Home Automation
Home Automation - Wot's that then ??. - I'm sure many people will give you highly technical views of the future and lists of the supposed benefits, but for me it's simply using little bits of technology around the house to make life a little easier in some cases, and in many others simply "because I can" ;-).
I first started tinkering whn I moved into Orchard House. First job was to add some additional phone and TV sockets. A quick google showed that there were several ways to do it. The traditional and simple - or the more complex and flexible. So I soon started on a "node 0" or central wiring point. All cabling (TV, Phone, Computer - both Cat5, Alarm etc) comes back to central point where I can use the cables as required and change them later very easily.
After initial cabling (I dont think the cbaling will ever be finished) I started with an Alarm (Comfort) and Central PC (running HomeSeer - an HA Package) allowing me to automate and report on the state of the house. A few X10 modules later and I have full control of outside lights from the sofa etc. Suddenly things become a few lines of code away - like having the Hall lights come on when we return after dark, or having a button on the remote control for an extra hours heating. The possibillities are limited only by Time, Money and Imagination. I have plenty of the latter and not enough of the first 2. I've now started tinkering with small electronics circuits and writing some plug-ins for HomeSeer.
I've detailed some of my projects below. Hopefully someone else might find them useful. For a full set of related external links see the links page...
Node 0 |
When I've tidied it up a bit I'll have some pictures of Node 0 to share and a few explanations of the bits and pieces which are starting to accumulate there... |
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Caller ID |
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Following a post on the UKHA_D mailing list I modified a callerID unit to allow the information to be recorded on my HA server via RS232. Originally done with a BT CD50, after a bit of research I moved the mod to an old freebie CID unit I had. Now I get mail and pop-ups on my main PC whenever an incoming call arrives.
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Central Heating Control |
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Due to the awkward location of the existing Central Heating controller (in the airing cupboard), one of my first projects was to use Comfort to control the Heating and Hot Water via some relays. This allows Comfort to override the controller and can be triggered either via a PC or InfraRed (IR)
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das3145 HomeSeer Plug-In |
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After playing with the heating I started to doubt the efficiency of the current thermostat so looked around for ways of monitoring the current temperatures. I ended up with a K3145 module from Quasar Electronics. This provides an RS232 interface to 4 DS1820 temperature probes. In order to get the information into the HA server, I wrote my first "plug-in". This now allows HomeSeer to monitor the temperature. I also graph the results with MRTG
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dasSNMP HomeSeer Plugin |
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Another HomeSeer PlugIn. This time to SNMP poll network devices and recieve/log SNMP traps. Mainly to enable me to monitor the IP address of my dial-up connection but designed to be generic enought to allow access to any OID on any device. Not finished yet....
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Extended X10 IR Control |
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Since buying an IR/X10 controller and installing dimmable X10 light units (LD11) I discovered that the LD11s could be set to exact dim levels via Extended X10 commands but that as of yet no IR Solution was available to directly generate the required commands. A post to UKHA_D revealed that in fact Laser ( a UK based HA supplier) had commisioned custom firmware to enable exactly this but had been unable to prove it. After playing with the enhanced firmware enabled unit and some fairly heavy X10 reading I managed to get it working. I also wrote a small program to generate any required Extended X10 command/data value in the right format for a Philips Pronto remote....
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CCTV |
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I've installed a CCTV camera at home and have plans for a few more. Monitoring/Motiuon detection will be via a Linux based solution called "ZoneMinder". Not Finished yet....
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