RE: Displays round the house.

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

Anthony,

I haven't received my SliMP3 yet, :-( so I haven't played with it, but, I
definately remember reading that someone has got caller ID display going to
a SliMP3 (IIRC via Homeseer and a script...)

If I understand the way the SliMP3 atchitecture works, the display server
part is open anyway, so in theory it should be possible to have the server
software send any data you want to the device...

This strikes me as the best way to please all of the people all of the time
with the display device that Mark is proposing/discussing... - provide an
interface to allow the end user to push any data they wish to the device,
then all the messages up to now discussing what types of information the
device should be capable of displaying become moot.

That said, there have been some excellent suggestions for some things that
could be built in to the device itself. I particularly liked the idea of
putting a temperature sensor in it, and allowing it to be read from the
server - one less thing I have to run myself.. (I am currently in the
middle 
of trying to deploy DS1820's around my house!). Presumably it would have an
RTC in as well, so the device should be able to display the date, the time,
and the temperature without there even being a server present...

The date/time function should be a client to a central time service as
well, 
perhaps via NTP or SNTP - I don't want to be rnning round changing them
twice a year, or losing 10 minutes of my life by wandering into the
kitchen!

The devices should be individually addressable, which implies that each one
requires a client ID. I would suggest no more than 8-bit addressing, making
a total of 255 clients possible. The devices should ideally be 
self-addressing, - just pop a new one on the "network" (be that
TCPIP, RS485 
or whatever), and it automatically sets itself to the next available unused
client ID. client ID 255 would be reserved as the broadcast address, - 
transmissions to client ID 255 would appear on all the displays..

I very much like the fit in a standark UK double backbox suggestion. This
would make it very easy to deploy. If the device also had one or two
"hard" 
buttons, it would be a realistic proposition to put one in place of the
light switch in a room. Without this facility it would be less appealing to
put one in every room, and still have to put a normal lightswitch on the
wall as well.

The built-in speaker for announcements is appealing, but I have one or two
reservations about that, mainly would it be man enough to be heard from any
distance.. I would not want any great area of the front panel of this
device 
given over to a speaker grille, so the speaker either has to be very small,
or hidden internally, with the sound ported out somewhere... neither of
which makes for great sounding annoucements...

I definately think it should have an IR sensor built-in for zoned IR input
to the HA system.

This is definately heading away from being a purely display device, but it
would seem that that is what a lot of us here are after...

just my thoughts..

Paul G.


>From: "Anthony Livingstone" <anto@xxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Displays round the house.
>Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 11:35:42 +0100
>
>Haven't looked into it so don't know if this is possible...
>But I was hoping it would be possible to do something like this with
the
>SLiMP3.
>Nice big VFD display connected by Ethernet sitting in the living
room
>doing nothing most of the time...
>Anyone know if it's possible to trigger evens on the display from
say
>Homeseer?
>
>Anto.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Harrison [mailto:Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx]
>Sent: 12 August 2002 10:22
>To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>Subject: [ukha_d] Displays round the house.
>
>
>With the ever-increasing cheapness of text-based displays
(high-quality
>ones that can be read across a room!), and the fact that I'm sure we
can
>all get lots of information out of our HA controllers, I'm
wondering
>what information SHOULD be displayed around the house.
>
>- External temperature?
>- Temperature in the room in question?
>- Time?
>- "There's someone at the door"
>- "Phone Ringing: It's Bob"
>
>Any other ideas?
>What are the things we'd all like to know "at a glance".
>
>I'm NOT proposing complex GUI displays, nor am I thinking in terms
of
>interactive menus - just a straight output display.
>
>M.
>
>




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