Home Automation Question

[Jared Watkins]

Travis Roy wrote:

> I've had some talkes with Brian (Karas) about this, but I wanted to 
> open it up.
>
> Hopefully (now that the seller finally signed the P&S) I will soon be 
> a home owner. I've messed with small (firecracker) X10 stuff but in an 
> apartment it's kind of weird and not the best place to do it.
>
> Anybody have any experience with this, specifically with Linux? We're 
> mostly insterested in distribution of a stereo system, but light 
> control, security, appliances, are all on the list of things to check 
> out.
>
> I looked at Mr. House (www.misterhouse.net) but that looks hugely 
> complicated.


Congrats on the house... I built my first nearly 5 years ago now.. and I 
did it with the intention of doing all sorts of cool geeky stuff.  I had 
a few goals that might be different than you though...  for one.. I 
wanted the noise and wiring mess of my computer and stereo equipment out 
of sight... so I had a 'secret' room created in a central location.  All 
my tower sized computers and stereo equipment are in this small room.. 
which has its own air handler circuit. I'm using an old cybex kvm that 
supports a remote station.. so when I work in my office (or play games) 
I can do so in blissful silence with no noisy systems all around me.  
You mentioned audio distribution... for this I used a special whole 
house audio amp made by a company called Kustom (via ebay).  It has 4 
inputs.. and 6 zones.. or rooms... of output.  Each room is wired with 
nice in-ceiling speakers I got off ebay.. and a little Cat5 keypad.. 
works like a champ. I have all my computer sound cards run through a 
small mixer into one input.. and use the other 3 inputs for other 
things... cd players... radio.. etc.  Centralizing components like that 
poses another challenge.. how do you control them?  For that.. I went 
with an inexpensive system from Channel Plus.. if your cable tv wiring 
is home run.. you can use it to deliver two-way IR signals to all your 
rooms.   Finally.. for all the other stuff I am using MisterHouse...  it 
is complicated.. as perl is not my language of choice..  and the program 
has always had a very kludgey feel to it...  which has not improved over 
time... the developers just keep piling more and more bits onto it...  
For security and other sensors and relay control I use digital io boards 
from Weeder Tech... these work very well and have been a solid interface 
to build on.. paired with MisterHouse.  I have used it (misterhouse) 
under both linux and windows...  at the moment I'm running it under 
windows... it seems to work equally well in either.  To get around the 
shortage of serial ports.. I'm also using a network connected 8 port 
serial hub from Comtrol.

I've thought about how I might tackle the whole house audio problem if I 
didn't have a built in system... and I believe the Slim Devices box 
would work in a pinch.. the tricky part is getting audio synchronized in 
multiple rooms... and with little if any delay from the source input.   
I've tried using ice cast and similar software..  for music it's fine.. 
but trying to game through the kvm.. having a 1/2 second delay in the 
sound really messes with you.

Here are links to some of these... for example only.. you will find 
better prices...

IR Components

http://www.eenid.us/2100a.html
http://www.eenid.us/2010.html
http://www.asihome.com/ASIshop/product_info.php?products_id=84
http://wwww.electrogalaxy.com/index.html?object=mpt2132
http://www.remotecentral.com/tsu2000/index.html


http://www.smarthome.com/8270c.html
http://www.nuvotechnologies.com/essentia.htm
http://www.smarthome.com/29115.html

http://www.slimdevices.com/
http://www.weedtech.com/
http://www.superwarehouse.com/Comtrol_RocketPort_Serial_Hub/98650-8/p/17818
http://www.avocent.com/web/en.nsf/Content/LongView

Have fun... 
Jared