Home automation and home control (HA) Software (source code and links mostly) for the home automation devices like Insteon PowerLinc V2, CM11A, CM17 (Firecracker), LynX10, WM918, HCS II, UPB and CPUXA. Links to other hardware/software packages can be found on these pages also. If you know of any additional links please contact me at: ncherry@linuxha.com

Note: These pages are being (slowly) moved to http://www.linuxha.com/. That will be the new home of the Linux Home Automation web pages.

Disclaimer: None of the opinions expressed on these pages are paid for . They are strictly my own and may not represent an endorsement of someone's project, product or service (unless otherwise stated so).

---

Index

• Update, the current update
• Personal Interests
• Linux HA Software
• HA Documents
• Other Software Links
• Hardware Links, links about hardware
• Projects, Open Source and otherwise
• Other Links, links that just don't fit elsewhere
• Commercial links, links to commercial products for Linux and HA hardware.
• Temporary links - Links to things that may only exist for a short period of time, like newpaper articles.
• HA Forums
• History old updates are moved here.
• Boneyard - Where dead links go to rest.
• HA BLOG, BLOGS dedicated towards HA.
• Linux HA BLOG, my miscellaneous ramblings.
• My other web sites
• Non-HA stuff

---

---

---

Update:

2009/07/03 - Oops, forgot to post this xbindDB.pl - Alejandro Gonzalez's script that helps update a table in a database every time a sensor is switched from open to closed.

2009/07/02 - Chris Kreutzer has shared his X10AHP Java (CM15A Java code). He's using Java Libusb to interface to the USB sub-system. This reminds me that I have a bit of work to do on my CM15A code (protocol, driver and daemon).

2009/06/28 - Well I forgot to post that I was kind of 'heckled' at the last presentation. I'll have to blog about that. In the mean time I completed my big bike ride (206.5 miles @ 17.5 mph avg - Oh yeah!), I'm half way through my final course (Astronomy) for my degree, I've resurrected my IPV6 network (dang deprecations) and I've managed to finally build my first distribution LORHA for an AMD Geode board which I'll use as my home router. I'm using BuildRoot for most of the distribution. I'm hoping to use the new router to handle IPV6 (using Go6 tunnel broker for now) as Comcast embraces IPV6. They'll trial consumer IPV6 through 2010.

2009/04/19 - On Friday, May 15th, the Brookdale Computer Users Group (BCUG - A Forum for PC and MAC Users) has asked me to present my older Home Automation presentation at Brookdale Community Collge Lincroft, NJ Bldg. MAS, Room: 100, 7:00 p.m., I did this presentation in Jan 2008 for the Princeton PC Users group. I'll spend some time updating the presentation as things have changed a bit.

2009/04/18 - Here is something I'll miss because of a special assignment for work (grr, but at least I have a job). - Come join the Open Remote folks for First event of 2009. Come join us in Amsterdam, May 29th 2009! Don't miss your chance to meet the OpenRemote team, share experiences and be part of the community!

The History page - where the old updates are moved to.

---

My interests:

Inline with the economy's present cost cutting measures (and my effort to reduce the size of this ;-) I'm moved the interests section of my HA page to it's own page oddly called my Interests page. In this location instead you will find a summary of my Interests page and of course a link to the longer page.

My interests, like any geek, are in gadgets. Almost anything having to do with home automation, control, computers (hardware & software) and electronics. Unlike most geeks I also love to ride my bicycle, not a short tootle 'round the block but prefer longer rides. Such as 30 mile lunch times rides, 20 mile commutes to work (each way) and a weekend ride of a 100 miles. Also, my bicycles are in no way hooked up to my computers other than a standard bike computer. I prefer it that way. It's my time away from computers.

My Interests page, in it's full glory. :-)

---

Software list for Unix (from above)

I am going to also provide links to the authors home page so that you may get the most recent version of the software. But please remember that some of the software needs to be modified to run under Linux. I hope to identify these in some way in the future.

Warranty - There is none, please use these files at your own risk. Most of these files have been tested but unexpected side effects can occur. We (the authors and I) do not provide any warranty at all. We recommend that you thoroughly inspect the code to be sure that no one has tampered with the code. Such an event occured with tcpd (tcp wrappers) and the utils package used by Linux, though the community caught it rather quickly (a matter of hours after it occured).

Sometime people don't want to even read the list so I'm providing a link right to the directory with all the source files. A few files are really old (the authors links are usually included in this file instead).

OpenRemote: the digital home operating system. OpenRemote is an Open Source Community Smart Home, Automation and Domotics space. We develop panel and control software on off-the-shelf hardware and integrate with a variety of protocols in the field. Whether you are a hobbiest or professional installer, OpenRemote has something for you.

---

Special Event - Here is something I'll miss because of a special assignment for work (grr, but at least I have a job). - Come join the Open Remote folks for First event of 2009. Come join us in Amsterdam, May 29th 2009! Don't miss your chance to meet the OpenRemote team, share experiences and be part of the community!

We will announce more details later but some of the things that will certainly happen there:

• B&BYOORB: Bring & Build Your own Open Remote Box (based on the Alix box, our reference implementation)
• Demonstatration & road map discussions
• Overview on how to integrate different hardware platforms in Open Remote and how to contribute.
• Fun. Certain team members have a history of legendary performances and presentations in the past, so expect the unexpected!

So mark you calendar, book the tickets. And while in Amsterdam, consider staying in the CitizenM hotel, not because we have a special deal with them or are in anyway connected to them, but just because it's a cool place with a lot of high tech, especially in the rooms.

---

• Twitter
• Online Chat
• We're getting somewhere
• OpenRemote Youtube Videos
• OpenRemote Screen Shots!
• OpenRemote Software on Sourceforge.

Insteon Powerlinc: Insteon, from Smarthome, is a Power Line Carrier & RF based technology. It supports communication with X10 devices and the 2-way Insteon communication protocol.

• Linux Insteon page (was the iplcd page). This page is dedicated to Insteon software for Linux.

X10D: (CM11A & LynX10); These are all software related to Dan Lanciani's X10d. Each depends on having X10d up and running.

• Dan Lanciani's CM11A code (with my mods). Here is a link to Dan Lanciani's X10d software page (for the CM11A, Lynx10 & other devices). Please note that for Dan's code to run under Linux it needs to be modified first.

  Dan has also been kind enough to share his PIC code for the RR501 and TM751 (wireless -> X10). His code allows the devices to pick up more than just one house code. See Dan's pages for further details, thanks Dan.

• Karl Denninger's HomeDaemon Page - This package provide handling of events and status. Karl is now providing AppiDig and Leopard support and the Leviton RS232 Z-Wave interface. Very useful in a home automation environment.
• LHAP web interface (WILHAP? ;-) It's a PHP/JavaScript/HTML page that allows you to issue X10 commands and then get the update. It requires: Apache W/PHP, MySQL (or a flat CSV file), HomeDaemon, X10d, & a CM11A. You should be able to use any browser that supports JavaScript (I've only checked with Netscape so far). I'm working on a version II which I have but haven't had time to post yet. Email if you want it sooner.
  • LHAP Web Interface V 1 Page. This version works with NS 4.x (and IE I think). Remember theses are static pages, there is no PHP preprocessing these files and no MySQL db access. NOTE: these files are huge! they may be intolerable on slow links.
  • LHAP Web Interface V 2 Page. This version works with NS 4.x and NS 6.x (and IE I think). Remember theses are static pages, there is no PHP preprocessing these files and no MySQL db access. NOTE: these files are huge! they may be intolerable on slow links.
• Dan Lanciani's Lynx code (with my mods). Here is a link to Dan Lanciani's LynX10d software page.
• X10d client script X10talk.sh (should work with my X10d and Dan Lanciani's code)
• Netpipes 3.1 (the X10d script needs this). There have been reports that netpipes 3.1 won't compile unnder the newer Linux kernals but the netpipes 4.x does here is a link to get the newer software.
• X10d Watch program A Perl app that provides simple xtend like functionality should work with my Dan Lanciani's original X10d code and my modifications (for Linux)).
• John C. Peterson's x10es (x10es-1.0.src.tar.gz and x10ex-1.0-2.noarch.rpm) - The x10 event scheduler, or x10es for short, is a program designed for Unix systems to facilitate the scheduling of x10 control command (on/off) events. The program is not a daemon, it only runs once a day (using "cron"). At runtime, x10es will parse your event definition table, and schedule individual command events for the coming day (using "at").
• Manic_Marv has created replacement firmware for the CM11A. It's currently up to v0.5 and now supports 50Hz. It may not do everything yet but at least it's a step forward.

Other X10: Software for some of the other X10 controllers such as the CM15A and the CM19A.

• Chris Kreutzer has shared his X10AHP Java (CM15A Java code). He's using Java Libusb to interface to the USB sub-system. This reminds me that I have a bit of work to do on my CM15A code (protocol, driver and daemon).
• Craig Woodward has taken my cm15 driver and cm15d and modified it a bit and posted it to his cm15a page. I now have to figure out who to squeeze in the time to take his changes and integrate them with mine.
• Here's my cm15d and cm19a pages. Currently it's not even a release candidate but is compilable code which may be of interest to folks doing there own work related to the X10 CM15A and CM19A.
• Here's Michael LeMay's Linux CM19a device driver link for the X10 CM19A. Michael's driver differs from my own in that my driver has no additional intelligence for decoding the user/application input to CM19A commands (or vice versa).
• jHomenet - a suite for X10 and 1-Wire net hardware. I don't know if this works with Linux but it looks like it should.
• ehomeconfigurator - (software) was created, while I was doing my PhD studies. It will be one day superseeded by the ComponentConfigurator.
It is an open-source eHome system creator, software integration and development project. The result of the project will be a tool and environment for supporting eHome systems and processes.
• ws2500 - (software) weather suite is a complete software solution for extraction, processing, and Web presentation of data from an ELV WS2500 and WS2500PC weather station. Weather data can be stored in a MySQL database. The main component is the ws2500 application, which can read data and status information of the weather station via a serial RS232 connection. It can also set parameters of the station.
• PHP-BottleRocket/SOSDG - (software) is simple PHP4/5 script that allows you to control your X10 based home network devices.
• xbindDB.pl - Alejandro Gonzalez's script that helps update a table in a database every time a sensor is switched from open to closed.

Heyu: (CM11A) This is all software related to Dan Suthers' Heyu code.

• Heyu has a new home! Yes the link: Heyu will get you to the same place but the new link makes more sense. Originally Heyu was Dan Suthers' CLI interface to the CM11A software package. Now it's Charles Sullivan's baby. It now supports downloading macros and timers to the CM11A. There were a few bugs and things that got fixed too :-). The history.txt file mentions the major changes. Also see Xtend below. though I don't think the new Heyu (2.0) needs it.
• domus.Link - a web-based frontend for Heyu. It uses Apache + PHP + Heyu to provide a GUI interface.
• Xtend 1.2b4 1.1 software - Can be used stand alone or with Heyu (but not with any x10d, yet). Someone has updated Xtend and created this package. You can check out David Shaw's original home page for Xtend. Here's the xtend FAQ which mentions using Heyu Version 1.
• Stephen Martin's TCL interface to the CM11 using Dan Suthers' Heyu software
• Juan C. Méndez is informally maintaining a Gentoo ebuild for heyu. Thank you for the hard work.

