Getting Started With Home Automation Lighting Control (Part 4)
Now that you not only have an idea about what it takes to
install and setup mControl, now you might want to know that it’s not limited to
controlling your home just from your Media Center PC. You can gain access from just about any room
in home, and you can even access mControl securely (using SSL) from just about
anywhere in the world!
Media Center Extender Access
Media Center Extenders are becoming increasing popular with
the addition of the Xbox 360. mControl
can seamlessly integrate with your Media Center Extender for control of your
home from any display. This is another
situation where lighting control and home automation really come alive. Remember that INSTEON dimmers start at only
$25, and that means it’s cheap to expand to include your whole home.
Maybe you have your Media Center PC in your Home Office, and
Media Center Extenders in your Bedroom and Home Theater. You can buy a few dimmers for all three
rooms, and have control of the lights from all of those rooms just using your
remote. Create a Zone for room, and you
can turn on and off lights in your Office from your Bedroom, a convenience that
you will love those late nights that you just want to fall in bed without
getting up to check to see if you turned them off.
The process of setting this up can be found in that great manual I keep talking
about, but mainly it involves copying the MCL file to the correct location
that (MCX1, etc).
mControl Access via other
PCs
You might not have a Media Center Extender or Media Center
PC in every room, but if you are like me and never leave a laptop far behind,
you can also have access to all the lights in your home from your lap.
The default URL that can be accessed anywhere in your home
for mControl is at http://<ComputerName>:29990/Default.aspx. Just add this as a Favorite in Internet
Explorer and it will bring up the exact same UI you would see in Media Center
that can be controlled nicely with your mouse and/or keyboard.
Currently, as with just about all Media Center
Plug-ins, they must be displayed within Internet Explorer to work
correctly. This didn’t work for me too
well, since I use Firefox on all of my PCs, but using IE Tab I currently have basic access with a
small problem of the page not refreshing upon accessing it. This can be a problem if you are just trying
to check which lights are on or off. I’m
looking into having Firefox not used the cached version of the page, which I
think might be the issue here. This doesn’t
seem to be a problem using Internet Explorer.
The process of setting this up can be found in that great manual I keep talking
about. (it’s a good read!)
Secure Remote Access
(SSL)
I didn’t test this, but when you think about it this is
something that we have all wanted to do at some point. Secure remote access of mControl means that
any device that has web access could control your lighting and home. Through the use of SSL, this can be done
securely. You can find a walkthrough on how-to setup SSL on
the mControl homepage.
You might be asking why you would want to do this? Well, take the leaving on vacation example
again, you forgot and left your lights on in your home? No reason to waste electricity, just connect
to your PC, accept the certificate, then turn off the lights. Now hop on your plane without a worry in your
mind (and remember that we covered giving the house a “lived-in” look in Part
3.
Start Menu Addition
People always want to add third party programs to the Start
Menu in Media Center for quick access. You can do this with mControl too, again, as
documented in the manual that I told you about in Part 2. It can be done by a registry entry, and is
customizable with the name of your choice.
Since I currently only have lighting controls setup in my bedroom, I
have added “My Bedroom” to my Media Center Start Menu.
I’ve uploaded the exported registry entry which mControl
users and download (and edit if you want to) then merge it with a double
click. Download it here,
and then unzip. This is says “My Home”,
but right click and edit it to say anything you want.
Part 4 (Final)
Conclusion
I hope that this series of posts has shown people that
lighting control and home automation is easy to, cheap it get started with, and
can help you enjoy your life and media.
Using mControl and INSTEON you can start automation the lighting in your
home for around $250, and grow from there adding switches and adaptors that
range from $25-$50 per switch.
The advantages of automating your home far outweigh the
disadvantages. Adding value to your home
while keeping it secure is a great example.
You will be able to enjoy the loads of media that you have stored on
your Media Center PC, without the hassle of getting up to turn off the lights.
Enjoying your media all around your home is the goal of most
peoples Media Center installs, and mControl can not only help you enjoy your
media it will help bring it life.
Question or comments?
Feel free to post! If you need
help deciding between some of the “standards” talked about in Part 1, I would
recommend browsing around CocoonTech.
View: Getting
Started With Home Automation Lighting Control (Part 1)
View: Getting
Started With Home Automation Lighting Control (Part 2)
View: Getting
Started With Home Automation Lighting Control (Part 3)
