Wireless HDMI

From Engadget:

We’ve been waiting for what feels like an eternity for wireless HD to really have a place in the world (outside of the elite home cinema world, that is), and while the dream definitely took a hit with the FlyWire’s death, it sounds as if things may be rounding the ever-present corner. Amimon, a company responsible for bringing wireless high-def capabilities to all manners of pricey wares through WHDI, has just announced the 1.0 specification of its protocol. Mind you, there are already quite a few big players onboard with the outfit, so hitting the one dot oh could very well kick start a new round of devices (set-top boxes, HDTVs, media streamers, etc.) designed to handle wireless transfers of 1080p material. You can catch the relatively calm press release after the break, and rest assured we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled at CES for new gear based on the spec.

If you can measure it – you can improve it!

Google Powermeter aims to reduce energy consumption

Google recently announced a new service, Powermeter. As the name suggests, Google is attempting to use its expertise at gathering and organizing information to help reduce the electricity consumption of households. Ultimately, this would help people reduce their utility bills by making smart decisions regarding their use of electricity and reduce their carbon footprint.

Although the project is currently in Beta, Google appears to be promoting this item quite heavily. It appears that the big obstacle is the electrical meters themselves and integrating them into the overall system. Until Powermeter graduates out of its current Beta status, Google offers these energy saving tips.

This could be a huge step forward for the HomeAutomation community! Being able to track consumption and bring costs down is something any gadget freak would love. 

Watch video from Google here.

 

You might also look at the Modstrøm – they do some of the same with OCR reader on you powermeter. www.modstroem.dk

Water pleace 2.0

 Meet the SmartFaucet from iHouse; a tap with built-in face recognition technology that automatically adjusts the water pressure and temperature to your preferred settings. The touchscreen display even features widgets for at-a-glance access to eMail, appointments, and the outside temperature while LEDs illuminate the flow with temperature matching colors. iHouse’s Fadec (pictured after the break) also adds face recognition to a 2.8-inch in-house remote control. That little trick allows the remote to respond to pre-programmed scenes (think AC, lighting, audio) customized by inhabitant. Too much? Never.

begin your own withdrawal on catastrophic climate change.

Breaking a bad habit is never easy, but a little support can help. Green Groove is a site that aims to help consumers create and stick to a plan to eliminate their unsustainable ways and embrace new, greener habits.

Green Groove’s goal is to help consumers make “a phased withdrawal on catastrophic climate change.” Toward that end, the Idaho-based site invites visitors to take three initial steps to create their own, personal withdrawal plan. First, they choose their desired plan type, length and level of difficulty, including whether it’s just a personal plan or one that incorporates a household or family. Next, the site guides visitors to select specific weekly goals in four categories: auto, diet, home and lifestyle. Within the “home” category, for example, weekly goals might include replacing one old lightbulb with a compact fluorescent, or hang-drying at least one load of laundry. Third, visitors are then invited to put their weekly goals into the order they’d like to follow in accomplishing them, thereby creating their step-by-step action plan. A downloadable “Goal Tracker” widget is available both for Mac and PC, as are “Green Groove Participant” and “Green Groove Certified” website badges for those who are in the midst of or have finished their plans. 

Start today!

Ecobee’s eco-saving, WiFi-enabled Smart Thermostat

This new wireless thermostat with great user interface is the to my knowlegede the first product that uses WiFi as protocol instead of traditional Z-wave etc. control protocols.

This is not only interesting for the envoriment but also very interesting from at end customer point of view. I am sure that the WiFi approach for wireless  homecontrol will have a bigger market than traditional systems.

 

I – the computer – Smell you!

Imagine you put a sensor in your room, and it will tell you who is in the room – based on how they smell!

http://www.edn.com/article/CA56625.html

WAF = Wife Acceptance Factor

In this case below 0 – not good for at project man:

http://www.momlogic.com/2009/01/living_with_a_project_man.php

How can I not have this?

 

I found this little baby on the web searching for apple collectors robots.

Is there any – at all – reason for not having this new friend around the house? 

 

http://www.crustcrawler.com/products/hexcrawler.php?prod=1

Home or away strategies

I have every motion sensor run a script when it is “Set On”. The script updates a virtual device (V1), reporting that it saw motion in its area.

For example, when the motion sensor in the office is set on, it updates V1 with “Office”. When the motion sensor in the master bedroom is set on, it updates V1 with “master bedroom” and so on.

Each sensor also has its own virtual device. If the sensor is addressed M1, then it’s virtual device would be addressed O1. These virtual devices act as occupancy sensors. I use a script to control the occupancy setting of each device. For instance, in the living room, if the motion sensor (M7) is “set on”, then it turns on O7. A script that runs every two minutes checks to see when the last time O7 was updated. If it has not been updated in the last XX minutes (15 for the living room), then it turns O7 off. The rest of the sensors in the house work the same way – each with their own time limits.

I also have each door (ds10) to the outside world run a script that does the same thing. V1 can also equal “front door”, “back door”, “garage door”, “patio door”.

I have another script that is run every 2 minutes that checks for occupancy. If V1 = any of those doors AND its last change was 15 minutes ago AND all the virtual occupancy sensors have been turned off by script, then assume the house is unoccupied.

I’ve used this for a couple of years and it works flawlessly. There has not been a time it’s set the house unoccupied incorrectly – even when we’re taking naps.

Whew – that was a mouthful. Sorry for the long post.

Homeautomation after I die!

Homeautomaters have deep thoughts too. They really do care about their spouse and how she will “work with the system” if you are gone. I guess the problem is that although the goal for (almost) every homeautomater is to have a “seamless” system that just blends in, we all know that this is not the case. Systems has to be restored and rebooted, fixed and adjusted all the time.

Read these articles to understand how deep this issue is from a Homeautomaters perspective:

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=133246&highlight=backup+plan