Mr. House: (CM11A, Firecracker, Insteon, UPB, and lots of other protocol and interfaces, see Bruce's page for a further explanation) Bruce Winter's Perl app that runs on a number of OS's (MS & Unixes).

• Bruce Winter's Perl based HomeAutomation (HA) program called mysterious (mh) AKA - Mr. House or MisterHouse. It runs on Linux, BSD, AIX, Windows 95, 98, NT, XP and Vista. Since it is written in perl, it can in theory run on any OS that runs perl.
• Mr. House wiki - it's a wiki to support Mr. House. I've been busy adding the Mr. House Insteon support page there. :-)
• Perl Modules Bruce Winter has shared his modules for controlling the CM11 and CM17 (Firecracker) devices from X10.com along with simple usage examples for Win32 and linux. Additional Perl information

X10 Firecracker software - Dang these things are popular! We seem to get a new one every day. So I've made a separate section for the x10 Firecracker software. BTW Bruce Winter's Mr. House either has support for or will have support for the X10 Firecracker.

• Dan Lanciani's Firecracker software (also for the CM11A, Lynx10, & Red October ). I've posted my code so it will compile under Linux. Dan Lanciani's Firecracker code for Linux (with my mods).
• Java Classes for the FireCracker The classes are themselves pure Java, and should run without modification on any platform with a 1.1.x JVM, but they require an implementation of Sun's Java CommAPI to access the serial ports. So far, I know of implementations for Solaris, Windows, Linux, and OS/2. which communicate with the FireCracker device, which I am making available for the amusement of all.
• Control -- A map-based TCL interface by Clif Flynt
• Flipit - Matt Armstrong's software to control the X10 CM17 (Firecracker). For BSD & Linux.
• GTKX10 a GUI for controlling home automation devices based on the protocols for the CM17A Firecracker available from X10,Inc. It is fully configurable from a dialog box, eliminating the need to edit source code to set the device and settings.
• WMX10 - wmx10 is a companion to Tymm Twillman's Bottlerocket software, which controls X10's Firecracker Home Automation kit.
• CGI-X10 - Another CGI Script to X10 Firecracker interface, requires Bottlerocket software
• Updated link to BlueLava - Ian Wilinson's GPL'd CGI script that uses various commandline x10 utilities to control supported x10 devices. It currently supports Bottlerocket software (CM17A aka "firecracker"), Heyu (CM10/CM11A/CM12U), PPower (CM10/CM11A/CM12U), X10d (CM11A/CM12U) or Flipit (CM17A). More are planned.
• Bottlerocket software Home page. Bottle Rocket is command line software to permit the use of X10's Firecracker RF X10 interface. Bottle Rocker was written by Tymm Twillman.
• PHP-X10 - a PHP interface to Bottlerocket software. It is based very closely on CGI-x10 but uses PHP instead of Perl.
• WebX10 Web based Gui Using server side processing to handle request to X10's Bottlerocket software
• Michael Corral has created a GUI frontend for Bottlerocket, called TK10. It's written in Tcl/Tk and is very similar to the HR12A controller unit that ships with the X10 Firecracker kit.

UPB - Universal Powerline:

• UPB has the potential to pickup the slack where X10 left off. Here's what I can tell from the available documentation. It appear to use the frequency range of 4 - 40KHz (spread spectrum fashion) with 40 V peak signal. It's packets appear to be between 9 and 33 bytes long. Because of this I'm guessing that both UPB and X10 can co-exist (different frequency ranges). X10 uses 120KHzat around 5V p-p. UPB supports 250 house codes, 255 unit codes and 254 link codes (I'm not really sure what that translates to yet). UPB devices ACK the commands received (X10 do not) so use 2-way communication (closed loop, where are X10 is open loop). The response time is reported to be <.25 seconds where as X10 is slightly less than 1 sec. The devices are more expensive than X10 (though about the same for the higher quality stuff). There is a PC interface and they have a manuals to download that explains how to program it (search down for the PC interface technical manual). Over all it sounds like a better X10 to me.
• UPB4Java - Java API for the UPB automation protocol. Gerald R Duprey Jr has release his Java UPB API code under the Apache License.

ZWave:

• It appears the Pluto Home is the first to have code to talk to the ZWave controllers. You need to go to their tech pages, go down to the software section (I can't find it now but did find the zwave deb file). It supports the ACT Solutions HomePro ZWave interface which has been added to the Linux 2.6.16.12 kernel. I have the file here: pluto-src-zwave_2.0.0.39_i386.deb. Hopefully there will be more links to follow as I find the rest of the ZWave links I had.

Dallas Onewire/IButton: The section covers some of the available Onewire (1-Wire) software. For hardware, check in the Hardware section.

• Onewire File System (owfs) which will allows 1-wire devices to appear like files in a directory.
• DS9490R- USB to 1-Wire RJ11 - Dallas has a USB device interface for Linux using Libusb they also have a device interface for their RS232 version also. Check Dallas Semi ftp site for new versions of the software. Lastly they have support for Windows and Java on their 1-Wire Public Domain Kit page. This company (Dallas/Maxim) seems to understand Open Source a lot better than other companies!
• DigiTemp - A Dallas Onewire network package. This is Brian Lane's site which is a great resource for Dallas onewire links! I haven't played with it yet but hope to soon. This works with the newer DS9097U-009 & DS9097-S09.
• One Wire Weather for Linux (and other OS's). Uses Dallas Onewire chips to build a weather station. Check out the Dallas Weather site for further details.
• MIBFM - A simple utility for uploading/downloading files to/from Memory-iButtons produced by Dallas Semiconductor. Compatible devices are DS1993, DS1995 and DS1996. Connection to the iButtons is through the DS9097U-9 (DS9097U-009?).
• Another Dallas DS01820 package - I haven't checked out either of these DS-1820 packages. Maybe when I get more time.
• Dallas one wire software Andrew A. Burgess's Dallas Onewire software (which works with the old ds9097.gif schematic for the serial interface to the Onewire network).
• Dallas Tiny InterNet Interface - though not directly related to Linux, there is a Linux link on the page. This is a rather interesting device.
• Jesse Peterson has created the TINI Java X10 CM11A/CM17A Library. This allows a Dallas TINI to connect to an X10 CM11A. This will fit in nicely into the Linux Home Automation Project. Lastly Jesse is in the process of moving his site so this appears it may be up and down.

Weather related stuff: Software for weather stations, post weather infor and other general links and info about weather.

• One Wire Weather for Linux (and other OS's). Uses Dallas Onewire chips to build a weather station. Check out theDallas Weather site for further details.
• Weather daemon software for the WX200 & WM918. WX200 now has a home, Timothy D. Witham has creeated a SourceForge project for the weather station software. It also has a GTK+ interface, both can be found at SourceForge wx200d.
• Open2300 - Linux, FreeBSD and Windows software for the Lacrosse WS2300/WS2305/WS2310/WS2315 Weather Station.
• Sunrise/Sunset programs Programs to calculate Sunrise, Sunset, Phase of the moon (Setup for Eastern Coast of the US).
• Phase of the Moon Another program which calculates the phase of the moon, moonrise, moonset, sunrise, sunset and a few other things.
• Weather page update and tools. I use these with my WX200 weather station and info from NOAA.
• A weather station package, this time for the Davis Vantage Pro/Pro2. It can be found at http://www.wviewweather.com/. I'm not sure what license it using but it took me to a Sourceforge page so it's probably one of the Open Source licenses.
• AAG Electronica - This site has been around for a while. They began selling the Dallas 1-Wire Weather kits when Dallas stop selling them. (Used to be at the Dallas Ibuttons as the Onewire Weather Station. But Dallas no longer sells it). It appears they now have expanded to LCD's, relays, humidity, temperature, pressure and other 1-Wire sensors. Very cool stuff.

Velleman K8000 stuff: The Velleman K8000 is a computer interface card which can connect to the printer port, uses I2C and now USB.

• Nicolas Sutre has written a program for use with The K8055 interface board from Velleman on Linux. It's an analog/digital I/O board from Velleman. It uses libusb (available for *BSD, Linux and Mac. A Windows port of libusb is also available.
• PAUS - Edward Eefting's K8000 software which he describes as 'controlling "stuff" with easy scripts. You could for example make the light in your house go on and off in the way you specify. You also could use paus to create a remote controlled mp3box that also has a web-interface at the same time and shows the current song on an LCD display. :-)'.
• Tom Van den Bon has a web site called Geekhouse. Tom is using XPL and a K8000 (poke around the site, you'll find it) to control his home.
• Linux and the Velleman K8000/K8005 - The K8005 is a stepper motor controller. Here you'll find libraries to make your own software for the K8000 and K8005 (for LINUX and WINDOWS in C or C++). HiHiHi's home page (may be a better starting point).
• The Velleman K8000 & Linux HOWTO - This document describes how to setup your Velleman K8000 Board on a Linux system, using the i2c Kernel drivers.
• The Velleman K7103 Digital Storage scope - k7103 is a build yourself digital storage oscilloscope kit by Velleman. It is connected to the parallel port of a PC on which a frontend program is running to display the measured signal and to adjust the osci settings.
• The K8K kernel drivers for the K8000 board.
• K8000 Yahoo Group - (From the Yahoo page:) The Velleman K8000 is a computer interface card connected to the parallel port. You can do all kinds of robotics stuff with it. It has 16 binary Input or Output, 4 Analog to Digital and 9 Digital to Analog channels. See http://www.velleman.be. This mailinglist is about the Velleman K8000 and everything related to it. All operating systems, all programming languages, all applications.

Other: Misc, other, or untested. I've combined the sections together.

