Re: [Freevo-users] RE: [Freevo-users][OT] radio frequency receivers

2003-08-29 Thread Krister Lagerstrom
Roh . wrote:

X10, um, what can i say, it opens up the old argument of using mains for 
data.
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.
Heh, then you definitely won't like what I do for a living: 
http://www.twacs.com.  30 amps and 15 bps! :-)

		/ Krister



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Re: [Freevo-users] RE: [Freevo-users][OT] radio frequency receivers

2003-08-27 Thread Roh .
...sorry if this is too off subject for some

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.
X10, um, what can i say, it opens up the old argument of using mains for 
data.
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.

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 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.


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.
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.

...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 

Re: [Freevo-users] RE: [Freevo-users][OT] radio frequency receivers

2003-08-27 Thread Mark Benson
I've got an ATI remote wonder - this is a wireless remote (USB receiver).

I'm still undecided on this as at present as the range is somewhat limited.
When I tired it at work it had a useable range of about 10meters, but at
home that range is seriously reduced to only 1 to 3 meters depending on the
positioning of the receiver and orinentation of the xmitter. I found this
was a problem with wireless alarm systems at home too - the specified range
of 150meters was drastically reduced in my house to little more than 5 - 10
meters depending on the placement of xmitters/receivers. Tech support (for
the alarm system) suggested high mineral/iron content in the brick work of
the house or stray radio interference... could be the vast amount of cat5
and coax running throughout my house!

I've also only used this thing on windows, but I found details of a linux
implementation for this remote that seemed to use the X10 protocol - not
sure exactly what it would entail to set this thing up under linux though...

You can now get these in the uk via www.mini-itx.com (your one stop shop for
all things mini-itx)
(They also ship worldwide - there is another supplier in the uk (where I got
mine) but I can't remember off hand the URL)

As for x10/physical connection - have they not heard of opto isolation?

What is this one-wire stuff? Got a link handy? Will google it later...
sounds interesting...

- Original Message - 
From: Roh . [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Freevo-users] RE: [Freevo-users][OT] radio frequency receivers


 ...sorry if this is too off subject for some

 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.
 
 X10, um, what can i say, it opens up the old argument of using mains for
 data.
 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.

 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 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.


 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.
 
 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.

 ...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

Re: [Freevo-users] RE: [Freevo-users][OT] radio frequency receivers

2003-08-27 Thread Manuel Borchers
Hi Mark!

Am Mi, 2003-08-27 um 10.52 schrieb Mark Benson:
 What is this one-wire stuff? Got a link handy? Will google it later...
 sounds interesting...

One-Wire is a Bus developed by Dallas Semi. It's purpose is
communication between different chips/processors/sensors/... in
electronic systems. 
It's something like good old I2C-Bus (which I really like, btw.), which
Philips developed for communication in home-entertainment stuff (VCRs,
TVs).

Dallas should also provide a small interface circuit for the PC. I don't
know about any driver implementations on linux, but I didn't investigate
very much on this, because I'm using I2C myself. For this we have a cool
i2c-dev kernel-module.

But, we are drifting far off-topic ;))

Cheers,
Manuel

-- 
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