Anyone else using a Thin Client

[Tuicemen]

Being a developer I was approached about creating something for a Thin Client.
Since this is a low powered fan less PC I thought it would be perfect for my off grid home. 
The software is currently in beta testing but testers have been wondering about increasing memory & or drive space. 
I've picked one of e-bay and it has been running smoothly in my city home for several months.
I've tested with a x10 cm17, cm19 and cm15 but it is unable to use zwave as the embedded system isn't capable of running dot net 4 ( at least I haven't been able to install it)
Many use these as Magic Jack machines as there are a few forums on this.
 
I can currently view my IP or video capture card connected cameras as well control Wi-Fi LED lights and x10 devices.

 

[pete_c]

Very interesting there Tuicemen.
 
Here I've been "playing" a bit with an O2 Joggler which is a very modible tabletop capacitance touchscreen tablet.  It's running an intel atom cpu with 512 Mb of internal memory.  The higher end ones have a zigbee and a DECT chip in them.  The EFI boot chip is replaceable with a Seabios ROM overwrite.  I have some running in a native linux flash os, ubuntu, windows and android.  It could be an embedded automation plus touchscreen display thing.  I've modded mine to adding two internal plus one internal USB port and a ZIF SSD drive.  The Openframe version 7 or 2.0 has speakers mounted on the front and a mini PCiE slot inside of it with a custom USB webcam port on the top.  I put a Broadcom digital HD card inside and created a very small Linux XBMC OS such that I could fit it on the 2Gb flash built into it.  Works well.
 
Many years ago played with a few Netier XL1000 and XL2000 thin clients.  WYSE purchase them a few years back.  Not extremely quick; but very functional.  The last few I played with were Smoothwall firewalls.  The XL2000 had a PCI riser card which I had installed the second NIC.  That said I put an overclocked AMD inside of it taking it to around 1Ghz.
 
Much more room in the Netier XL terminals than the O2 Joggler.  That though I can still fit a small footprint zif connected SSD drive and a WLAN USB stick inside of one.  It alreay has a Gb NIC built into it.

 

[Tuicemen]

My hope is to eventually get something like what Compulabs has to offer.
 
I've played with mini android PCs as well
However there currently are no drivers for X10 which my setup consists many of.
I can control my setup with one running TAC but I still need a PC running PC Companion
 
My HP Thin Client  runs about 6 watts without a monitor and power consumption is something I need to keep an eye on with my solar powered place.

 

[pete_c]

BTW I am running X10 stuff on one Ubuntu box and doing some automation with a Seagate Dockstar.  The x10 stuff was easy to set up on the Ubuntu server and I do not think it would be an issue to set it up on the seagate dockstar.  I already have multiple serial connectivity to it via usb to serial devices.
 
This last year I added more X10 controllers to my automation stuff.
 
Relating to the small Android devices; the folks at XBMC have been able to strip out the Android OS which was only doing stuff with software and mainline Linux directly to the hardware making these devices function faster and better than using Android 4.X (too much fluff still in it).
 
Relating to tiny embedded; check out the hardware specifications for the new little Android based "TV sticks".  Just replace the firmware and use a 32Gb fast micro SD card on it and you can have a very small footprint, low energy little automation controller the size of the large USB memory stick.

 

[Tuicemen]

Relating to the small Android devices; the folks at XBMC have been able to strip out the Android OS which was only doing stuff with software and mainline Linux directly to the hardware making these devices function faster and better than using Android 4.X (too much fluff still in it).
 
Relating to tiny embedded; check out the hardware specifications for the new little Android based "TV sticks".  Just replace the firmware and use a 32Gb fast micro SD card on it and you can have a very small footprint, low energy little automation controller the size of the large USB memory stick.

I had read about that however my development skills are limited to androids and windows run devices.
I did play around with Linux a bit  but just never stuck with it long enough to get comfortable.

 

[pete_c]

I read your threads about using the Chumby devices.  Here I swapped out the Chumby (big and small) OS's with basic linux stuff and while the CPU was only an 800Mhz Arm and it did have limited memory; but the replacement OS ran circles around the flash based OS on them (which was a bit fatty).  I did only play with the 3.5" and the other larger screen chumby.  That said you can probably purchase chumby's today for pennies on the dollar.
 
The seagate dockstar is using mono opening the doors for your Android and Windows stuff and connectivity.
 
That and I did do a quickie Mimo USB touchscreen monitor to the Seagate dockstar such that it was a little micro pc with a basic x windows, keyboard and mouse connectivity a few years back.  Worked fine.

 

[sic0048]

I run an older http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t5720/index.shtml]HP T-5720 thin client[/url] for my kitchen touch screen and the CQC interface.  It runs XP-E and has flash memory so there is no hard drive creating heat and noise - in fact there are no moving parts on the machine at all.  I simply install the CQC interface app and then "write" that configuration to the flash memory.  That way it is saved so anytime the device is rebooted, it restores the XP-E OS with my programs installed on it.  It is inside a cabinet below the touchscreen.  It works really well and even handles the flash based interactive weather maps very well.  My quad core photo editing machine with 16gb ram is only slightly faster in rendering those radar maps.  On the thin client it might take 15 seconds to fully load the animation loop while on the quad core machine it might take 10-12 seconds.  Once the initial images are loaded, the thin client has no problem playing the animation without studdering.
 
I picked these up used and have run them 24/7 since late 2008.  I have had no issues with them.
 
Obviously you need to match the hardware to the desired job.  Expecting a low powered thin client to do photo editing would be disastrous for example.  But if the desired task is within the realm of possibility for the selected hardware, using these small low powered devices can certainly save money and energy.