Sacedog
Active Member
I WANT IT! Any idea who the manufacturer is...Google search turned up with nada for me.
Will the ipad be the ultimate-home-automation-controller?
- Thread starter easytimhal
- Start date
I WANT IT! Any idea who the manufacturer is...Google search turned up with nada for me.
MrWindupBird
New Member
Well, that kind of depends on what type of "Business" you are in doesn't it? A Mac will absolutely never replace Windows as an admin's PC, or in law offices, or in the CFO's office, etc... - but there are many businesses where Macs dominate - and the fact that OS X is unix at its core has brought a whole slew of people over to the platform. I would much rather type %ls than $DIR any day...
Three years ago when I started working at my current company (as a software developer), none of the engineers were using Macs - only the designers. As it is today, there are only 2 engineers left using a Windows PC as their only PC - all the rest of us use Macs and depending on the project run the necessary Windows programs in a VM - or boot using bootcamp if absolutely necessary.
Back to the OP - yes the iPad will have huge impact on the HA industry. I personally became interested in adding HA to my house only after getting an iPad. Figuring out what I am going to get is the hard part - figuring out how I want to control it is now the easy part... I already have a working HA UI on my iPad - I am a fan of simple yet elegant UI design - its kinda what I do for a living - which is how I feel a control UI should be - there is no need for excessive design elements, background screens, fake rain drops, etc... but that is just my opinion... here is a link to a (working) UI I threw together as test:
crap... being a newbie, it won't let me post the vimeo url, but here is the video ID - just append it to vimeo
12546540
I am leaning towards Lutron RA2, as I like that they are extremely open with their control protocol - which is going to be a must in my environment...
What was that UI done in? Here's the direct link: http://www.vimeo.com/12546540
Looks like a home theatre control panel. Cool.
MrWindupBird
New Member
Thanks for posting the URL (I can't even quote it - uhg)!
The UI is simply a touchOSC template I threw together using the touchOSC editor (a cross platform template designer). I basically got excited about home automation after putting together some rather complex UI's for some musical instruments upstairs in my studio when an annoyingly loud commercial came on the TV and I was like "I wish I could just move this fader to control the volume of my HT system..." and then a couple days ago in a meeting with my interior designer (I am finally adding some furniture to my completely bare house) - she mentioned maybe considering some new fixtures and automated light settings - and thats when the HA bug kinda hit me... I have been in non-stop research mode ever since - and frankly quite disappointed in what seems to be a completely fractured and non open market.
touchOSC is a fully functional iPhone/iPod app which allows you to create simple UI controls (faders, sliders, rotary controls, toggle buttons, push buttons, LEDS, x/y controls) to send OSC messages. OSC is a bi-directional control protocol used in the music and concert lighting/effects industry - basically replacing midi - it runs on top of either UDP or TCP so fits in nicely within any existing wireless or wired IP network... There is no reason why it can't also be used as a HA control protocol. It is way more than sufficient to support HA control devices - its super simple - and open.
I'll try to post some useful links once I get rid of this newbie restriction
for now you will have to google "hexler touchOSC" and "openSoundControl berkeley"
MrWindupBird
New Member
That's suppose to say iPhone/iPad app (they have released an iPad version which takes full advantage of the increased real estate of the iPad)...
(Sorry for the extra post... I can't figure out how to edit posts here... crazy)
MrWindupBird
New Member
Yay! no longer a newb... promisse, I'm not a spammer and do not represent any HA company or service...
here are some links for easy reference:
http://hexler.net/software/touchosc
http://archive.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/
and here is a screenshot from my iPad of the interface in action (note - this is just a quick and dirty implementation of an example interface that would control 90% of what I would like to control for my house all in one screen - obviously, the options are endless for breaking things up into multiple pages and breaking things out into further detail)
here are some links for easy reference:
http://hexler.net/software/touchosc
http://archive.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/
and here is a screenshot from my iPad of the interface in action (note - this is just a quick and dirty implementation of an example interface that would control 90% of what I would like to control for my house all in one screen - obviously, the options are endless for breaking things up into multiple pages and breaking things out into further detail)
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Fiasco
Member
If you are going to automate more than just lighting, you might want to research control panel protocols as well. If you do an integrated security system / HA control panel, you could spend your time just interfacing to one protocol and let the panel support the different protocols for lighting, audio, access control, security, etc.
MrWindupBird
New Member
So, for my current house, I think all of my automation will be isolated to lighting (and commanding my current home theater consumerish equipment via wifi->IR via RedEye)
I currently have no need for security systems or multi room audio/video (my house is so tiny and open that any audio playing in one room is pretty much playing throughout the entire house), and irrigation is currently all done by hand...
So anyway, I made good progress tonight... I wrote a little program to convert OSC messages from my iPad into http messages sent out to the Wifi network - so given a little more time with configuration I am pretty much able to control all my IR based A/V equipment with touchOSC for the iPad (via RedEye) - good news!
drozwood90
Senior Member
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/New-Product...iPad-Docks.html
Savant Launch Desktop and In-wall iPad Docks
Enjoy