• Kit108 PHP Library for the Ocean Controls' Serial Digital Input and Output Controller. This controller is a 8 relay outputs (each capable of switching 5 amps @240VAC) and 4 opto-isolated digital inputs. Hmm, I didn't know you could do that with PHP (but I do now).
• Links to various SCADA software some free but I'm not sure of them all (http://plc.sourceforge.net/).
• James Russo has created a Perl module to interface to the Elk M1. He's hosting it at ElkM1::Control on Sourceforge. The Elk M1 is a security/automation controller (hardware).
• Sea Level has a bunch of PCI boards for various digital I/O. The drivers for those boards can be found here. There is currently support for their 4030, 8005, 8255, 8006, 8007, 8014 and 8011 boards.
• Zone Minder is intended for use in single or multi-camera video security applications, including theft prevention and child or family member or home monitoring and other care scenarios. It supports capture, analysis, recording, and monitoring of video data coming from one or more video or network cameras attached to a Linux system. It is suitable for both do-it-yourself and professional installations.
• DRACONi Automation - aims to be a home automation and digital entertainment control package. It's designed to be modular, meaning new kinds of functionality can be added easily. It supports the CM11A/CK11A, Applied Digital (ADI) Ocelot/Leopard/Leopard II Home Automation Controllers, XMMS Music Player, and Festival Speech Synthesis Software.
• Domo - Hal Fulton's Ruby based Home Automation (HA) which is intended to be a distributed, full-featured home automation software system, written in Ruby and running on Linux.
• LabJack - is a USB-based measurement and automation devices which provide analog inputs/outputs, digital inputs/outputs, and more. Eric Sorton wrote the original drivers but Labjack seems to be maintaining them now: Linux driver (Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) for the Labjack. Here are some of the features:
  
  • 8 Single-Ended, 4 Differential 12-Bit Analog Inputs
  • ±10 Volt Analog Input Range
  • PGA with Gains of 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, or 20 V/V
  • Up to 8 kSamples/Sec (Burst) or 1.2 kSamples/Second (Stream)
  • Supports Software or Hardware Timed Acquisition
  • Supports Triggered Acquisition
  • 2 Analog Outputs
  • 20 Digital I/O (Up to 50 Hz per I/O)
  • 32-Bit Counter
  • Watchdog Timer Function
  • Easy to Use Plug-and-Play USB Device
  • Connect Up to 80 LabJacks to One USB Port (We're not that far with Linux)
  • Complete Software Control, No Jumpers or Switches
  • No Power Supply Needed
  • Includes Cable and Screwdriver
  • Approximately 4" x 6" x 1"
  
  In addition I'm going to post my version (a tar'd and bzip2 file) of the Labjack Perl libraries. Chris has a more up to date version in CPAN (see the previous link above.
• Chris Drake has added his Labjack Perl Library to CPAN! So if you need the code just install it through CPAN. It's the "Device::Labjack" Library. Chris is more up to date than my code.
• Michael Wiertlewski has created labjackd - a telnet daemon for the Labjack. You can also access the CVS repositry and his main web site
• The LabJack U3 Linux Project - The aim of U3 Linux project is to provide a fairly high level interface without compromising the speed of the hardware too much. Further should it be easy to use for the average technical minded programmer.
• The X10 VA11A USB Video Capture adapter (Vendor ID 0x533, Device ID 0x2000). I don't have this device but I am interested as I now have 2 X10 camera's. But it turns out that a friend lent me his VA11A (thanks Vinny) and it needs this SPCA50X driver which is untested and a work in progress. Sean Fulmer found a link [Spca50x-devs] the dreaded X10 VA11A and Unbuntu - Spca5xx. I know it's says Ubuntu but it's applicable to other Linux distribs as well.
• Project Wish - this project implements the standard X10 protocol at the /dev device level so that it abstracts the communications protocol specific to the transceiver away from the user. As a result, a user application can be written to talk to the X10 network without concern for the type of transceiver attached. Currently the PowerLinc Serial, PowerLinc USB, Firecracker, and CM11A are supported.
• Parbus uses the parallel port as a bus interface. Don't laugh, how do you think SCSI (SASI) was started.
• PPower short for 'Penguin Power', is a piece of UNIX software for controlling x10 home automation equipment connected to the computer via a cm11a interface. It can be used to turn things on and off and lights dim and bright. In addition to controlling the x10 devices, it can receive commands sent to the x10 devices from other sources such as an x10 remote transceiver and execute commands on your system in response.
• Warren Bell has created a web-based interface to PPower (uses a CM11A) called HomeControl. It's written in Perl and schedules commands to be run and can run commands directly from controls on the web page. It's simple, but it's got some decent scheduling features. Demo, download and readme are on the project page.
• Net 9 provides 9-bit character message oriented communication protocol, which is transfered over an RS-485 link. Joachim Franek has schematics and a Linux driver for the package, very interesting.
• uLan Driver provides 9-bit character message oriented communication protocol, which is transfered over an RS-485 link. Linux, WindowsNT/2000/98, and DOS are supported.
• X10BOT - x10bot is an open source home automation daemon for x10 CM11A appliance controller and accessories under Linux. X10bot quietly listens to the CM11A and executes TCL commands and scripts when events happen.
• pascal Scheffers' CM11A TCL Library - Paul wrote it because he needed/wanted a Pure Tcl solution for using his CM11 interface module. The result is a work in progress that lets you control your CM11 from any machine/OS for which a Tcl 8.4 or better interpreter exist (i.e. a lot). The machine does not even need to have a serial port, as long as you have a machine that does which can run Tcl 8.4 and has a TCP/IP connection.
• Mindbright's MindTerm java applet. It's an SSH client that provides support for proxies (but not dynamic proxing) and SSH tunnels. This is not strictly a Linux related product (It's Java). There is a version for Netscape and IE. I've played with the Netscape version and it seems to work with 4.7 and the 6.0/Mozilla development versions with the Java plugin.
• Comedi - software to drive data acquisition hardware (such as from National Instuments and others).
• GPC - is the Global Premises Control package. It is intended to be a complete solution to the DIY home automation. It provides you with a daemon which will centralize all control functions, and some custom programs for sound, remote control and things like that. (Admin's note: I think it is a daemon for Parallel port control though I still need to investigate it further, in my spare time ;-).
• Parapin Jeremy Elson recently released a new library called Parapin that makes it much easier to do PC parallel-port based digital I/O using Linux-based software and device drivers. The library exports a much easier-to-use interface than the typical method of writing directly to registers, making it easier (in my opinion, anyway) to write software that uses the PC parallel port for digital I/O.
• TW523 - A driver to drive the TW523 directly from the parallel port of your Linux box. Mark Aikens wrote this beast (anyone with programming knowledge of the TW523 knows what I mean ;-). Currently it can only send commands (like the CP290) but at least it can be extended. BTW, I am aware of a similar program for BSD.
• rt_x10 - (software) is a realtime kernel driver for the X10 "two way power line interface" (model TM523). It is useful for home automation.
• Kevin Boone's X10 pages, he has an X10/TWSerial/Java setup running under Linux. In addition Kevin has a driver and utilities for the X10 mouse-remote. The software can be d/l'd from his download page.
• A.L.I.C.E. AKA Java Home Automation - Walter Bogaardt has created a Home Automation project under Linux entirely in Java (CM11A and Cm17A). Walter has some additional ideas for other programs in his package. This could be of interest to Tini folks.
• DomotiGa - an Open Source (GPL3) Home Automation Software from the Netherlands. It is written in Gambas Basic (Open Source too) and runs on Linux. You can read all kinds of sensor values with it, let it detect motion and schedule lights at certain times by the use of several hardware. For example DomotiGa can use the RFXCom receiver, Xanura CTX35 A10/X10 controller, Midon TEMP08 1-wire interface and more.
• X10 Ephem This code computes sunrise and sunset times. There is a library and an assortment of utilities. The most useful utility is x10events. This program parses crontab files and updates the time fields to track sun events given instructions in the comments. This code does not control X10 devices directly. You need a package like HEYU or X10d (see above) depending on the kind of hardware you have. x10events merely updates crontab entries.
• X10 MouseRemote for Linux - By Dan Wilga. One of the things that seems to be missing is good software to take advantage of the special buttons on the MouseRemote under Unix. Here is Dan's attempt to solve that problem. It was tested in Linux, but the client at least should work on nearly any flavor of Unix. The server may need some tweaking.
• TCL X10 Rich Auletta's x10asm (assembles the CM11A macro/timer file) and x10eeload which downloads x10macro.bit into the CM11a. Rich says it's not really ready but it's very interesting all the same.
• CP290 software
• LED Sign Java Applet Creates an LED Sign.
• LED Font file use by LED Sign
• Sunrise/Sunset programs Programs to calculate Sunrise, Sunset, Phase of the moon (Setup for Eastern Coast of the US).
• Phase of the Moon Another program which calculates the phase of the moon, moonrise, moonset, sunrise, sunset and a few other things.
• X10 Library for the CM11A by Herve Regad-Pellagru
• TMon is a room temperature monitoring system, that uses a digital multimeter (Mastech MAS-345) connected to a serial port with an RS232C cable. Temperature readings are taken at set intervals, and should the temperature reach a certain threshold, an alert is sent via email or SMS. All readings are either logged to a file, or via 'syslog'.
• Leon Koenig has created Linux software called DMM for Data acquisition software for Brymen multimeters/mobile loggers. It supports devices using the BC-85X or DMSC-9 rs232 interfaces but not the BC-81X cable which uses a non-rs232 serial protocol.
• QtDMM2 - is DMM readout software and a configurable data logger.
• Ser2Net - The ser2net daemon allows telnet and TCP sessions to be established with a unit's serial ports.
• Phantom Home Automation - A home brewed home automation project that involves hardware and software.
• XAL - The X10 Abstraction Library. I'm not exactly sure what it is yet. When I know I'll list it under the correct heading.
• PYX10 - This page hasn't been setup yet so I don't know what it is yet.
• T_H_X10 - Michael Keryan has built an Inexpensive Whole-House Temperature/Humidity Monitoring System This is the full text and graphics of a 2-part article that appeared in the February and March issues of Nuts & Volts Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Nuts & Volts Magazine ©1999. Included is software for the Parallex BASIC stamps (PBASIC), DOS/Windows (BASIC) and Linux (C).
• Lynx-10 ksh scripts (Untested)
• Net Lighting For the CM11A (Untested)
• Two Way Daemon For Two Way & X10 TW523 (both TW523 and RS232 Two Way dongle are needed)
• Cheap Light Switch - Use relays to control things (Serial/parallel ports, untested).
• TCL interface to the cp290.tgz Adam Hightowers software.
• Voice recognition Ears 0.32 (Alpha, untested)
• Voice recognition kvoice 0.11 (untested)
• Text to Phoneme software, also see Festival below. (untested)
• Sound card Oscilloscope Cthugha (untested)
• Tab Source for above Oscope (untested)
• Radio Shack Pen Oscope software (untested)
• Pen Oscope software - yet another pen oscope package for X11. ALso has support for Bitscope!
• x10mp3 - Mp3Anywhere for Linux
• I had been wondering how to take advantage of turning my printer on and off remotely via the cups scripts. Well I found some info on how to do just that. Here at: http://funderburgs.net/linux/x10printer/. While I'm not sure it's the best way to do this it is useful. One thing I need to add is SNMP so I can see if the printer is still printing and wait until it's done. More to follow on this!
• ACCSNMP - A Perl backend wrapper that accounts for jobs by querying the printer over SNMP for its pagecount before and after the job. Built-in support for job and user blacklisting. Simple accounting function stores user pagecounts in text files. Easily customizable.
• Asterisk PBX - While not really Home Automation it can be when added to Misterhouse or adding the appropriate AGI code to control x10d or Heyu.
• SIMPL - Framework for Access Control (opndrs) project. The idea is to build modules (ICs) that are building blocks for HA systems.
• Here's a link the Java folks might find interesting The Jini™ Home Automation project. The purpose of this project is to create a respository of information of how to use Jinitm software and hardware services to augment your home.

