Dont you think that the microprocessor in the Ethernet expansion board is being under-utilized? Just for driving an ethernet interface and (at most) running a java web server?
My new ultimate expansion board would be based in the existing Ethernet expansion board, but would add the following:
- Solid state memory to add virtually unlimited text, voice and IR capabilities.
Free memory currently used by voice and text from main board, so that they can be used by rules. Support several languages, and add real voice (WAV or compressed, instead of synthetised voices). I'd really love to have my HA system to speak me in spanish, and add several custom words. About the implementation, I would use two mirrored SD Card slots. In case that one fails the other takes over. The SD Cards would be user provided - you buy the size that you need. All data to be stored in these cards would be uplodaded from the Elk-RP via the Ethernet interface. The interface would be reponsible of mirroring the cards (if you choose to use the mirroring capability) and creating the CRC checksums for every object.
It would also support the recording/playback of IR codes to be stored in this solid state memory. Each IR would be stored as a discreet command addressable in the controller rules. Obvioulsy, it would need some kind of IR input/output interface. I assume that the M1 does not support these functions because of lack of memory. With this new board and the newly available >1Gb SD Cards only the sky is the limit (not really, but you understand)
This memory would also store the high resolution images to be used by the board's Java Web server. Again, the existing Java interface is simple because of limited memory, but now the extra memory provides new capabilities.
You could also store here the setup and configuration of your Elk-RM. Therefore, as soon as you install the Elk-RM in other PC, you can pull exactly the same configuration and keep the same interface across your house.
- Hard Disk interface for high capacity multi-media playback.
With a ATA or SATA interface, you provide your harddisk. How much, you want 300Gb? Buy your own harddisk and connect it yourself. I'm OK with 40Gb and will save some money. My new Super Ethernet/multimedia expansion board will handle any size of harddisk.It would support playlists and play at least one lossy and one lossless format, but more is better (OGG/FLAC do not pay royalties). The card would have high fidelity line level output and would mix-in the other control board messages that would normally be played at Output1. Music would also be uploaded via the ethernet interface, but this time it would use the end-user interface Elk-RM instead of Elk-RP. You want to teach your customers how to upload their new music into the harddisk. It would also support upload via FTP for the benefit of the non-Windows users (Linux/Mac).
This board would close a little more the gap between the M1 and the PC based solutions. The only major thing missing would be the pulling of information in external web sites (weather, etc.) for local playback/display. While possible, it would require some HTML parsing scripting language or something similar. Also, ideally, a robust, multi-language TTS engine. I thing that adding these things would add too much to the complexity of the system and would increase the probability of problems (specially the scripting capaility). So for now, unlimited voice/text/IR/images/music is good enough.
What do you think?
My new ultimate expansion board would be based in the existing Ethernet expansion board, but would add the following:
- Solid state memory to add virtually unlimited text, voice and IR capabilities.
Free memory currently used by voice and text from main board, so that they can be used by rules. Support several languages, and add real voice (WAV or compressed, instead of synthetised voices). I'd really love to have my HA system to speak me in spanish, and add several custom words. About the implementation, I would use two mirrored SD Card slots. In case that one fails the other takes over. The SD Cards would be user provided - you buy the size that you need. All data to be stored in these cards would be uplodaded from the Elk-RP via the Ethernet interface. The interface would be reponsible of mirroring the cards (if you choose to use the mirroring capability) and creating the CRC checksums for every object.
It would also support the recording/playback of IR codes to be stored in this solid state memory. Each IR would be stored as a discreet command addressable in the controller rules. Obvioulsy, it would need some kind of IR input/output interface. I assume that the M1 does not support these functions because of lack of memory. With this new board and the newly available >1Gb SD Cards only the sky is the limit (not really, but you understand)
This memory would also store the high resolution images to be used by the board's Java Web server. Again, the existing Java interface is simple because of limited memory, but now the extra memory provides new capabilities.
You could also store here the setup and configuration of your Elk-RM. Therefore, as soon as you install the Elk-RM in other PC, you can pull exactly the same configuration and keep the same interface across your house.
- Hard Disk interface for high capacity multi-media playback.
With a ATA or SATA interface, you provide your harddisk. How much, you want 300Gb? Buy your own harddisk and connect it yourself. I'm OK with 40Gb and will save some money. My new Super Ethernet/multimedia expansion board will handle any size of harddisk.It would support playlists and play at least one lossy and one lossless format, but more is better (OGG/FLAC do not pay royalties). The card would have high fidelity line level output and would mix-in the other control board messages that would normally be played at Output1. Music would also be uploaded via the ethernet interface, but this time it would use the end-user interface Elk-RM instead of Elk-RP. You want to teach your customers how to upload their new music into the harddisk. It would also support upload via FTP for the benefit of the non-Windows users (Linux/Mac).
This board would close a little more the gap between the M1 and the PC based solutions. The only major thing missing would be the pulling of information in external web sites (weather, etc.) for local playback/display. While possible, it would require some HTML parsing scripting language or something similar. Also, ideally, a robust, multi-language TTS engine. I thing that adding these things would add too much to the complexity of the system and would increase the probability of problems (specially the scripting capaility). So for now, unlimited voice/text/IR/images/music is good enough.
What do you think?
