Kieran
Where did you get the ibutttons
from
I keep trying to buy them from the
States without any success
I
agree
with your way I thinking on HA control
I’m
luck
that as my house is quite naturally dark If your in the house you normal
need
the lights on
All we
normally do is tell the house we have entered (X10 code via Touchlinc to
HomeVision)
And
tell
the house when either of us are going to
bed
Sensor
mats on the stairs cover most movement. And using HomeVision these react
differently to the number of people in the house and whether they are in
bed or
not
I have
a
system with light sensors which turns off the lights in individual areas
when the room has direct sunlight
But
that’s
as far as it goes really
What I
really need is the security ibuttons to replace the X10 entry
commands
And
some
low powered Transmitters in each car to keep track of who is in and
out
We
live
miles in the country so any serious leaving of the house involves a car
Mike
Antena
Caernarfon
-----Original
Message-----
From: Broadfoot, Kieran J
[mailto:Kieran.Broadfoot@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Fri 22 June 2001
10:41
To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Last
Night
in London?
my head
hurts
lots. I tried to keep pace with Mr Gordon and this led to me leaving
a
little earlier than I would have liked.
We were
talking about remote control and mark made a very interesting comment which
included the following: "fillipino boys", "bugger" and
"that". I didnt understand what he was trying to say
;-)
We had
quite
a few dicussions about the project and came up with a few
ideas:
i. second
ukha product - 1 and 2 gang wall switches controlled by xap. Standard
wall sockets providing the same functionality as x10 just over tcp/ip and
with
state
ii. Maybe
the
project doesnt need a full software control system but rather a software
API
written in various languages. Maybe the HA masses would prefer a COM
object
they can embed into their VB? Or the perl geeks can have a perl
module,
or those java heads can get their hands on a jar file. Whatever way
we
produce it the important thing is that it keeps some of the complex stuff
hidden with a nice little API for people. They could wrap objects and
other groovy data objects round it if they want to build relationships
between
devices but alternatively they could something as simple
as:
import
net.sf.ukha.xap.*;
Xap x =
new
Xap();
public
void
main() {
Array a = new Array();
x.scanNet(a);
x.turnOnDevice(a[4]);
}
// you
get
the idea ....
iii. We
also
talked about sponsorship for the ukha project from letsautomate or laser
etc to
help cover up front costs for CE compliance etc. In return they get
guaranteed stock and the honour of being the only stockists for x number of
months or x amount of stock etc.
As to
Mark
mentioning my sensor ideas I get all evangelical about this and I know ive
already spoken to Ian and Stu about it so my apologies if I am repeating
myself.
I think
there
are two major issues with nearly all HA systems
currently:
a. There
is
virtually no easy way to integrate the components in a controlled fashion
(thats what makes the expensive systems a good deal if you could afford
them)
b. Most
people implement HA by controlling devices and then adding sensing
capabilities
Im in the
very early stages of implementing my own home brew system but Ive been
thinking
about it for quite some time and the idea of an intelligent house must
indicate
you start with setting up the house to be aware of its surroundings.
I am
basing this stuff on 1-wire/ibuttons and TINI as my chosen platform because
it
all supports java ;-)
Each room
has
a number of sensor modules. A module would be made up of a small
breaboard containing a 64kbit iButton plus n+1 1-wire sensors (light,
humidity,
temp etc). Using the xml 1-wire project (on sourceforge) you can
define
relationships between 1-wire devices. The idea is that each sensor
has
its own local data storage on the nvram. This is then farmed off
through
an object model into a database for historical use. The great thing
is
that even if you lose the database you can still boot strap the house using
the
few hours worth of data on the nvram buttons.
Historical
mapping of data provides trend analysis of the house status which can then
be
used with a bit of logic to define outcomes when situations occur. I
wanted to be able to dim lights in a room to different levels depending on
light levels in different parts of the room so you get a uniform light
level
across the room.
Remote
controls are great until you forget where you put them ;-) so why not
make the house keep track of how you do things and learn from you. It
will then switch on devices at the right time etc. Now all I need is
some
bik sensors with 1-wire interfaces, and a 1-wire hub, and some electronic
skills, and a life etc....
Anyway
Ive
started talking twaddle (again) but you catch my drift.
thanks
kieran
p/s Found
some groovy stuff using vrml in java 3d. think I might have found the
ideal vehicle for my systems front end. virtual movement through
house
and point/click -> on devices using a mouse click
-----Original
Message-----
From: Mark Harrison
[mailto:Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001
9:53
AM
To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Last
Night
in London?
It
was a
laugh. Four of us were there:
- Paul Gordon
- Kieran Broadfoot
- Martin Greenwood
- Mark Harrison
I
only
stayed for about an hour, but the others all seemed to have late passes
:-)
Kieran
has some interesting ideas about sensing, and automatic control of what
happens
in the house based on what the house detects is going on, rather than
everything being remote-control-centric.
None
of
us like blokes with yellow, check, shirts.
Mark
Harrison
IT Controller,
eKingfisher
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-----Original
Message-----
From: Mark McCall
[mailto:mark@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 22 June 2001 09:37
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Last Night
in
London?
How'd
it go guys?
M.
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