Smarthome continues to introduce all sorts of useful and interesting modules for INSTEON-based home automation. The SynchroLinc is the latest and one of the most fascinating.

In brief, it allows you to know when electronic appliances have been turned on. Normally, this is very difficult (if not impossible) to tie into your home automation system because most electronic appliances (TV, stereo, etc) have "soft power" switches. That is, they're not physically switched on (like a light switch) but put into "on mode" by the logic of the appliance's circuit.

The SynchroLinc works by monitoring how much power the appliance is using, and when it sees it increase, it knows that it has been turned on and it sends an INSTEON event to your automation system. This allows you to, for example, automatically dim the lights and close the drapes when the TV is turned on.

It's great to see a simple answer to this hard problem, I can't wait to add a SynchroLinc to my automated home. Check out the details at SmartHome.