RE: Control schemes (was How difficult would it be to...)

["Graham Howe" <graham@xxxxxxx>]

> What I'm really looking for is "Home Control" rather than
> "Home Automation", as that in the bulk of cases I'm happy to
> make the decision myself as to when things need to be turned 
> on, I just want to have a button within an arms length, and 
> carrying a controller around seems to be the best way to do that. 
> 

Well, I'm sure no one expected me to let this thread die without
mentioning HomeAutomator ;-) This really is the idea behind HA, we want
to produce a single front end that can be used by anyone on any web
enabled device to control anything in the house. I personally will have
some wall mounted units (ePODs)) which will ((through the use of a
cookie) know where they are. So for example the 'home page' for each
device will be it's current location. If I ever scrape together enough
cash for an iPAQ or other PDA then I will use that as a whole house
remote control, though in the mean time I will use a wireless ePOD. Of
course, being web based I will also be able to control the house from
any PC at home or over the internet (with appropriate security). The
connector that Andy has developed (to link the web pages to HomeVision)
will also accept commands directly from other applications, so it would
be possible to use a small application on a PC and some buttons with a
VIOM card to have 'hard button'' control through HA too. Finally, we
are
planning to include xAP compliance in HomeAutomator too, so it should
be
very easy to control any xAP aware devices and applications that you
have.

I don't think there is a single 'right' platform for home control,
there
will always be those who prefer wall mounted device and those who
prefer
handheld devices, there will be those who want physical buttons to
press
and others who want touch screens. With HomeAutomator we have assumed
that numerous physical devices will be used as controllers and that
people of very different technical ability will access them. However
they are all controlling the same hardware around the house, so each
'item' and 'command' need only be set up once.

Tim gave some very good advice in here a while back about programming
Prontos. He suggested that a few hidden screens were set up with tiny
numbered buttons representing every command you used in your house.
Then
when designing 'user' screens you could actually just link them to the
appropriate hidden command. It means that you can easily have multiple
user screens all performing the same actions without having to store
(and maintain) the commands in lots of different places. I like to
think
that we are doing something similar with HA, and that users will
eventually feel happy to create numerous customised screens to suit
their own environment and occupants without worrying about how the
commands are executed.

Graham

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