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I'd love to read a blog post about this. Some dream features I'd like personally in a smart home: * TV-aware lights - lights dim/turn off according to a prese

I'd love to read a blog post about this. Some dream features I'd like personally in a smart home: * TV-aware lights - lights dim/turn off according to a preset pattern when the tv comes on * Voice control - saying "Bed time" would turn off all lights & heating, other commands off the top of my head- "I'm home" (turn on hall lights & heating if its below a certain temperature) or "leaving home"- turn off everything * Low power screen in the hall, like e-ink, where I can have an electronic To Do list easily available, or warnings to bring an umbrella/coat today, or reminders for today from my smartphone calendar Something like this Raspberry pi project looks promising for voice: https://jasperproject.github.io/ https://jasperproject.github.io/ For me, having to whip out a phone to do stuff like turn off lights is pointless. A smart home should be context-aware, e.g. home temperature, time of day, doing an activity like TV, or needing cold bedroom for sleep (open window, turn off heating). If a smart home system isn't more convenient than the low tech version, then there is no point.

spiritplumber 12y ago
Agreed on convenience! The way it works is, it's all xbee based (largely because I had a bunch of short-range xbees around when Serious Business decided to get longer range ones). There's a remote that's a picaxe 28 (remember those?), plus a xbee, plus buttons. There's an old netbook that also runs my projector, mostly netflix/youtube. It has a xbee and a few lines of python. There's the light controllers which are just a USB charger, a relay, a picaxe 8, and a xbee. The blinds have a tamiya motor and a L298 instead of the relay. Both the remote and the laptop get to send commands to the other nodes, the remote also turns the projector on and off (by serial port). Nothing to write home about really. It mostly got done because there was an excess of xbees. The "serial protocol" is just sending two characters (0-9 digits) to address the picaxe, and then a one-letter command. Doesn't seem to bother wifi any.

spiritplumber 12y ago

Agreed on convenience! The way it works is, it's all xbee based (largely because I had a bunch of short-range xbees around when Serious Business decided to get longer range ones). There's a remote that's a picaxe 28 (remember those?), plus a xbee, plus buttons. There's an old netbook that also runs my projector, mostly netflix/youtube. It has a xbee and a few lines of python. There's the light controllers which are just a USB charger, a relay, a picaxe 8, and a xbee. The blinds have a tamiya motor and a L298 instead of the relay. Both the remote and the laptop get to send commands to the other nodes, the remote also turns the projector on and off (by serial port). Nothing to write home about really. It mostly got done because there was an excess of xbees. The "serial protocol" is just sending two characters (0-9 digits) to address the picaxe, and then a one-letter command. Doesn't seem to bother wifi any.