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On a related note, what about hardware? Remote controllable light dimmers, for example. I've been browsing around, but all the options seem to be terribly locke

On a related note, what about hardware? Remote controllable light dimmers, for example. I've been browsing around, but all the options seem to be terribly locked up: "here's our custom switch, here's our custom control box, there's our custom software for the control box, here's our custom phone app, use them together or not at all". Are there any solutions on market that are more hacker-friendly? A switch with documented bluetooth/wifi interface? Or maybe just something that exposes couple digital IO pins and tasks you with getting the correct signal there?

markkanof 12y ago
I'd say in general hardware that uses the z-wave protocol isn't too locked down. There are many different companies making hardware and software and for the most part they all interoperate. In my house I just installed a few dimmer switches from Cooper, that I send signals to from a USB dongle by aeotec, which is controlled by a piece of Mac software called Indigo. Also, I think there are some SDKs available if you want to get into writing your own software.
nitrogen 12y ago
If you can hide some larger hardware, I'd say go with DMX-512. I wrote an open source library for Linux for speaking DMX-512 over an FTDI USB-to-RS-485 adapter[0], and (shameless plug) have some automation hardware of my own[1] that supports DMX-512 using that library. It's possible to buy a decent quality 4ch DMX dimmer for ~$30 per channel, and you get instantaneous response rather than the terrible lag of most consumer home automation products. [0] http://sourceforge.net/projects/dmx485/files/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/dmx485/files/ [1] http://www.nitrogenlogic.com/products/automation_controller.html http://www.nitrogenlogic.com/products/automation_controller....
- lukashed 12y ago
  Also, if you're not able to hide thick XLR cables in your home, there are tons of cheap DMX-over-wireless solutions out there, though I don't know how reliable these are in practice.
VLM 12y ago
X-10, Insteon, zwave Look at misterhouse. Just some ideas to google for. Edited to add, also language has not caught up with reality. Anything with house-ish peripherals is called "home automation" even if it is a web interface for out door weather sensors like this article. The relevance is someone looking for automating insteon outputs based on insteon and security system inputs and NTP accurate time using a simple fast and easy to develop scripting language is going to be really unhappy with a very nice looking HTML 5 remote control app like the linked article. Its a cool remote control and a cool graphing system but does apparently no automation at all. There's about three totally separate markets all called "home automation". There's web page (or sometimes more annoyingly iphone-only app, or app that wants access to my contacts list for spam and resale purposes, etc) remote controlling. There's logging and graphing. Finally there's automation as in remotely controlled devices automatically taking action based on other remote devices or rather elaborate multiple timers or the wall clock time. Also there tends to be issues with the balance of input vs output in that this article does virtually no output at all other than nice looking web pages, compared to other tools in the field. Finally there's the open/closed issue mentioned where in home automation, as in actual automation, closed "solutions" are utterly useless due to the network effect between devices. The usefulness of any individual "home automation" device scales at least quadratically with the number of other devices it can interact with. For example, a web interface to my thermostat would be pretty useless by itself, if it can't network with everything else I own, or worse, anything else I own.

markkanof 12y ago

I'd say in general hardware that uses the z-wave protocol isn't too locked down. There are many different companies making hardware and software and for the most part they all interoperate. In my house I just installed a few dimmer switches from Cooper, that I send signals to from a USB dongle by aeotec, which is controlled by a piece of Mac software called Indigo. Also, I think there are some SDKs available if you want to get into writing your own software.

nitrogen 12y ago

If you can hide some larger hardware, I'd say go with DMX-512. I wrote an open source library for Linux for speaking DMX-512 over an FTDI USB-to-RS-485 adapter[0], and (shameless plug) have some automation hardware of my own[1] that supports DMX-512 using that library. It's possible to buy a decent quality 4ch DMX dimmer for ~$30 per channel, and you get instantaneous response rather than the terrible lag of most consumer home automation products. [0] http://sourceforge.net/projects/dmx485/files/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/dmx485/files/ [1] http://www.nitrogenlogic.com/products/automation_controller.html http://www.nitrogenlogic.com/products/automation_controller....

lukashed 12y ago
Also, if you're not able to hide thick XLR cables in your home, there are tons of cheap DMX-over-wireless solutions out there, though I don't know how reliable these are in practice.

VLM 12y ago

X-10, Insteon, zwave Look at misterhouse. Just some ideas to google for. Edited to add, also language has not caught up with reality. Anything with house-ish peripherals is called "home automation" even if it is a web interface for out door weather sensors like this article. The relevance is someone looking for automating insteon outputs based on insteon and security system inputs and NTP accurate time using a simple fast and easy to develop scripting language is going to be really unhappy with a very nice looking HTML 5 remote control app like the linked article. Its a cool remote control and a cool graphing system but does apparently no automation at all. There's about three totally separate markets all called "home automation". There's web page (or sometimes more annoyingly iphone-only app, or app that wants access to my contacts list for spam and resale purposes, etc) remote controlling. There's logging and graphing. Finally there's automation as in remotely controlled devices automatically taking action based on other remote devices or rather elaborate multiple timers or the wall clock time. Also there tends to be issues with the balance of input vs output in that this article does virtually no output at all other than nice looking web pages, compared to other tools in the field. Finally there's the open/closed issue mentioned where in home automation, as in actual automation, closed "solutions" are utterly useless due to the network effect between devices. The usefulness of any individual "home automation" device scales at least quadratically with the number of other devices it can interact with. For example, a web interface to my thermostat would be pretty useless by itself, if it can't network with everything else I own, or worse, anything else I own.