[How to] Control anything in your home using Cortana Control Home app and FREE Premise Home Control

[etc6849]

Requires you to be very knowledgeable with PC's and electronics, but my YouTube channel goes through how to set everything up click by click if you watch the numbered tutorials in order!
 
Quick Demo
[video=youtube;wn3mZA-WVBI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn3mZA-WVBI[/video]
 
What's Required?
1. Setup Motorola Premise Home Control (free home automation software) on a windows PC.  This is not bloatware, Motorola used to sell the software for around $1000, but made it free when they discontinued support.  There's an online support forum and a wiki though!  Plus there's an SDK, so new technologies are added by tech savvy users.
2. Link whatever you want to control to your Premise server this can be lighting, HVAC, Security, A/V, anything that can be hooked somehow to your PC or network  (KODI/XBMC, z-wave, insteon, radiora, upb, global cache...  hundreds of supported devices and technologies).
3. Install and setup my SpeechParser module (by watching tutorial #7.x on my YouTube channel).
4. Install my Premise Control Home with Cortana app to control your home hands free by saying "Hey Cortana...Control Home...[insert command here].  
 
Key Features
Note the command phrase is not order dependent and works with synonyms too; you can even ask questions about your home (such as what is the brightness in the living room, when was the front door last opened, etc...).
You DO NOT need to program a sentence for each device/property for this to work with your voice.  Just give Premise the room names (regular expressions are supported, but optional), and my free Premise SpeechParser module does all the work of figuring out what you want based on what devices you have automated in a particular room!
App uses a background Cortana voice service that is enabled once you open and setup the main app, so it works when things like KODI are in the foreground!
App is compiled as a "Universal Windows Platform" (UWP) app, so it will work with Windows 10, Windows Phone 10, and maybe the Xbox One in 2016!
 
Link to App in Windows Store
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh67ncl
 
Wait, How Does This Work?
[video=youtube;g-hx9WxkIz8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-hx9WxkIz8[/video]
 
Numbered Tutorials for Setting Up the FREE Home Automation Software
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6fLTEmRoGam7B5VoKazC9A/

 

[jkmonroe]

nicely done.  i don't know much about cortana, but she seemed to be solid in your video.
 
one question, let's say i have win10 tablets strewn around the house; in the app where you enter the address it would just be to your server?  

 

[etc6849]

Yes, just enter the hostname or ip address for the Premise server.
 
You also don't need to worry about the loopback network connection.  That was just to get around MS's security limitations on app's accessing localhost.

 

[chucklyons]

ETC - If there is a qualifier higher than legendary, you have reached it!!!! ray:

 

[etc6849]

Thanks.   Hopefully with Windows 10 being free, more Premise folks will try this app.  It will work on all Windows 10 devices.
 
I wouldn't use Windows 10 on your Premise server though, you can't turn off automatic updates in Windows 10, so who knows if an update will break something.  I don't want this risk on my HA server.  I've had Windows Update break stuff several times in the past, and recently, Windows update killed Netflix in WMC without even asking!
 
The app is live now.  Here's the Windows Store link:
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh67ncl