Re: For 1-2 days work, some serious HA progress

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"IVB" <ivb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

<stuff snipped>

> Actually, wife changed her mind, which improved the "I" part of it. We had
> some shrubs stolen, plus there was a home invasion about 2 miles away
> [granted, much worse part of town]. Situation sucked, but at least now we
> "get it".

That's a *very* standard pathway to CCTV - the "criminal act."  There's a
future upside:  My neighbors know I've got it and last year, when a row of
cars was broken into, mine got skipped.  Bolsters my theory that whoever's
pinching stuff is a local resident or a low-class friend of a local resident
or someone workman who's familiar with the neighborhood.  The cameras really
aren't visible so I assume when I was skipped during the rash of smash and
grabs it's because the perps knew they were there from conversations with my
very chatty next door neighbor.

> > I'm very happy with my 3400.  It's powerful enough so that I can run a
> > music
> > stream AND full motion video with audio *simultaneously* (which I never
> > expected from a 400MHz Celery processor!)  That's probably because they
> > used
> > above-average components for both video and audio.
>
> Dang; i was trying to run some recorded TV last night, didn't have much
luck
> unless I cranked down the settings. How much RAM do you have?

128Mb running W2KP without any other significant programs running in the
background.  The specs say it can take more, but I think I can get by with
128 although I really prefer 256 for W2KP machines.  What's in your 3400?
How many other programs are you running?  The MPG and WAV files were the
only things playing on the machine.  One through Window's own media player,
the other, a very old but very serviceable copy of WinAmp.

> >> 4) CQC state logic and Elk rules setup so that I can tell if there's
been
> >> activity in a room within the last X minutes. I initially started with
> >> 5mins, but will probably change that to 15 once this is debugged.
> >
> > We'll all need Star Trek comm badges in the future.  That's really the
> > only
> > reliable way to determine who's where in the house.  I don't mean to
> > belittle your efforts in any way, but every expectation *I* had of
> > reliable
> > occupancy sensing has been dismantled by various real-world issues.
> > Here's
> > hoping that you can get it working well enough for you to fufill your
> > needs.
> > I can guarantee you one thing:  It will be a learning experience! :-)
>
> Yeah, learning is all i'm really looking for. After some of the prior
posts,
> i'm not sure about the value of this, but it is at least cool to do :-)

I think it's part of the learning curve of HA.  I don't think there are many
HA enthusiasts with graying or thinning hair that haven't tried occupancy
sensing and associated lighting control.  After my longwinded speech about
never say never I'd still bet that a lot of guys have been forced to retreat
from "switchless" automation back to wall switches after enough bad guesses
from the household controller.  That's not to say they don't still use it -
I think they tend to restrict it to "payback" zones like hands-full laundry
room entry, front porch lights, floods, etc.

I probably said it before, so excuse my repeating but motion sensors lights
disappeared quickly all over the house after one managed to trigger with my
wife peeking out through the curtains in her, well, in her sleepwear.  It
was just the new neighbors, having trouble wheeling their trash can to the
curb but she was mortified.

The next morning I found all the little Eagle Eyes in the muffin basket
under a napkin.  She had removed all the batteries, too, since I'd already
explained how much I hated changing them and losing programming.  Her
knowledge of the sensor battery came from learning why I had swiped two
gold-tipped sewing needles from her sewing kit to build a little battery jig
to maintain power to the sensors during a battery replacement.

Ironically, I believe when I got here to CHA, I was super enthusiastic about
the X-10 ActiveEye PIR/RF gear.  I believe it was Mark L. who assured me I
was going to be sorry, that the devices were going to cause RF or PLC
collisions.  I tested and tested them while my wife was away at War College
(really!) and they worked well enough to make me smile.

When she returned and the two of us began to move through to house in
different directions, well, that's when all hell broke loose, at least part
"One" of the Days of Hell.  (-:  (Just kidding, honey!)  The bottom line
essentially became obvious.  She had no problem turning lights on and off as
always.  The system, as she perceived it, was entirely to cater to my lazy,
no good, leaves lights burning, sorry ass.

That did change somewhat when she realized the benefits of turning on ALL
the lights in case she hears someone breaking in.  If you turn on just the
bedroom light in a dark house with an intruder, you're essentially lighting
the way to your location.  It's obvious you're already going through some of
the same design motivations and issues that many of us have.

I think you're in an enviable position of having a much greater array of
solid HA COTS and PC equipment and SW to choose from.  Many of us are stuck
with some pretty big investments in teeteringly old technology.

In a perfect world, I would want the floor of every room in the house to be
connected to a pressure grid sort of like a giant touch screen so that
objects and motion could be located by examining the output of the matrix.
The really smart home of the future will probably have thermal and pressure
sensors distributed throughout the building's surfaces just the way we have
such sensors in our own skin.  Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

> > I've been toying with getting an ADI "Speakeasy" to add voice prompts to
> > the
> > HA but it's not a big priority.  Still, it would be nice to have.  I
want
> > to
> > have all phones ring through a speaker system instead of their built-in
> > ringers so that I can block unknown callers from ringing through at
night.
> > The problem with that is sometimes emergency calls come in without
caller
> > ID
> > info and hence wouldn't ring through.  What I need is some way of
> > answering
> > the phone and giving the callers the option to "press the star key if
this
> > is an emergency."
> That's interesting - i'm not actually sure how i'll leverage this. It's
one
> of those "build it and i'll see how/where it's useful".

John Warner has done a lot of very clever and useful things with his
Speakeasy and a network of PC speakers throughout the house.  It's worth
reading over the details the ADI forum.

> >
> >> Here's screenshots of 2/3/4:
> >>
> >>
> >
http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Camera.jpg
> >
> > Looks neat.  It that all done with Charmed Quark?
>
> Yep.

What's the CQ CPU utilization percentage on the Fujitsu 3400?  Is it high
enough so that it will impair full motion video?

--
Bobby G.