Anyone Using TSpaces ?

["Weir, John" <john.weir@xxxxxxx>]

TSpaces support for X10 ...

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/TSpaces/examples.html

A section from the site
X-10 support

X-10 is a technology that communicates to devices in the home by sending
and
receiving signals over the home power line wiring. A typical system has
multiple Modules that have lights or appliances connected to them. Also
plugged into the home wiring are one or more controllers that have the
abiltiy to send commands to modules. One of the controllers is a computer
interface that plugs into the home wiring and has a connection to the
serial
port on a computer. Another typical controller is a tranceiver that will
pick up radio frequency (RF) commands from devices like motion detectors
and
handheld remote controls. For more information see the www.x10.com site.

We have written a Java monitor application that will connect to the serial
port and both watch for X10 events and when instructed send a X10 command
to
a module. The X10 events are reflected to a TSpaces server where it will
then maintain the status of a module (The light is on or off). Comamnds for
an X10 device can be written to TSpaces and the monitor will pick up the
command and issue it to the device via the computer interface.

As a result, one can write very simple java programs to interface to X10
without having to learn the complex serial port interface and the devices
can be monitored and controlled from any site in the network.

To make this clearer, I will describe the demo setup that I have
implemented. The source for this is in tspaces/examples/x10. In my home
office, I have a motion detector that can sense when I am in the office and
a light that is plugged into an X10 Module. I run the TSX10 application on
my office computer that has a X10 PC interface. When the motion detector
detects motion it sends "A3 On", the TSX10 application sees the
event and
updates a tuple to < "X10Status", "A3",
"ON" >. When the motion detector
detects that there is no motion, it sends "A3 off" and TSX10
changes the
tuple to < "X10Status", "A3", "OFF" > I
also have an applet that can run on
any browser. It will connect to the same TSpaces server and issue Read
<"X10Status","A3",*> and get back the current
status and display whether I
am in the office.

The same demo applet also has Lamp On and Off buttons. When the user
presses
the ON button, a tuple
<"X10Cmd","A2","On"> is written to the
space.
X10Monitor is waiting for "X10Cmd" tuples and when one appears in
the space
it will be read and in this case, the lamp with device address
"A2" will be
turned on.

This test setup does not do anything really useful, but it is easy to see
how one might be able to use this technology. Some examples:
- If you tend to leave work at very different hours, just before you leave
your office you could turn on your heating system using the X-10 thermostat
module.
- With the Palm Pilot PDA support for TSpaces, you could use your Pilot to
control all of the lights in your house or use it as an expensive garage
door opener.
- If someone walks up to your front door, you could trigger a camera to
take
a picture, store it and based on whether you were in your home office,
notify you on your desktop or using the TSpaces pager support, send you a
page.
- Since the basic X10 kit comes with a multipurpose remote control that can
control traditional devices like a TV and also will issue X10 commands. So
you could define address "A5" as a virtual devices. Then
"A5" is turned on
by the remote control, it would write a Tuple to TSpaces. You could have
another TSpaces client running anywhere on the network that would be
watching for an "A5 on" event and when found it would take some
action. So
while you are watching TV, using the remote, you could have a TSpaces
client
check your mail and if any present, flash a light in your living room.

Getting X10 running with TSpaces
- Download the Java Communication API product and install it as instructed.
- Modify the bin\x10.bat file to specify comm.jar in the classpath.
- Invoke bin\x10.bat




____________________________________
Automated Home UK
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
____________________________________

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