X10, um, what can i say, it opens up the old argument of using mains for data.or better yet abandon the RF thing completely and simply buy the right X10 modules and a cheaper Ceiling fan. home automation with linux is old hat. and has been done very well with a program package called misterhouse.
as an experienced electronics engineer, i can say that personaly id never, ever use anything that modulates my mains supply (240v 10/15A max here, thats a potiential 2400/3600W load with a physical connection to my computer/sensitive electronics - no thanks!!), be it X10 or those crazy pest-repellant devices, or a number of other devices that do similar things.
X10 is old now, it was old 5 years ago, although its popular still in homes, almost all of the big electronics firms have been developing newer/smarter/faster/safer methods for automation. and for the last 2 years or so it looks likes Dallas's 1-wire technology has come out in front, and has already been used in fridges and ovens etc, works on the JINI/TINI technology, and has a HUGE potiential.
yeh misterhouse can do some cool things. but it will still do all the same cool things, and more, once 1-Wire has more user-end programs, drivers, etc (there are a few atm, Dallas have a linux API available) and someone makes a 1-wire version of misterhouse (yeh i know a long way off). Dallas already have all-in-one chips that can switch/dim lights (bulb and fluro), measure temp/light levels, sense motion, general I/O and adc/dac's, they even have chips(microcontrollers) that run native java, provide web servers(tcp/ip) etc, some really cool stuff. most chips have on-board ram to store data instead or constant polling, they can count and store in ram and just collect data once an hour (data can contain data logs from every minute of that hour, which may be the 20 or so temp sensors on that branch on the 1-wire network that u want to log). as well as bluetooth/wifi interfaces, and things like the java-ring for authentication, the future is really crazy when u think what this 1-wire could do for home automation.It's great, when the temperature in the room exceeds settings I have declared the celing fans there come on. I also have it based on time, and if the IR motion detectors have sensed that someone is in the room within the past hour (occupancy detector)
yeh, we werent actually talking home automation with freevo to begin with, someone was curious about using a RF remote with freevo (lirc), i gave my two cents worth, a couple of others also did, and here we are talking about trashing the RF remote completely and using X10.doing such a thing is outside the scope of freevo... (it's like asking your VCR to take the trash out.) get misterhouse instead for home automation.
...although, down the road, there is nothing stopping freevo from having a front-end for home-automation - why not? i think it would be cool (after all u just control misterhouse via apache, why not freevo?)
regards,
rohbags. ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
-----Original Message----- From: Roh . [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 4:56 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Freevo-users] radio frequency receivers
>I don't know if lirc supports it, but there are RF recievers for >Linux; that's pretty much all you need. (Well, obviously on the >software side, lirc support) > >On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 06:08:02PM -0700, skeeterskip wrote: > > > > My ceiling fan has this cool radio frequency remote. I can have my > > back turned to fan and still control fan with remote. I'm wondering >if > > anyone knows how to make such a remote for lirc. > a couple of things: 1) IR dosnt need direct line of sight, u can have ur back turned to a reciever and still transmit, the light should bounce of the roof/wall (nice white walls?) and still hit the reciever, i can still use my IR remotes at home around corners (from one room to another, if ur Tx is strong enough (i use a 2nd IR led from D.S.E. boosted to about 55ma in my remote, so its cool)). If its a RF remote u have, to be sure completely cover the remote (so no light can escape) and see if it works. most of the ceiling fans/air cons etc for homes ive seen are IR not RF (most, not all).
2) RF is a lot different to IR. u cant just slap together a homebrew
reciever for RF like u can for IR (u could even end up breakin the law with
RF stuff :O). The only way i could see a RF remote used with lirc is to say,
pull out the reciever/decoder board from ur ceiling fan, make a interface
circuit to use it on the parallel port, and make some mods to lirc_parallel,
maybe ur lucky and the decoder spits out a data format similar to other parallel IR Rx's.
3) the only type of generic RF stuff ive seen that would work with linux,
are RF mouses and keyboards, i havnt seen any sort of generic RF remote
control on the market that isnt designed for the win* user.
i use a cheap RF wireless keyboard and mouse and it only works up to about
5-7meters away, but the IR remote will work 20 meters away or more, and like
i said around corners as well, which this cheap RF stuff cant do (it struggles to go through plaster!)
4) a long time ago i seen a project that was using a soundcard and some custom hardware to detect RF signals, i forget the name or links (was years ago) but it had something to do with HAM radio and packet radio, maybe hunt around those projects and u'll find this one. i never used it but remember thinkin how cool it was at the time.
regards,
rohbags.
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