Chris Lanier's Blog

Chris, this is why I submitted this to you.  I have been shopping around the home automation idea.  I wanted to start with lights and expand from there. mControl seems to have the best interface and WHS support.  I'd be interested to see the write up that you do.

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Chris,

I've been into HA for about a year and I think I'll give mControl another try.

Hit me up if you have any questions as I'm currently controlling about 20 Insteon lights, Elk alarm, HAI thermostat and all my HT equipment including my TVs via rs-232.

I've been using mControl and Insteon adapters with my WHS box since December. Me loves it.

Chris Lanier has details of a new iPhone interface for Embedded Automation's mControl software. Checkout

i have been using mcontrol for z-wave control for a few months now and love it, especially compared to other z-wave HA solutions on the market.  Ted is excellent for support and very responsive.  mcontrol includes a media center plugin (you can add it to the main pinwheel) as well as web page and wap page for cellular phones (pre-sized page.  you will need to manually edit page for your phone if resize needed, not a fluid page).  there is a built in web server included but it does not support any authentication.  you need to use IIS for that as per their recommendation.  you could probably use something like xampp, apache, and openssl if you know enough to get by.  the z-wave is via controlthink so it's probably best to use their z-wave usb stick which is firmware upgradable (only on the market like that at this time as far as i know).  the software supports rules as well as conditional statements.  it can integrate lighting, hvac, irrigation, voice control, ip cameras, etc.  i use the panasonic Bl-C30A for camera and it works fine however i cannot get the PTZ functionality (at least in WMC).  i have to double check with Ted on this.

Apple needs to add a built-in infrared blaster, the iPhone/iTouch would be be perfect universal remote.

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