
operation and compatibility with thousands
of existing devices.
System Requirements
Ubiquity home control and handsfree
automation software runs on Destiny
Networks’ Domain controller. This ensures
that no other applications will interfere with
the operation of your home by co-existing
on the same computer.
Ubiquity’s Graphical User Interface runs on
the
following
Microsoft
Windows™
operating systems: Windows 2000 Pro and
Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro
running Internet Explorer 6.0 or later with
the Scalable Vector Graphics plug-in.
Ordering information
This software is pre-loaded on Destiny
Networks’ Domain controllers.
To see if Ubiquity from Destiny Networks
meets your needs, call us at (408)779-0060
or visit us at www.destinynetworks.com.