IR stuff: For those that are interested in IR (not IRDA).

• Linux IR remote control software (LIRC) is a package that allows you to decode and send infra-red signals of many (but not all) commonly used remote controls.
• Looks like this link is gone! I can't find another that replaces it. GDM's Xr3 Xr3 (Linux RedRat2 Remote Toolkit) - Xr3 is package of Linux tools for the RedRat2 serial port based Learning IR Remote Control. It was initially developed for use with a ReplayTV Personal Video Recorder(PVR) but has now been expanded to handle any kind of IR controlled A/V equipment. RedRat2
• David Kramer's perl IR Program. IR is an interface program to Chris Dodge's RedRat 2 infrared controller. It will not work with any other infrared device, especially IRDA. It is written in Perl. It uses only the basic Perl constructs and no external packages, so it should work on any platform that supports Perl and serial communications.

DMX512 stuff: For those that are interested. I've yet to check these out but it is an alternative to X10.

• Q Light Controller 2 Project - K Light Controller Project aims to develop a "cheap" way to control a set of lights through a computer interface. The name KLC comes from KDE Light Controller, although this software has no connections to KDE in any way. We wanted to keep the name as it is for nostalgic reasons (and because I've printed the name on one of the PCB's... :)
• Linux Lighting Group - Lighting Hardware and Software for Linux and similar platforms (DMX).

To learn more about the USITT DMX512 (1990) standard see:

• usbdmx.com Home of the opto isolated, bus powered, DMX512 interface with both in and out universes. Cheap and simple to build. So far this seems to be just for Apple's Unix used on the Mac. Ben does have a source tarball up there for those of us who don't have a Mac.
• http://www.interactive-online.com/
• Linux Lighting Group - Lighting Hardware and Software for Linux and similar platforms (DMX).
• Kelly Kohl's GPL'd DMX-512 project. It contains code and schematics. Kelly has used the PIC 16F876 and 16C76 chips.
• http://www.artisticlicence.com/

  A pre-built inexpensive DX512 digital controllers and software tools for Linux, DOS, and Windows (and more pricey USB versions) have also become available:

• http://www.soundlight.de/produkte/wg18/pcdmx_e.htm
• http://perso.wanadoo.fr/nicolaudie/siudi/index.htm

CAN stuff: For those that are interested. I've yet to check these out but here are some links to CAN for Linux. (I'm currently working on this one so it's a bit ugly but it's a start).

• CAN Festival s a set of drivers, API and tools aimed to implement Can and CanOpen field-bus layers. Lot of docs available in the tarball.
• OCAN - Open-CAN is a device driver for the Intel 82527 CAN controllers. It's quite lightweight and is equipped with a tiny hardware abstraction layer to support different hardware mountings of the chip.
• CANpie - The goal of this project is to define a standard API for access to the CAN bus. The API provides functionality for ISO/OSI Layer-2 (Data Link Layer).
• I found the Linux Lab project which can search for CANopen or can4linux.
• http://www.llp.fu-berlin.de/

There seems to be a project at:

• http://www.llp.fu-berlin.de/pool/newproj/CAN/ It appears to have a mailing list. I'll do some more research and add it to my collections of web links.
• CAN4Linux The universal LINUX device driver can4linux supports 82c200/sja1000 and 82527 based I/O interfaces. The AT-CAN-MINI is supported.
• CARACA - CARACA is a home automation project based on a net of interconnected programmable circuits suited to perform different tasks like switch on/off appliances, decode commands from Ir remote control units, control thermostats, measure temperature and more. Every node of the net communicate each other through a robust protocol (CANBus), and the status can be monitored by a PC possibly connected to the Internet. Now with Linux programs!
• For those of you interested in Linux and CAN (Control Automation Network) there is a project on SourceForge called: CANopen - this project intends to become a complete standard compliant CANopen library for Master (Linux) and slave devices (PIC18, C51, and AVR's so far).

Parallel Port stuff: For those that are interested in doign automation via the parallel port.

• Nada

GPIB stuff: For those that are interested in GPIB.

• http://www.inesinc.com/ - GPIB interface card and drivers.

LonWorks stuff: still a little light on links but we seem to be making progress.

• Göran Hasses' Arigo driver software. This card interfaces to the LONWorks network. This is the first piece of software for use with Linux and LONWorks. Thanks Göran!

  Arigo board

  • http://www.raditex.se/
  
  
• Nautsilus - a company selling LonWorks tools for Linux and QNX.
• Device Drivers for I2C, DMX, DAQ, CAN and Lonworks boards.
• EasyLon software driver for Linux. This is to be used with the EasyLon PC interface card. I don't know if that includes the PCI card or not.
• Gadget Stack by Adept Systems (ASI) has software that allows one to access LonWorks. I think it's a developement enviroment and not an end user APP. As an interface there is a LonWorks/IP router. See this Building Automation article for details of the system.

EIB/KNX stuff: For those that are interested in European Installation Bus (EIB). EIB has now changed it's name to KNX and coverged with the EHSA and BATIBUS standards.

• Salari Sandro (XCode) pointed this out on comp.home.automation: KNXLive based on Knoppix 3.9, the CD contains, pre-installed and ready to run:
  • A BCU1/PEI16 device driver
  • An EIBnet/IP Tunnelling server ("Tweety"), which uses a BCU 1 with serial interface for EIB access
  • A Java Library ("Calimero") for accessing EIBnet/IP Tunnelling servers, handling group data exchange using popular data point types and maintaining a simple point database
  • A graphical demonstration client for Calimero
  • A tool set for writing and downloading BCU applications, RAD-style ("BCU SDK")
  • The powerful EIB access daemon ("eibd") of the BCU SDK
• Here's a link for info on EIB (Thanks Dave!).
• EIB for Linux is a Linux driver and tools for the European Installation Bus (EIB) connected via BCU1. This package actually contains a low level device driver for linux kernel 2.2.x and BCU1, console and X busmonitor (GTK), Eiblet - EIB Low Level Group Object Bus Communicator, and a sniffing tool.

• Eib4BSD - Frank Behrens' EIB BCU1 FreeBSD driver.
• Linux (and Windows) EIB Home Server - This project provides a framework interfacing with the European Installation Bus (EIB). It allows users to control EIB devices from their PC. It is designed for standardized bus coupling units 2 (BCU2) using the FT1.2 protocol over RS232.
• For those looking for a newsgroup for EIB take a look at domotique-EIB. Domotique-EIB domotique.EIB est un forum de discussion, consacré aux aspects de la domotique basée sur l'EIB "European Installation Bus" Ce forum est semblable à fr.sci.techniques.domotique mais traite exclusivement des aspects domotiques liés à EIB. Using Babelfish to translate the previous text to English Babelfish says (and I'm not making this up): domotique.EIB is a forum of discussion, devoted to the aspects of the house automation based on the Drunk EIB "European Installation" This forum similar to fr.sci.techniques.domotic but is milked exclusively aspects house automations related to EIB. Which means it's a French forums devoted to EIB (similar to the newsgroup fr.sci.techniques.domotic. (Forgive the translation, it was just too funny).
• I'm not quite sure where to put this but ... Connect is a software to design, setup, commission and test home and building-automation systems. It will support various bus systems such as EIB.
• Freebus.org -

PLC's (Programmable Logic Controller):

• Df1 for linux. Df1 is a small implementation of the DF1 Protocol use by AB with SLC500 and PLC5 series. This program is a daemon to communicate with ethernet TCPIP from programmable logic controller SLC500 and MicroLogix ALLEN-BRADLEY connected on the serial port . You can read and write float, integer and bit in SLC500. Only Full-duplex is implemented.
• Beremiz - Open Source framework for automation. Directly form the home page: With Beremiz, you can :
  • Automate everything.
  • Take any processor into a PLC.
  • Program once, run anywhere.
  • Create PLC controled customizable HMIs.
  • Conform to standards.
  • Avoid vendor lock.

Ocelot stuff:

• Tom Witmer went ahead and wrote a GPL'd Java toolkit ("Javacelot") for communicating with the Ocelot. It uses the RXTX utilities for the serial port communications.
• CPU-XA to Linux interface (A.K.A XALIB) I received the Ocelot (an upgraded CPU-XA) and I've started to work with it using Misterhouse. Works great!

HCS II stuff:

The HCS II is an expandable, network-based (RS485), intelligent-node, industrial-oriented supervisory control system intended for demanding home control applications. The HCS incorporates direct and remote digital inputs and outputs, direct and remote analog inputs and outputs, real-time or Boolean decision event triggering, X-10 transmission and reception, infrared remote control transmission and reception, remote LCD displays, and a master console.

• The Open Source HCS project. This is a project that I am involved in. We're taking the entire line of HCS II product and Open Sourcing the hardware and software. The project is geared towards those who don't mind picking up soldering iron as well as an assembler or C compiler.
• Creative Control Concepts HCS II Open Source Project List (http://www.cc-concepts.com/opensource/). Even though it's not directly Linux related it is useful.

Future stuff:

• Directory Index - a Perl script that creates an index of a directory and output's it to index.html. As usual I couldn't find a simple tool to do this so I wrote one.
• Weather page update and tools. I use these with my WX200 weather station and info from NOAA.
• Link Checker V 0.1 - A simple Perl program which checks links on a give URL (page) and checks to see if they return 2xx, 4xx, 5xx or other codes. I tried the far more complicated ones and settled on this for checking my pages from Misterhouse. Future releases will generate a web page report (currently it's just a plain text report).
• Link Checker V 0.2 - I've taken my original linkcheck code an made it so it can out directly to sendmail. This includes the correct email headers and html support. I did this so I could get color in the report. I've tested this with Thunderbird. Currently the color version doesn't have a plain test option but that's why I kept the previous version of link check. The support page for both versions of Link Check can be found here
• X10 Macro compiler (Not available yet, see x10.tcl above for something very close)
• Serial port Data scope (Not available yet)
• X10d Java Client (Not available yet)

Other related projects: (this may get it's own section) In case you are wondering why I would advertise other projects that could compete with my own (LHA). It's because these pages are devoted towards Linux and not my own projects. Let the better software win. Competition is good for all.

• TACO
• EDA

Zigbee/802.15.4/Bluetooth: - The whole family of protocol suites of low powered wireless protocols for Linux. You'll also find some of my wireless toys here too.

