4.4.2. The list of pushbuttons

When doing the floor plans we drew a layer for the pushbutton operating points. Wherever one or more pushbuttons are installed under the same cover plate we drew three pushbuttons on this drawing, together with a code starting with the letter “S” followed by a number.

Figure 21: The drawing with the pushbutton operating points.

This drawing only shows where the operating points are located. What we did not want, and could not do, was to show how many pushbuttons there will be at a certain operating point and what functions these pushbuttons will have. So it is now time to produce the list of pushbuttons.

With an integrated home system, the installer has to go through two types of thought processes: the creative and the analytical. The creative thinking determines what will be done with the integrated home system. What functions and integrated home system functions will be implemented. The analytical thinking consists of converting this into the software program or the programming operations of the integrated home system. All too often we forget to do the first and then encounter problems when it comes to the programming. It is advisable to separate the two types of thinking from one another, and to do them at different times. First the creative work and only then the analytical work. A way of setting the creative work out on paper is to use the list of pushbuttons shown below.

Figure 22: This spreadsheet specifies the function for each pushbutton.

In the first column we note the codes of the operating points. In our example we can see operating points S1, S2 and S3. The second column specifies the number of pushbuttons for each operating point. In our example we see that there is only one pushbutton at operating point S1. Operating point S2 contains four pushbuttons, while at operating point S3 there will be room for eight pushbuttons.

Depending on the possibilities of the integrated home system, we provide one or more lines for each pushbutton. There are two lines in the above example. The integrated home system used here is able to allocate two independent functions to a pushbutton depending on whether it is pressed for a short period (< 1 sec.) or long period (> 1.5 sec.) by the user. For each pushbutton we provide a “short press” row and a “long press” row.

There then follows an entire series of narrow columns under the heading “Function”. Each column represents a possible function of the integrated home system. For example, we first see the ON/OFF Toggle function, but also dimmer functions, timed functions, general moods and even audio functions. You will have to adapt these columns to the integrated home system you are working on as an installer.

The next three columns contain the codes of the relays, dimmers and motors concerned. Finally there is the description column. This specifies the purpose of the function in a few words.