It's a sad day for lovers of the Philips range of Pronto universal remote controls.  According to CE Pro Philips has pulled the plug completely on the Pronto business after 2 years of looking for a buyer.  Corporate speak says that the Pronto "activity no longer fits with the Philips strategy".  We still have our original old green Pronto from the 90's - one of the very first bit of smart home tech we brought to the Automated Home.  Read on (with a tear in your eye) for the release...

Here at Automated Home we've followed the rise and rise of Brilliant Living, the Smart Home Technology, Home Cinema, Lighting and Interior Design company based in North Yorkshire.  Along with their recently acquired CEDIA membership they've just released the latest incarnation of their website as well as scooping the Artcoustic award for Residential Installation of the Month...

Our other passion here at Automated Home is cars so you might think we'd be into this whole automated driving Google Robot vehicle thing.  We're not.  Now, call us Jeremy Clarkson sympathisers if you like, but this just looks like the beginning of the end for anyone that enjoys their driving.  We're losing the musical multi-cylinder engines for smaller, more ordinary forced induction units these days, and don't even get us started on the milk-float sound track from the Tesla.  Don't get us wrong, we love technology in cars, just not the kind that takes away our driving pleasure.  Heck it's not much of a leap from these robot cars to Skynet!  Read on for all the scary details and a video of one of these monster on the road...

This month's 'My Automated Home' comes from serial hacker Dan McGrath.  We've covered some of Dan's previous projects and they're always fascinating.  This one is no different, employing Perl, Apache and a magnetic door release to automate his garden gate release...

If you are an AV integration nerd then here's a video to get you all hot under the collar.  The quick tour of the DigitalMedia AV Network labs shows where Crestron carry out their source compatibility testing.  Also shown are the large system racks and the distribution of audio, video, Ethernet, USB and control data over a single '8G' cable

If you've been promising yourself a Sonos multiroom music system for a while now, then this week may be what you've been waiting for.  Amazon are giving an additional 10% Off Sonos products for one week only.  Read on for the voucher discount code and the link...

We've just learnt that Cytech are doing a special deal on training.  For a limited time, if you buy the Comfort Evaluation Kit they will provide their excellent two-day training course free of charge (excluding accommodation). The next course is scheduled on 21st and 22nd September 2010 at the Touchbase Meetng Centre at the Premier Inn Heathrow.  The Evaluation Kit comprises of a Comfort panel plus KP04, RC01, DP03, RGR04, UCM, SCS/Esprit, and the Comfigurator software. Read on for all the details...