Boy, was I wrong about that!

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iPhone 3G & Nokia 2630

So, it’s been a little while since I posted.  I had a major contract to wrap up, and then the economy came along and put a halt to just about everything.  But, now that’s all sorted out – it’s time to focus again on home automation!

I attempted to get mControl installed, but strange things kept happening.  My CCF codes kept getting corrupted… so one minute, I’d have the system setup to turn the plasma screen on and off, and the next minute, it wouldn’t work anymore.  Those sorts of issues early on in the project, coupled with the fact that the UI was sorely in need of some modification, led me to rethink my direction.

I know only a few things… I want to control my AV stack, I want to control your basic lighting, A/C, security, and sprinkler system.  I want the ability to control all of this using the most devices possible.  Of course, this site is all about controlling via the iPhone, and that IS the number 1 concern… but recently, my wife got a Blackberry (until then, she had used her cell phone for, well, a phone, so no need for anything fancy!).

So… the system has to be controlled via web, since that is the one thing that the iPhone and the Blackberry have in common.  And obviously, no Flash or Silverlight… since those platforms don’t support it.  iPhone supports javascript, so AJAX/JSON web dev can be done.. however, the Blackberry does NOT support javascript, so the web page would have to degrade gracefully to straight HTML and server side for that.

I also want to use something like a Nokia tablet as a main remote, and that runs XP… so I’d like to have a windows based app for remote control as well.

Finally… I’m going to install an XP Mediaserver running Windows Home Server for storage reasons (as well as streaming of media)… so I’d like something that will run under WHS and will also work with the media streamin.

I’ve looked at a couple of things…

  • The HAI Omni series (Omni IIe or Omni II Pro)
    This is a dedicated controller, very expandable, but a bit expensive.  Could be the way to go for whole house automation.  Gotta take a closer look.
  • Chipmunk A/V
    This may be the way to control the A/V stack… runs in .Net, is easily expandable, runs the LUA scripting language.  I’m evaluating it right now for the A/V portion… but not sure if it will be robust enough for whole home automation.

Both have the ability to control them via Web… the HAI with an interface board, and Chipmunk has both a PC remote control (as well as a Windows Mobile version) AND a Webserver built in.

I’ll update as more info is available.  And I’ll also provide more info soon on each solution.

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15 April 2009 in The Project | tags: Blackberry, iPHone, Windows Home Server
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