Automated Musings
Information about stuff - currently the Minerva home automation project
Thursday 19 June 2008, 8:25 AM
Home Automation at Open Tech 2008
Steven Goodwin will be presenting an introductory session in the world of homebrew home automation at OpenTech on July 5th in London.
Standard blurb follows:
* Ticket reservations now open - Please Redistribute Freely *
Open Tech 2008
sponsored by BT Osmosoft
Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/
Open Tech 2008, from UKUUG and friends, is an informal
one-day conference about technology, society and low-
carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and
technologies that anyone can have a go at.
You can pre-register your ticket now at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration
to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.
The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you
are strongly advised to pre-register.
With 3 concurrent sessions, The line-up features:
* Open Rights Group - 2 years, 344 days on
* mySociety - WhatDoTheyKnow.com launch, and other goodies
* Overthrowing Government on a Budget, Keeping Track of
the CIA's Rendition Flights, Tracking Arms Dealers
with Python and Bits of String
* Ben Laurie and friends on network security
* Danny O'Brien's Living on the Edge
* AMEE, and Open Source Solar Heating
* Saving money and reducing carbon through Green IT
* Getting people involved with online media
Totalling 60 talks across 3 sessions covering 9 hours, there's
plenty in the programme for everyone including Rembrandt, Pr0n and
Robot Monkeys, and all that's just in one session!
The full schedule is at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/schedule
You can pre-register your ticket now at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration
to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.
The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you
are strongly advised to pre-register.
* Further information *
Sign up for your tickets online, and tick the box to hear from us, or
just send an email to join uf
opentech-info-subscribe@lists.ukuug.org
(your address will only be used to contact you about OpenTech and
will not be passed onto third parties).
- or you can email opentech@ukuug.org if you've any other questions.
We're also looking for volunteers to help out on the day.
In return for free early entry and our eternal gratitude,
we're in need of a few people to show up a bit earlier
and help us set the venue up. If you're interested, or
have random other questions, email us on opentech@ukuug.org
Open Tech 2008
Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/
Final programme may be subject to alteration. Thanks for reading!
Cheers
Ben, Etienne, Emily and Sam
your friendly OpenTech 2008 organisers
Monday 10 March 2008, 9:29 AM
Minerva at FOSDEM
Thanks to everyone that turned out for my talk in Brussels last week. (Hey - the law of averages says there must be at least one of you - right?)
Well, for those that couldn't hear me explain some more of the technical details, there's a video of my presentation online at:
http://video.fosdem.org/2008/lightningtalks/FOSDEM2008-minerva.ogg
VLC recommended as a media player for this, although others should world.
Saturday 12 January 2008, 7:52 PM
Minerva Base Install Available!
Well, after many months of agonizing I have managed to release a full bundle of the Minerva code that was featured on zdnet in December, and in the Homebrew competition.
And yes - it includes the 'kettle' script :)
Previously, you had grab separate versions of WARP, Webface, the Bearskin wrappers, the Zinc PHP components, and the specific web applets you wanted to use. It wasn't easy. So I spent some time (a lot of time, as it turns out) building a much nicer deployment method.
Visit the download pages of Minerva Home Automation Downloads.
You will also notice an upgrade to the icons.
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice the brand new website I've created tro celebrate the launch of Minerva Home Automation
Saturday 8 December 2007, 11:02 PM
Cosmic - The RF to PC Gateway
Put simply, I have taken the basic X10 RF controller, and abused it to my purpose, of controlling the house.
In essence I have a PalmPad Hand Held Remote Control which sends RF signals to the X10 RF Receiver, which in turn places signals on the powerline. These signals are then picked up by the computer, and translated into instructions by the custom software, "Cosmic"
Now, because these X10 signals will also control any lights on these addresses I have split control into two. The first set of controls (1-8, on/off) control the lights, kettle, and standard appliances as normal. The second set uses address not found by any devices in my house, and are used solely by "Cosmic". There is a switch on the remote itself which I am re-appropriate for this task.
The pad is split into three main areas:
1. Common handling. Volume change, mute and pause are used so commonly, they deserve to be present in all modes.
2. Mode-specfific. The central 8 buttons.
3. Common system. These change the mode, and report on the general status of Cosmic, and the house in general.
The modes I have are:
Multimedia - CD playing, MP3 jukebox control
Timer - Start a timer for 5 minutes, and the voice will remind you at the appropriate time. Very useful since it can be used from the kitchen, with the audio pumped downstairs through the house wiring looms.
News - Basic status information, such as weather, news, and calendar events.
The functionality is then handled by a number of small scripts on the machine itself, executed whenever the appropriate X10 signal is heard on the powerline. The current version is temporarily held as Cosmic handler script but a formal release will be available later. The configuration, fwiw, is done simply by adding lines to /etc/heyu/x10.conf
SCRIPT e1 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/mixer dec master 10
SCRIPT e1 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/mixer inc master 10
SCRIPT e2 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/mixer toggle
SCRIPT e2 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/pmedia
SCRIPT e7 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic modestatus
SCRIPT e7 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic nextmode
SCRIPT e8 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/status
SCRIPT e8 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic root
# real cosmic handlers
SCRIPT e3 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e3off
SCRIPT e3 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e3on
SCRIPT e4 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e4off
SCRIPT e4 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e4on
SCRIPT e5 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e5off
SCRIPT e5 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e5on
SCRIPT e6 off :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e6off
SCRIPT e6 on :: /usr/local/minerva/bin/cosmic e6on
Friday 7 December 2007, 1:04 PM
A few more pictures
Until the video clip appears, I thought I'd post a couple more images to whet your proverbial appetites...
The weather is downloaded, parsed, and presented here. It is also spoken by the in-house voice synthesizer when it wakes you up in the morning
By clicking on the light bulb, or the switch, the appropriate light in the house turns on and off. Also note the 'Make A Cuppa' button:)
The simple news page. It grabs RSS feeds, and summarizes them on a separate set of pages. The next step is to incorporate this information into the spoken status reports, so you can listen to the news while getting up in the morning
If I haven't mentioned it before, I use Festival for the speech synth, and am moving as much reporting as possible to it, so I can operate the house without needing a monitor. I think this is good from a generalized standpoint as it becomes more natural, and helps less able users understand the system. e.g. guests, who are generally confused by HA.
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