• One-Net - ONE-NET is an open design standard (protocol) for low power wireless devices, optimized for residential and small business control applications. I've taken notice of this and I like the fact that it supports point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and multipoint-to-multipoint networking.
• Zigbuzz - The ZigBuzz project is an open source effort to create a ZigBee(tm) stack for Linux.
• Freak Labs - (hardware) An Open Source ZigBee Blog

Other:

• JOmniLink II - API is a very thin wrapper around the published omnilinkII spec. This Library is Licensed under the GPL v2, if this does not work for you please contact the author for other options. This is for the new HAI protocol.
• Omnilink - (software) Java implementation of the Omni-Link Serial Protocol and Network Protocol as described in two separate specification documents released by Home Automation Inc (HAI). Possibly talking to an older version of the HAI API.

Not ready for primetime: (Alpha code)

• LHAP Web Interface V 1 Page. This version works with NS 4.x (and IE I think). Remember theses are static pages, there is no PHP preprocessing these files and no MySQL db access. NOTE: these files are huge! they may be intolerable on slow links.
• LHAP Web Interface V 2 Page. This version works with NS 4.x and NS 6.x (and IE I think). Remember theses are static pages, there is no PHP preprocessing these files and no MySQL db access. NOTE: these files are huge! they may be intolerable on slow links. Here is the source code to the LHAP web interface
• Linux HCS II Page - information and software for the HCS II.
• The Linux Home Automation Project. I've registered the project on SourceForge and seeking help on a variety of sections such as the main daemon code, GUI interfaces, and event processing.

---

Documents

• A number of folks have asked me about how they can get started in home automation. So I created an intro called: Home Automation 101. Hopefully this will be a useful intro for everyone (even those non-Unix users :-).
• I'm working on a couple of Home Automation Presentation for a couple of local LUGs, a PC Users Group and the Trenton Computer Festival. I hope to get portions of this under Google's Presentation software (just to see how it works).
• HTI's Phil Kingery article on X10 protocol technical detail and history. If you want to understand the protocol read this article first.
• HTI's Phil Kingery X10 Technical Series.
• X10 Technology Transmission Theory. Here X10 explains various items such as the transmission theory, trouble shooting, FAQ's, some manuals, downloads and support (at least that's what it says).
• Here's a PDF copy of the X10 Techical Note (I think David Rye of X10 Engineering is the author of this). This is X10's Tech Note for the TW523 & PL513. It also explains most of the bits (literally) of the X10 protocol. The exception is an updated manual called "Standard" and "Extended" X-10 Code Formats which update the X10 protocol as of July, 1998.
• mTW523 - This is my modified TW523 page. The projects allows you to build a modified TW523 so that all the bits on the AC (pertaining to the X10 protocol) can be displayed.
• Dan Suthers' CM11A protocol file converted to HTML.
• Dan Suthers' protocol.txt file CM11 protocol file.
• "Standard" and "Extended" X-10 Code Formats
• X10 RF data Formats
• X10 Firecracker protocol
• CM15A Protocol file - My attempt at an X10 CM15A power line and RF transceiver document like the CM11A has. Currently it's not finished but it should continue to grow.
• CM15D/CM15A Protocol file - I need to combine the CM15D and CM15A documents as this is confusing! My attempt at an X10 CM15A power line and RF transceiver document like the CM11A has. Currently it's not finished but it should continue to grow.
• X10d README file
• CPU-XA Eight Character ASCII PROTOCOL
• CPU-XA Program Format
• X10's Tech Note for the TW523 & PL513 (Adobe PDF file).
• More X10 related links (not really ready, I have to gather my links together).
• Dave Houston's X10 info Pages - Dave has some interesting X10/Wireless project plus all the rest of his HA stuff. Check out his page for further details.
• Complete Home Control with Mr. House - Originally put together by Alan Womak. I've been storing my version here and working on it from time to time.
• Wiki - Home Automation, a pretty good page to get some info on home automation.
• The Linux Coffee Pot this can also found on most Linux systems under /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/Coffee It looks serious but it's also humorous.
• The internet coffee machine - The Trojan Room Coffee Machine - t started back in the dark days of 1991, when the World Wide Web was little more than a glint in CERN's eye...
• RFC2324 - Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)
• RFC2325 - Definitions of Managed Objects for Drip-Type Heated Beverage Hardware Devices using SMIv2
• The Internet Coke machine
• A page of Open Source/Creative Commons books.
• and of course my home automation book: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies.

---

Other Software Links

• Dan Lanciani's X10d software page (for the CM11A & Lynx10) This is the software I mainly use. I've made a few modifications to my copy. Dan has ton's of other HA related software on his page including hacks to X10's RR501 to allow it to become an all house code RF/IR transceiver. This is very cool!
• Dan Suthers' Heyu software Page. Dan's page has the all important protocol.txt file a must have for programming the CM11A. Dan also has his own code for the CM11A that works under Linux.
• Xtend software This software permits the use of monitoring events and performing actions based on those events. So far it only works with Dan Suthers' Heyu software. I've attempted to get Dan Lanciani's software to work with it but Xtend's X10 state engine doesn't work exactly the way the CM11A does.
• Directory Dallas Onewire software Home of Andrew A. Burgess's Dallas Onewire software. I recommend picking up the ds9097.gif schematic for the serial interface to the Onewire network
• CP290 Software This is Paul Fox's CP290 software for Linux. Perhaps the very first software for use with Linux (Paul also modified someone else's code).
• FreeBSD Home Automation though not really Linux related directly, it does have the HCS II software I started off with. I will be replacing that software with an X10d version that interfaces to the HCS II board. I've already written the frame work and will now begin the work of directly interfacing it to the HCS II.
• Festival Speach Synthesis This is really a pretty good speech synthesis program. I particularly like the XML language extensions. Currently I use it to help tell me the current temperature (from my weather station).
• CMU's Sphinx project (Open Source Speech Recognition Engine).
• Bruce Winter's perl based HomeAutomation (HA) program called mysterious (mh). It runs on Windows 95, 98, NT, Linux, BSD and AIX. Since it is written in perl, it can in theory run on any OS that runs perl.
• Karl Denninger's X10d addons for use with Dan Lanciani's X10d. Karl now has support for the AppDig modules. Karl's software is written specifically for FreeBSD but it compiles under Linux. I hope to have a few patch files available so it can properly compile under Linux.
• The link to get the netpipes software
• James Derrick's description of his system and a DIY Realtime Control DIY Anemometer.

---

Hardware Links

• One-Net - ONE-NET is an open design standard (protocol) for low power wireless devices, optimized for residential and small business control applications. I've taken notice of this and I like the fact that it supports point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and multipoint-to-multipoint networking.
• Freak Labs - An Open Source ZigBee Blog (not Linux specific)
• USB/IP Project aims to develop a general USB device sharing system over IP network. To share USB devices between computers with their full functionality, USB/IP encapsulates "USB I/O messages" into TCP/IP payloads and transmits them between computers.
• Linux, C18 and the Bol-Bot - (robotics) I've created a page explaining how I use make, wine and C18 to compile programs for the Bol-Bot.
• My robotics page - a place for my robotics projects.
• USB/IP Project - (hardware) aims to develop a general USB device sharing system over IP network. To share USB devices between computers with their full functionality, USB/IP encapsulates "USB I/O messages" into TCP/IP payloads and transmits them between computers.
• opnode ("open node") - an 'Open Source' network controller design (I think). Two opnodes are available at this moment: opn-one and opn-232 (with opn-x10 application which support the CM11A). Currently I'm having a little trouble figuring the whole thing out but it looks like it also supports the xAP and xPL protocols.
• EZBridge Insteon to Ethernet Bridge Server - This provides an ethernet interface to the Insteon PLC. It's not a standalone server. EZBridge allows Ethernet connections into an Insteon home automation network using a TCP client/server socket. The unit receives and sends XML messages and does the appropriate handshaking with the PLM
• ISY-26 - IP Bridge/Controller is a standalone, INSTEON-compatible home automation controller that allows you to link the devices on your INSTEON network without having a dedicated computer running 24/7. You can set up timer events and custom event triggers, as well as monitor and control all the INSTEON-compatible devices in your home from any web-browser anywhere in the world! Now you can check if the lights in your house were left on and remotely turn them off from your computer at work. X10 commands are not supported at this time but a future release of the software will support X10.
• C-Bus Open Protocols - the name pretty much describes it. Though it may be an 'open' it seems to be closed source and a program you need to be a partner for ($$$ in my opinion).
• Bill Richardson has posted schematics, on his web site for his PIC based projects. He is looking for ideas and advice on his projects. He wants to make open source home automation products for anyone to afford & use. He'd appreciate any help.
• Computer Solutions Ltd (ComSol) has a LIN Interface and Gateway with Linux drivers.
• Dave Houston's X10 info Pages - Dave has some interesting X10/Wireless project plus all the rest of his HA stuff. Check out his page for further details.
• IButton/Onewire - Maxim/Dallas SemiConductor's web site for their 1-Wire & IButton products. It contains everything you need to support and purchase their products. I wish more vendors where like this!
• AAG Electronica - This site has been around for a while. They began selling the Dallas 1-Wire Weather kits when Dallas stop selling them. (Used to be at the Dallas Ibuttons as the Onewire Weather Station. But Dallas no longer sells it). It appears they now have expanded to LCD's, relays, humidity, temperature, pressure and other 1-Wire sensors. Very cool stuff.
• Bitscope Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO) - Bitscope is an open design 100 MHz Digital Sampling Oscilloscope and 8 channel Logic Analyzer. It comes in kit or preassembled, has a serial interface default (115Kbps) but you can purchase a network interface (625Kbps remote access, very cool!). I have on of the older VM120 Bitscope but I can't wait to get the VM220 upgrade.
• Home Automation Knowledge base - Ido Bartana's home page. It has an incredible collection of information on X10. Definitely a must see site for those interested in X10.
• The Yakko project is a home automation system. It defines a new protocol implemented as firmware running in AVR atmega microprocessors. The goal is to build a method to make logical connections between hardware devices such as lamps, switchers and so on.
• Raditex AB IP IO-module - Raditex AB has developed an IO-module suitable for mounting on a DIN-rail. This module is commanded by IP. The module has 4 relays, 4 digital in/out ports and 4 out ports that givs 0-10 volts. The module is driven by 12V. The command that are needed are in this document. More info to follow ...
• Richard Kinch's Pool controller setup - This page describes Rich's project to control the equipment and chemistry of his residential swimming pool using a PC running Linux. This essay describes the goals of the project and the custom designs he used to implement his ideas.
• Mike Baptiste's Creative Concepts page. This page has links to projects to build your own PIC based devices that can connect to the HCS II boards. Make is now licensed to sell and support the entire HCS II line of hardware and software. There have been a number of new ideas put forth to Mike and a few may make it to products.
• Dr. Edward Cheung's front door (Home automation is on his home page, follow this link to that page). Dr. Cheung has created his own HA nodes on his network. He has some very interesting devices there.
• Kellee Crisafulli's has created his own boards for his HA and hooked them up to a StarGate controller. He has given enough detail that you can take his PCB layouts and order up a few boards for yourself! Thanks Kellee. The boards are based on the popular Microchip PIC chips.
• Circuit Cellar The Computer Applications Journal. And Circuit Cellar Ink, the magazine of embedded control applications.
• Marrick LTD Makers of the Lynx-10 controller and the now released Lynx-10 PLD.
• ADI - Applied Digital Inc. Makers of the CPU-XA, Ocelot, Leopard and IR-X boards. All look interesting for HA. Here is their support link
• I don't know why I had forgotten this but Dataq Instruments has an inexpensive 8 bit ADC w/3 digital inputs, the DI-194 Starter Kit (you'll need to search for it as the link is gone). I know it says free on the page but you need to qualify to get it free but at the ~$13 (US + P+H) it's still inexpensive! They have other data acquisition kits also, check em out. And for those who wish to writ there own programs check out this link for raw data information (useful for creating your own programs). Here is a link to a C file (dataq.c and makefile) to access the Di-194 under Linux (BTW, I have the source so if the link ever dies I can post it here).
• T_H_X10 - Michael Keryan has built an Inexpensive Whole-House Temperature/Humidity Monitoring System This is the full text and graphics of a 2-part article that appeared in the February and March issues of Nuts & Volts Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Nuts & Volts Magazine ©1999. Included is software for the Parallex BASIC stamps (PBASIC), DOS/Windows (BASIC) and Linux (C).
• High Tech Horizon (HTH) - They have a power line modem (PLM) kit which runs at speeds up to 2400 bps. They have a Linux library to interface to the SNAP protocol. and they also have an interface to the 3Com Palm platform. Basically you hook the PLM to the serial port and the AC line and you can communicate across the AC. This looks interesting and I hope to get my hands on the kits in 2000.
• Express PCB - PC board layout software and manufacturing service. This one may come back to bite me because it's Windows software but I wasn't aware that such low cost services were available. Further investigation is warranted.
• JDS - JDS Technologies manufactures Home Automation and Environmental Control systems and peripherals including STARGATE, STARGATE-Lite, TimeCommander-Plus, TimeCommander, TeleCommand, Infrared Xpander and a variety of accessories.
• Momitsu DVD-V880N Networked DVD Player (they've since come out with a new model). An interesting toy, a networked DVD player. It is capable of playing MPEG 1, 2 and 4, AVIs, various audio (like OGG and WMA), display JPEGs, and Shoutcast. You'll have to search for rest of the specs here they've changed the site around (sorry). It comes with support for Windows but you can get their Momitsu Media Center for Linux and OSX by sending them an email.
• MSP430 Development with Linux. While not HA it still makes a good dev platform (the MP430) for HA nodes.
• Dominic Rath has created OpenOCD - Open On-Chip Debugging, as part of a diploma thesis at the University of Applied Sciences, FH-Augsburg. To put in basic term, Domonic has created a project that allows us to build a simple jtag interface and using software like gdb debug your processor on an embedded system.
• I've created a 'hacks' page for the Linksys WMLS11B, you can't run Linux on it but there is some support from the user community.
• I've created a 'hacks' page for the D-Link DSM320. D-Link has made the GPL Linux source code available for a number of their products. This page will attempt to provide various information on buildling a new distribution for the DSM family.
• For those that needs to boost their weak X10 signals there is the XTB (X10 Transmission Booster). A few users have reported that this has helped with their X10 when they've started adding Insteon modules.
• I now have an ESM1 page. It's really for my own reference but I thought I'd post it just the same.
• I've been taking notice of the ELK M1 Gold - much like the HCS II it has lots of IO. I've also noticed the ELK M1EZ8 which is where I'll start. The M1EZ8 seems to be a good starting point and I can add the features like an Ethernet interface.
• Nash Lincoln's Gaggia Espresso PID Arduino Mod - Nash has modded his Espresso machine using the Arduino Decimillia (an AVR board) as a PID. Here's a view from the inside of the mod: internals. Hard to tell where the mod is? Isn't it. Very nicely wired. Nash also references Tim Wescott's Embedded.com article titled: PID Without a PhD, good information.
• Nash's inspiration for the Espresso mod was Tim Hirzel's PID PIC NES mod for his Espresso machine.

