THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

...well, before you think about hooking those appliances to your SBS, better make sure that Shavlik can path 'em . . . ;^)

I was just joking with Steve that who knows - in a few years I may have a home media server along with wireless internet access on flights - so we wouldn't be tied to the in-flight entertainment - just RWW back to your SBS at home and pull up the movie / program of your choice from your media server . . . Now *THAT* would rock!

And as for the smart home - I'm all for it. Connect all the appliances, light fixtures, thermostat, garage door opener, security system, etc. God knows I could use some appliance related alerts - like when the lint trap is full, the dishwasher is out of rinse aid, the furnace filter needs changed, the water softener is low on salt, etc. The potential is virtually limitless . . . just think, control anything electric in your home from anywhere with your PDA . . .

umm... Susan - I saw this cool thing on Microsofts research site some time back about home automation. It even had a demo of a person forgetting to close the garage door, they connected back to home via a web interface, told the door to close, and then in a few minutes recieved an email from the home system complete with a video of the door closing. I've been playing with something like this at home here - nothing fantastic just yet, but still cool just the same.

Now - does that mean port 80 will need to be open to the home server....

<ducking to avoid the 2x4>

And why not be able to control it all from your PDA or cel phone? Even if you don't have a chip in your coffee maker (turn it on as you leave the office if you know you have a heavy night coming) or your crock pot, what is so hard about having a wireless switch connected to an outlet? One design of the technology is here, (http://www.shellhomegenie.com/ ) and, to be frank, I can think of a few thousand other ways to do it too.

Honestly, I don't sell this stuff, as Susan knows, I work for an airline (shudder).

I think that there is enormous potential for home management technology. It faces a few hurdles before it is marketed in a wide spread manner, but none of them that I can think of are technical. The biggest one is getting the price down and the volume up. For most people this is a discretionary thing for initial purchase that will be indispensable once you get used to it, especially for road warriors. Heck, what if you are taking care of an elderly person you need to check in on once in a while. Perhaps your home management unit can just e-mail you when it senses movement at grandpa’s house in the morning. Or you get an urgent e-mail from the water sensor under your water heater…(call a neighbor and have him shut off your water…QUICK!).

I have had one of these in my house for about a year now. Last year I logged on from a cruise ship in the Orkney Islands (north of Scotland) and watched my kitties playing in the living room of my house in Houston. I knew that the air conditioning was working because the temperature sensors told me so. I knew when the lady dropped by each day to feed the kitties because I got an email with a time stamp each time anything bigger than my pets moved inside the house. And when a cold snap hit I switched my A/C over to the heat mode…. from Oslo. Like I said, you get real used to this technology.

Sorry for the late response. Also please don't take this at a snipe at Microsoft but others have been doing Home Automation (HA) for years. Some of the more impressive older systems have been Steve Ciarcia's Home Run Control system (Byte magazine, 1985), the CP290 (DOS software, RS CoCo software ~1982?) , Heath Kit, etc. This stuff has been around a long time. Most of the high end HA today involves a micro-controller doing the decision making, the medium range HA are PC running software under Windows and the rest is DIY's with various OS's. I have various links and information on HA (from a Linux bent, sorry) at my pages:

http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/index.html

I have other pages on the subject but I don't want this to be a ad for all my stuff.