[ADVERT] Request for xPL Beta Testers

[Ian Lowe]

The xPL Project has recently been allocated a Port by IANA, (the rather
sexy
3865) and has therefore released a set of new applications and development
frameworks.

The project has an incredible amount of potential for hooking together HA
devices and Home equipment in intelligent and useful ways. It's a great
concept, and one that we now need help to bring to completion.

At present, "simple" stuff such as reacting to an incoming phone
call by
muting the speakers, and displaying the incoming call details on Tivo or a
Slimp3 can be done with ease. Each of the developers has a collection of HA
tasks being carried out by the xPLHal Server.

What we need is a complete environment to reconstruct using xPL. We believe
that xPLHal with the Configuration and Management tools that have been
written for it (even in their early state) may be a suitable replacement
for
a simple installation of Homeseer, and would ask that anyone using Homeseer
and looking for an alternative (or possibly anyone considering a HomeSeer
purchase, and willing to try out some new toys in the meantime) contacts
the
team.

At present, to match our perfect profile you need to have:
1) A Windows PC to run xPLHal
2) A CM12
3) Some X10 kit
4) ISDN and a CAPI PC Card (OR) a Meteor CID Device

It would be nice if you had:
1) A Tivo
2) A Linux PC
3) Some IR Equipment (UIR, UIRT, RedRat, FiRM)

If you don't match that list just now, keep watching this space. The tools
in the field just now are a mix of end-user applications and developer
tools. Obviously, we need more end user tools, and that's only going to
happen as people give us tasks, and come up with bits of kit to enable.

We are very aware that the initial discussions that led to xAP, and
ultimately spawned xPL as well began over a year ago, and the various back
and forth discussions about the relative merits of xAP and xPL are turning
people off faster than Anne Widdecombe in Lingerie, so we'd rather leave
that behind. Whatever platform is ultimately the best match may well never
be decided.

In the meantime however, the fact remains that xPL can provide the glue to
bind your various HA systems together, with considerable intelligence and
complexity. It's not in the hands of Microsoft like HCP, it's not wrapped
in
a thousand lines of NDA agreement. It's in the public domain, and has rich
tools that allow us to code quickly for a wide variety of systems.

Anyone that can help is more than welcome to contact us :)

Ian.