---

Projects

• The OpenRemote project. This project is an Open Community in the Home Automation and Domotics space. We believe an Open Source approach can revolutionize the way people create, install, and maintain software in the industry. This project is going to do for home automation what Asterisk did for telephony.
• The BACnet protocol stack library provides a BACnet application layer, network layer and media access (MAC) layer communications services. It is an open source, royalty-free library for an embedded system, Windows, Linux, or other operating system. Example BACnet client and server applications are included. BACNet is a Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks (see bacnet.org for further details).

• Digispeaker - is a purely digital whole house audio system. It is capable of obtaining and delivering purely digital music directly to the speakers installed throughout a home or business. Only at the very last moment is the music converted to analog sound. All sourcing, transportation, processing and amplification of the music signal is done digitally. Because of this, DigiSpeaker is an extremely versatile and efficient system for playing music throughout a home.

  Each DigiSpeaker is a self contained network node, audio processor, 100W amplifier and speaker device. DigiSpeaker is designed to be installed in the walls and ceilings of homes. Or, optionally, it can be configured as a standalone unit that can be placed in a room. Each DigiSpeaker exists as a node in a network of DigiSpeakers that share information wirelessly or via cable. DigiSpeaker only requires standard house power. No other connections to the unit are necessary although some connections are desirable depending on the installation.

• Pieter Knuvers' site: Bwired.nl. He also runs the Domotica Forums, Europe. Domotica is the name for Home Automation in the rest of the world. The folks on the forums have all sorts of interesting HA products. I'll add this under the Projects section.
• Eric-jan Riemers' Home Automation Wiki - A place for home automation information.
• The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet (btw, the 800 and 810 are also out), it's a tiny computer that runs Linux, it has:
  • a 800x480 touch screen (720x420 windowed, 800x480 full-screen, 16 bit depth)
  • uses MMC cards as storage
  • has a 802.11 b/g wireless network interface
  • Bluetooth interface
  • and a USB interface (has the ability to be a host or device)
  The price looks to be about $350 (US). Team this up with Misterhouse and some other goodies and you'll have yourself one very nice setup! Nokia has an Open Source web site Maemo, which is the development web site for the Tablet. They have a mail list and SDK tutorial for Maemo. Also available for download is the source and some apps. This bodes rather well for the Nokia 770. I hope to see a long life for this project.
• Open Source HCS - this project is one of my favorites! We've Open Sourced the Circuit Cellar HCS project. We have the source code to the main controller's (SC or supervisor controller) firmware. And the source code for the Host and XPRESS compiler. We've found a substitute controller for the SC and we're working on replacement Comm links. We'll be supporting the older modules and designing new modules and a more advanced SC.
• Mister House - Bruce Winter's Perl based HomeAutomation (HA) program called mysterious house (mh) or MisterHouse. It runs on Windows 95, 98, NT, Linux, BSD and AIX. Since it is written in perl, it can in theory run on any OS that runs perl.
• Asterisk PBX - While not really Home Automation it can be when added to Misterhouse or adding the appropriate AGI code to control x10d or Heyu.
• For those interested in monitoring their home power usage we have this nice link to Building a Home Power Monitoring System. It won't give you your exact power usage (it watches trends) as it doesn't watch both current and voltage (AC Watts require you take into acount the phase angle in the math). But still nice to have. If you want exact power usage check out Dr. Ed Cheung's web site (go to -> Home Automation -> Power Line monitor).
• Tivo HME SDK - An SDK for developing applet type applications to run on the Tivo. The Tivo interface will act like a browser.
• Java Home Media Option - a media server for the Home Media Option from TiVo™ and adds new innovative features beyond the existing functionality provided by TiVo's implementation.
• Linux Wireless Sensor LAN Project. Basically it's 802.15.4 (aka ZigBee)standard low-rate wireless personal area networking.
• Frank Hitzel's VIMMS - Visual Module Management System. frank has built a system powered by the ATMEL AT90S2313 micro controller and a Linux PC that controls a digital I/O interface and hardware watchdog interface, a stepper motor controller and a RS232 multiplexer.
• Manic_Marv has created replacement firmware for the CM11A. It's currently up to v0.4. It may not do everything yet but at least it's a step forward.
• VSCP - Very Simple Control Protocol VSCP a very simple and free protocol for SOHO automation tasks. It seems to interface to CAN and the EDA project. They currently have examples using AVR's for temperature, humidity and IR.
• Domo - Hal Fulton's Ruby based Home Automation (HA) which is intended to be a distributed, full-featured home automation software system, written in Ruby and running on Linux.
• MIT's Oxygen - Bringing abundant computation and communication, as pervasive and free as air, naturally into people's lives.
• CANopen - this project will become a complete standard compliant CANopen library for Master and slave devices.
• MythTV is a homebrew PVR project.
• Freevo is an open-source digital video jukebox (PVR, DVR) based on Linux in addition to a number of open-source audio/video tools. Freevo can be used both for a standalone PVR computer with a TV+remote, as well as on a regular desktop computer using the monitor and keyboard.
• xAP Home Automation Protocol. xAP, (pronounced ZAP) is an open protocol intended to support the integration of telemetry and control devices primarily within the home. It is the glue that supports the interconnectivity of Home Automation devices. It seems to be similar to the UPnP protocol but with less over head (UPnP won't fit on a PIC).
• Tony's Home Automation Website - The XPL development web site. It contains details about the XPL HA protocol (for 'LAN' use such as, but not limited to, RS485, ethernet etc.).
• The Official XPL web site - XPL is a network protocol for handling XPL messages (related to HA) and network services for handling of the message to execute scripts.
• NIC-based Adaptive and Efficient Residential HVAC Control (NIC-aerc). Uses the 'net, temperature sensors and calculations to figure out the heating and cooling of a home.
• Billy Big Mouth Bass Hacking - This project uses the power of Linux to add brains to the Big Mouth Billy Bass. The goal is to use any Linux device--desktop or embedded--to make the Big Mouth Billy Bass say or act any way you want! That's right, we want to convert Big Mouth Billy to the least expensive peripheral you'll ever buy.
• ActiveKnob - Marc F. Hult has a collection of DMX512 related links (including software and schematics) for his ActiveKnob project. His project is his 19th century home.
• mTW523 - This is my modified TW523 page. The projects allows you to build a modified TW523 so that all the bits on the AC (pertaining to the X10 protocol) are displayed.
• The Linux Home Automation Project. I've registered the project on SourceForge and seeking help on a variety of sections such as the main daemon code, GUI interfaces, and event processing.
• HAT - Adam Davis' Home Automation Terminal. It's an LCD terminal based on a PIC 16F876.
• Portable SDK for UPnP Devices - (libupnp) provides developers with an API and open source code for building control points, devices, and bridges that are compliant with Version 1.0 of the Universal Plug and Play Device Architecture Specification and support several operating systems like Linux, *BSD, Solaris and others. This site replace the next link.
• Intel's Universal Plug and Play* (UPnP) SDK for Linux. he UPnP SDK for Linux provides developers with an API and open source code for building control points, devices, and bridges that are compliant with Version 1.0 of the UPnP Device Architecture Specification. Intel Corporation originally developed this SDK and has donated it to the open source community through SourceForge*. They have the spec's, SDK and a mail list. There are alos more links to other useful info. Use the previous link instead of this site.
• TACO - an object oriented control system originally developed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) to control accelerators, beamlines and data acquisition systems. At the ESRF TACO is used to control over 30 beamlines and three accelerators - a linear accelerator , a booster synchrotron and a storage ring. TACO is being used for instrument control for the new neutron source FRM-II in Garching-Munich, Germany. TACO has also been applied to telescope control at the 26m radio telescope at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (South Africa). TACO is very scalable and can be used for simple single device laboratory like setups with only a few devices or for a big installation comprising thousands of devices. TACO is a cheap and simple solution for doing distributed home automation.
• Gatespace. Gatespace is a charter member of the Open Services Gateway initiative and provided the core of the reference implmentation of the OSGi standard. Or in other words they have the OSGi dev kit on their site. You have to sign up for membership and then you can download there dev kit. Please carefully read the license when you install it into your system. There are limitations that may cause some problems. Editor's Note: This membership doesn't cost anything as opposed to the OSGi membership below.
• Open Systems Gateway initiative - OSGi The Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) is an industry group working to define and promote an open standard for connecting the coming generation of smart consumer and small business appliances with commercial Internet services. The Open Services Gateway specification will provide a common foundation for Internet Service Providers, network operators and equipment manufacturers to deliver a wide range of e-services via gateway servers running in the home or remote office. Editor's note: Membership cost $20,000 US/year (OUCH!). Anyone care to chip in for the LHA projects membership? ;-)
• ECS is a commercial all-purpose object-oriented Windows/Linux automation program that is suitable for virtually any tasks (in commercial, industrial, and residential environments). Supporting a large variety of devices, ECS is elegantly simple, yet extremely powerful. Automated tasks may be implemented via simple time-based schedules (great for novices) and/or English-like scripts (which give power users the flexibility they demand). And anyone who can surf the web will be comfortable with ECS, as it supports a browser-based user-interface (accessible via the Internet or WAP-enabled phone/PDA). Editor's note: I asked Mark Gilmore (ECS's author) to send me a description of his product because I didn't get enough of a chance to really put it through it's paces. I know it sounds a bit like a sale pitch but that's all right. I've been on Mark's mail list for ECS for a number of years and he provides excellent support and deserves a little slack. This product is not Open Source and is a commercial product but that's OK as there is enough room for Commercial and Open Source products.
• Pluto - Pluto is a free, open source smart home solution that seamlessly integrates:
  • media with a server for music, movies and tv shows, plus a PVR and DVD Player,
  • a home automation system with touch-screen tablet and Bluetooth mobile phone controllers,
  • a phone system with video conferencing,
  • a security system that feeds you live video on your mobile phone when there are interruptions, and lets you speak to visitors through your stereos,
  • it lets you control your X10 devices with the PC, webpads, pdas and mobile phones, using both scenario shortcuts and interactive floorplans.
• LinuxMCE - LinuxMCE is a free, open source add-on to Kubuntu, complete whole-house media solution with pvr + distributed media, and the most advanced smarthome solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills. It's a fork of Pluto Home. It has support for ZWave (wireless home automation controller and modules). Here's a 25 minute Google Video on it's installation and use. Lastly here's the LinuxMCE History page. It's an interesting read. This looks like it's going to be an intereting project.
• Building a Home Automation and Security System with Python, which has a do it yourself hardware from QualityKits. Shows how to control a serial I/O kit (relays) from Python. Looks like fun! :-)
• Shell Scripting a Camera Server, cool.
• This one really isn't Linux it's for the Mac OSX but it is using Insteon so it may interest a few folks looking for code. It's called Shion.
• The DIY Zoning Project is a repository containing the information about architecting, designing and implementing the Do It Yourself Temperature Zoning system, introductory course for those planning to install a ready-made temperature zoning system, and those who just want their home comfort.

