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home automation posts

Filed under: Software

Indigo 3.0, increased geekiness for your home

by Brett Terpstra (RSS feed) on May 7th, 2008

Once upon a time, my house was alive. It would wake me up with an hour-long procedure of ramping up the lights and using a zen chime at increasing intervals. Once the hour was up, it would check to see if I had opened the bathroom door yet and, if not, scold me with increasing levels of profanity for sleeping too late. It would read me the weather and top headlines while I brushed my teeth. It would turn lights on and off as I moved through the house. It had everything but an omnipresent, glowing red eye.

And it was grand, until a series of events (that I can now look back at and laugh) resulted in the PC it was all running on devouring itself and the connected backup drive. Now, in addition to an offsite backup system, I've got a lot of switches, sensors, motion detectors and the like and haven't had the heart to build the system again. But here I am with an extra Mini, and Perceptive Automation just released a new version of Indigo. My inner geek is just itching to restore my home to its former blinking, talking, almost-sentient glory.


Continue reading “Indigo 3.0, increased geekiness for your home”

Tags: home automation, HomeAutomation, indigo, perceptive automation, PerceptiveAutomation

Filed under: Odds and ends, Internet, Internet Tools

Have your house text message you via Twitter

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Mar 16th, 2007

We here at TUAW are big fans of Twitter, the simple web service that asks, 'What are you doing?' It is pointless, it is a time waster, but above all it is lots of fun. Gordon Meyer over at the Mac DevCenter seems to like Twitter as well, but he seems to be on a quest to make it useful. This article explains how he is using some home automation software, a dash of Applescript, and Twitter to enable his house to let him know when a number of things happen.

I'll just continue having fun on Twitter, but I encourage others to hack away.

Tags: home automation, HomeAutomation, mac devcenter, MacDevcenter, twitter

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Mac mini

Indigo Home Automation

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Jan 18th, 2007



We just told you about the Lithium server monitoring app but what if, like most Mac users, you're more likely to monitor and control your house (or at least your lamps) than your servers? Adam Goldstein has a nice introduction to the Indigo Home Automation and Control Server over at MacDevCenter. Indigo is a Mac application for home automation using INSTEON/X10 switches, dimmers, sprinkler controllers, etc. It does this via a USB interface device which communicates with the special switches, etc. through your existing power lines. Thus, your Mac can both monitor sensors of various sorts (e.g. motion sensors) and send commands to various appliances plugged into control modules (either external ones that go between the appliance and the wall socket, or internal ones that actually replace the wall sockets). There are a variety of sensor and control modules available.

Indigo can be controlled in many ways: pre-made schedules, Applescript, Salling Clicker (Bluetooth), a Dashboard widget, the phone, or even over the internet via the built-in web server. As of now, your Mac server must remain on at all times (though a future version will be able to upload commands to the USB module and then shut off).

Indigo is not cheap at $179.95 (introductory price, $199.95 regularly, demo available) and obviously requires a considerable investment in INSTEON modules ($10 to $200 each), but if you're the geeky type like me this is just begging for a mac mini home server. The main thing missing for me is some sort of thermostat interface and perhaps more sensors.

[Via MacDevCenter]

Tags: home automation, HomeAutomation, indigo, insteon, x10

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