---

Other Links

• I've updated the Linux Coffee Howto and given it a new directory. Originally written by Georgatos Photis (and in Greek and English) I've cleaned up a little bit of the English translation and added a few things. Over all it still George's work but I hope to continue to contribute to improving the howto.
• Nash Lincoln's Gaggia Espresso PID Arduino Mod - Nash has modded his Espresso machine using the Arduino Decimillia (an AVR board) as a PID. Here's a view from the inside of the mod: internals. Hard to tell where the mod is? Isn't it. Very nicely wired. Nash also references Tim Wescott's Embedded.com article titled: PID Without a PhD, good information.
• Nash's inspiration for the Espresso mod was Tim Hirzel's PID PIC NES mod for his Espresso machine.
• The Home Automation Wiki. It has a rather interesting link to the Lego RCX X10 RF sniffer along with other links to X10 RF stuff.
• The Linux driver for the Quickcam Web camera.
• The Puffin Project - features an open-source PLC and related links.
• IBM's Advanced PvC Technology Laboratory - This is an interesting Web page about IBM's effort to use automation.
• ClassOver Lib - this is a library of JavaScript functions for doing a mouseover popups. I found it while working on my LHAP Web Interface. It provides support for IE, NS 4.X/6.X and Mozilla.
• AbsoluteValue Systems is a company specializing in wireless LAN system product development, especially for embedded applications. AbsoluteValue Systems is an avid supporter of the Linux operating system, and they are the creators of the linux-wlan™ Project. Editors note: The development system is rather expensive.
• LinuxDevices.com, "the Embedded Linux Portal", features a broad spectrum of Embedded Linux topics -- including news, articles, events, links, jobs, polls, discussion forum, product, and company information -- all exclusively focused on embedding Linux. A wealth of information is provided about hardware, software, tools, and support, including both commercial and noncommercial real-time and small-footprint Linux distributions for embedded applications.
• Embedded Linux Consortium The Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) is a nonprofit, vendor-neutral trade association whose goal is the advancement and promotion of Linux throughout the embedded, applied and appliance computing markets. Members contribute dues and participate in management, promotion and implementation efforts, in return for a growing market opportunity for all.
• FreeDos - An Open Source effort to create a DOS clone (I think). The reason I've included this here is that there is always the opportunity to run DOS on a small x86 system as an embedded controller.
• My weather page! It's the first run of the programs to poll and post to the internet. Currently it runs every 4 hours but the Anemometer and Rain guage are really off line. I'm now taking advantage of the sitecopy program to post the info to the net and it has worked very reliably.
• Circuit Cellar BBS - For many of the engineering community the Circuit Cellar BBS was a great place to share and question ideas. It has now been replaced by a news server and an ftp server. Instructions on how to connect to it can be found at http://www.circuitcellar.com/products/newsgroups.asp
• Site Copy - Basically a program which takes copies of your homepages and other related files, which you store on your local machine, and transfers them up to the web server only when there has been a change. It only transfers files added or changed and will delete file that you remove. It's an easy way to restore backups or keep pace with updates. http://www.lyra.org/sitecopy . It's written by Joe Orton.
• Slashdot - News for nerds! I love this site.
• Freshmeat - get you're daily dose of new file info. Also a great place to find other files!
• HTI Home Toys - Home Automation Information including a news magazine, product and services directory, shareware library and comprehensive list of links.
• AutomatedBuildings.com is an on line magazine and web resource providing the news, as well as a connection to the exciting and rapidly evolving industry that automates large buildings. We provide news, press releases, interviews, education and articles for any automated building system stakeholder. We seek and publish articles that reflect the users and designers of Automated Buildings' point of view.
• Home Automation Ponderings - This is a page that I've created in response to a Slashdot post about Linux and the Palm Pilot. Eventually I'll merge it into the x10d.html page. That page has gotten too large to be usable, as has this page.
• Home-Automation.org which touts itself as "the most complete directory of home automation links on the web". To which I agree, It has a very nice collection of links to many HA site and software for many OS's. I take it this site will be around for quite a while.
• Hmm, looks like Mike Baptiste has taken care of the HA FAQ! Mike runs Creative Control Concepts producer of the HCS II.
• O'Reilly has a new news letter for the DIY (old school type hackers :-). It's called Make. Personally I think the name isn't very good but it is to the point. It touts itself as "The First Magazine for Technology Projects". I think it will follow along with the "Hacks" (Hacks - n., A clever solution to an interesting problem) series of books.
• Alek Komarnitsky's web page - Alek has a Halloween lights & Webcam page and a Christmas lights and webcam page Check out his other links as he has quite a few that are interesting. Somewhere on his site I found a link to where he discusses surviving a 'Slashdotting'. I've got to find that again!
• OK, I'm beginning to see problems with software patents and I don't like the direction commercial enterprises are going with it. So I'm adding a link to NoSoftwarePatents.com. And as a bit of fuel for the fire, here's an example of what's wrong with the patent system: Microsoft's IsNot patent and Slashdot's reaction. Being able to compare addresses is basic to assembly language and C. So how can something so simple be patented? It's obvious, not innovative!
• Here's an interesting use of the NSLU2, Unslung 6.8 and SIS-PM (a 4 port USB-switchable power socket). It's has European outlets which isn't very useful for the US and Canada but I'm sure the European's don't mind. ;-). Folks in other countries can probably purchase a Labjack, some relays and sockets to accomplish the same thing.
• Home Automation Sites - The Resource Directory, a (large) collection of link on all things home automation.
• I've created an entire Multi Media page devoted to Entertainment systems for use with Linux. So far it's mainly UPnP media (music and video) servers but I hope to expand that much further.
• I created a page devoted to Linux, Sendmail and Comcast.net. Recently Comcast made a change to the way 'home' users connect to there mail clients. I've created this page to document the changes I made to be able to properly send mail with sendmail.
• Here are 2 interesting articles (part I and II) on home automation: Home Automation Portal Appliance and Home Automation Portal Appliance, Part II. From a quick perusal of the articles it sounds like my thoughts on modern HA.
• IO-Anywhere - which appears to be a company that sells hardware that supports SIMPL. The hardware allows you to have remote ports (serial, digital, analog, etc) via RS232, RS485 or Ethernet.
• Not Linux related but still interesting, The LAUG Podcast 06.07: Home Automation. It's about an hour and a half long but you need Quicktime (ick!). This is Bruce Sergeant's MAC presentation on home automation. He's using Xtension and he talks about X10. He does get a few minor details incorrect but it's a decent presentation.
• This is an interesting article from Sun on It's Come to This - http://www.myfridge/check_ice.html - New appliance portal technology from Sun Labs makes web connectivity cost-effective and useful for appliance makers. The technology incorporates a next-generation architecture that may change the way web servers serve. While it sounds like a good idea I need to learn more about this before I can give it a thumbs up. I will say this much I like Java and I like object oriented programming (OOP). In home automation they can work really well. In my Perl code I make use of several OOP features.

---

Sendmail

I've had a few problems with my local mail provider so I've had to work out a few different ways to get sendmail working with my Linux system. My current setup is sendmail sending via my Google Mail account. I had a working setup with my 1 and 1 service but I'm missing something important and I can't get that working anymore. I also had a working Comcast setup but I'm finding that Cocmast is interfering with my mail so I switched to Google mail.

• Linux, Sendmail and Comcast.net
• Linux, Sendmail and Google Mail

---

---

Commercial products available for Linux & HA hardware

Note: None of the following links are are being paid for and I'm not endorsing any of the products being sold at these links. They are simply supplied as reference and you should investigate each supplier before purchasing.

• ECS is a commercial all-purpose object-oriented Windows/Linux automation program that is suitable for virtually any tasks (in commercial, industrial, and residential environments). Supporting a large variety of devices, ECS is elegantly simple, yet extremely powerful. Automated tasks may be implemented via simple time-based schedules (great for novices) and/or English-like scripts (which give power users the flexibility they demand). And anyone who can surf the web will be comfortable with ECS, as it supports a browser-based user-interface (accessible via the Internet or WAP-enabled phone/PDA). Editor's note: I asked Mark Gilmore (ECS's author) to send me a description of his product because I didn't get enough of a chance to really put it through it's paces. I know it sounds a bit like a sale pitch but that's all right. I've been on Mark's mail list for ECS for a number of years and he provides excellent support and deserves a little slack. This product is not Open Source and is a commercial product but that's OK as there is enough room for Commercial and Open Source products.
• Home Automation System - A commercial home automation system based on RF modules. D.I.Y.ers can use the code free of charge. The commercial portion is the appliance, it's setup and support for the PC and RF module. I'm currently not sure if these RF units can be used only in Cyprus, or in Europe or in other parts of the world.

---

Articles I've written

Various articles I've written hopefully I'll be given a chance to write a lot more. :-)

• Hometoys - Unix Home Automation , April 1999
• Embedded Linux Journal - Embedded Linux and Home Automation, November 2001
• Circuit Cellar Magazine - The Open Source HCS Project, August 2002
• Wiley Books - Linux Smart Home For Dummies, August 2006
• My Home Automation presentations are now on line.

---

Web sites I've authored

• This site
• The Linux HA Blog
• Linux Smart Homes For Dummies Forums
• Linux Smart Homes For Dummies (my book)
• The Linux Home Automation Project
• The Open Source HCS Project
• My Google pages, so far I'm not sure what to make of this service.
• US Home Automation - my consulting site. So far there's nothing there.

---

Web toys (geek mind candy)

Since the web first began we had various 'toys' on the net to watch or control. As a geek I can appreciate taking something that was meant to do one thing and adding electronics to it to automate it or make it do something else. The first 'toy' I can remember reading about was the networked soda machine and the networked elevator (I need references). Then the was the Internet Coffee machine (with a web camera to watch it) and the Internet refrigerator. Now a days everyone has web enabled weather stations and web cameras. This section isn't for those. It's for the toys that we built by the user.

• And our first stop goes to Alek Komar who caught a lot of 'do-do' for the his 2004 Christmas display (see this Slashdot Article where they called it a scam, a bit harsh in my opinion). Alex has since built a Controllable Christmas Lights web site. In 2004 Alex and I spoke about the technical details and difficulties of a web controllable setup. In 2005 he built a working web controllable site (though there appear to be plenty of doubters but not me). He has put it up again this year. Also check out Joe 's Linux.com column called Linux powers controllable Christmas lights for charity. The article isn't all that much but the tech video is interesting.
• Here's one I've had for a long time. Georgatos Photis' Linux COFFEE-HOWTO. It's from 1998 but I like it. It used to come with every Linux installation (but not anymore). I really need to update it and add to the ASCII graphics as graphic images.
• Like most geeks I like odd toys, especially ones where they're computer controlled, can be built at home and come with an explaination (schematics and software are a bonus :-). Here's a push puppet for Linux. Pierre-Philippe Coupard built this and has posted the software, schematics and how-to. Now that's a great toy!
• Al Linke created a DIY Magic Mirror (I don't know, Disney kinda scares me ... ;-). Anyway this in pretty neat!
• Robosapien - I've got one and I'll post hacks here. For now take a look at Evosapien and Robodyssey for hacking information
• Lego Mindstorm - I've also got this and I'll post hacks here.
• My interests have turned towards robotics and AI so I created a page to put up anything I think important (or not) enough to save.

---

Temporary links:

Links here may not last more than a few weeks. These are press announcements, news articles etc. General stuff of interest to the home automation group.

• The Smart Home, Part I
• The Smart Home, Part II
• Power grid is found susceptible to cyberattack. My opinion is that this is nothing new. That doesn't mean it isn't serious.
• Clearing the Air About Hacking Into The Smart Grid - I'm not sure about this one. I think the article may be a little bit of a FUD piece.
• Telecoms Eyeing Home Energy Management? -
• AT&T takes smart grids residential - (you may need to login)
• Google.org Energy Information - Another one that I'm not certain what to make of it. So far there not much there.
• I've posted my Linux Geek Holiday list on my blog. I only have a few ideas but I wouldn't mind people sharing their ideas.
• The BBC has an interesting story called: Smart homes a reality in S Korea. There's a lot of interesting information as well as some not so practical technology such as wearing mini-PC's on your wrist (so you can be tracked).
• Here is an article called "An Avatar Is Born". Though it seems to play up the avatar, Cleopatra, it vaguely covers othe subjects that most HA enthusiasts seem to enjoy in various setups. The subject of voice recognition (VR) was brought up and it seems that it's still tough to tweak VR so it understands everyone.
• The Type-A Bathroom by Jon Weinbach and Peggy Edersheim Kalb (Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters). Seems that there is no rest from work for some. A few high end (big buck$) smart homes have a lot of digital access in the bathroom too! TV's, computers, hey bring the Blackberry with you, that kind of thing. So how do you explain the rude noises while on your cell phone? :-P
• I found this link: The Pepper Pad about an interesting tablet type PC that runs Linux. It has an 800x600 LCD and a 600+MHz processor and more. I suggest reading about the spec and you decide. I think it's too expensive. The President of Pepper posted a response to a PCMAG (pcmag.com) review of the Pepper Pad. To see my comments take a look at my Blog entry: Misc. news. My opinion in short, the Pepper at $850 (US) will go the same route as the Audrey. I think the Nokia 770 at $350 will work out to be much cheaper. I'll just use the ADI Ocelot (<$200 US)as my IR solution with MH
• Dave Houston has found a nice little device which may replace the Audrey as a favorite touch screen (for lack of a better name) for HA. The Nokia 770, it's a tiny computer that runs Linux, it has a 800x400 screen, uses MMC cards as storage, has a 802.11 b/g wireless network interface, Bluetooth interface and a USB device interface (it connects to a PC as a device). The price looks to be about $350 (US). It has a stylus so it looks to be a touch screen. Team this up with Misterhouse and some other goodies and you'll have yourself one very nice setup! :-) It's only draw back appears to be the battery life, 3 hours running, 7 days standby. If the stand has a recharger then this should be too much of a problem.
• CNN has an article on HA in there Tech section titled Smart' homes not far away By Julie Clothier (for CNN). It about a family of 4 living in an experimental home that will adapt to the user's routines (this aught to be interesting). And then it goes on about water main breaks and using your cell phone to control your home. Rather mundane stuf to those who are already doing it. ;-) Still an interesting read and the sidebars have some interesting side effects. I think it's worth a read.
• 01/08/2005 - PC Magazine's article entitled The Digital Home. It has various articles on monitoring this and that Win Media Centers and using X10. While not perfect it's still interesting.
• 10/16/2004 - Joe Barr at Newsforge has an article titled: "ZoneMinder: Linux home security par excellence". Basically giving the details of how you take some IP cameras, Linux and Zone Minder software to create a video surveillance setup for your home.
• 09/30/2004 - Dilbert's Ultimate House (duh) - though it's not really HA it is an engineering kind of thing. :-) In fact they rejected HA because it was too complicated. :-O There is a tour but it will require Quicktime and Flash to access it. They have pictures and the specs also.
• 01/14/2004 - Wired has a story, Welcome to the Broadband Home of the Future - Not really home automation or a futuristic home but a bit interesting.
• 01/09/2004 - Another Slashdot article about TiVo's New offerings . Tivo/DVD Recorder, TivoToGo where TiVo users with Home Media Option will be able to transfer files off their TiVo onto their PC and XM Radio for TiVo. It will be things like Tivo that will make it easier to add other home automation offerings to customers.
• Wired magazinehas a few interesting articles on Home Entertainment (and by association Home Automation). The first: Home Is Where Intel Wants to Be - the short of it is consumers want to simplify the entertainment stack (VCR, DVD, Stereo, CD, Amp and TV) and Intel think it can deliver (big screen no less) and at an affordable price. The next article: Future Home Full of Web Wonders - I think you've just got to read this. :-)
• 12/28/2003 - Slashdot has another article titled: Japanese Firms Create Home (Appliance) Network on Home appliance networking. Various Slashdot subscribers question why we need it others defend it, blah, blah, blah. Some good links to other useful things (a few included below).
• A CNN Technology article titled Firms team up to create more Web-linked appliances. really not a whole lot of details, basically a group of Japanese companys working together to create a new standard call "iReady".
• Diomidis Spinellis' Info Furnace, basically a PC-type device that integrates existing consumer home-control, infotainment, security, and communication technologies to provide in a transparent manner user-friendly access and value-added services. Something we all seem to looking for in Home Automation but seem to get there via different methods.
• Push Button Manor - a home automation article from the the Dec. 1950 Popular Mechanics magazine. Now that's ahead of your time! Emil Mathias of Jackson, Mich. automated his home with electro-mechanical equipment (like surplus WW II bomb sites). This is got to be the ultimate home automation project! Not only that but the SAF was there too!

---

HA Forums

Various forums for the discussion of Home Automation and releated topics

• OpenRemote Forums -
• OpenRemote chat (Flash based) -
• Domotica Europe - The rest of the world refers to home automation as Domotics and these forums are for those who are in Europe and surrounding areas and interested in Domotics.
• Cocoontech - General Home Automation sites
• Smarthome forums - Smart Home Automation product forums and general HA topics.
• Cris' Elk Blog - A blog for the Elk M1 HA controller.
• X10 Wireless Forums - Forums related to the X10 products.
• EIB Forums - Forums for EIB and KNX home automation.
• comp.home.automation - the Usenet newsgroup for everything home automated.

---

If you have questions about Home Automation and/or Linux you may email me at ncherry@linuxha.com . This email address is not for unsolicated email (if I didn't opt-in then it's unsolicated).

Please come back and visit my page again (hopefully this is worth reading).

Last updated: Saturday July 04, 2009 

---