For whatever reason many manufactures don't seem to think people put even a 32" HD TV in their bedrooms these days.  We've seen many flat-screens with a huge range of inputs but missing a vital headphone socket.  Many insomniacs rely on their wireless headphones to maintain marital bliss in the bedroom and so this can be quite a problem.  After being called in to look at just this situation for a family member it turns out there's a simple, effective and inexpensive solution...

Karen Flear, a property developer from Manchester, has recently completed her own stunning three bedroom detached home on the site of an on old coach house in a leafy location a couple of miles south of the City Centre.  Recently featured on ITV’s May the Best House Win, this architect designed property has been meticulously finished by Karen and her builders Cateaton Ltd, in conjunction with Smart Home technology specialists Morban Ltd, to create a bright, energy efficient, contemporary living experience that is enhanced by a Philips Dynalite lighting control system that ensures the mood is always right, a central, Opus Technologies entertainments hub that distributes TV and audiophile quality sounds around the home, and a custom installed Morban Duet heating interface that helps to keep energy consumption under control whilst keeping the place cosy and comfortable...

This months My Automated Home feature comes from Tom Lawrence, a final year student at Staffordshire University.  Along with his friend Andy Jackson, he has created a bespoke C# home automation system which controls X10 and XBMC with clients for Android and Windows Phone...

In this months 'My Automated Home' feature, Nigel Giddings shows us his ingenious set-up that grabs a 3G signal from one corner of his rural idyll, beams it 300 meters back to his home and redistributes it to the family.  If you're in the countryside and conventional ADSL or cable broadband is not available, then there's still hope.  Read on for all the photos and details...

I had been using a full-size Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse to control the media PC that is attached to our TV, but it’s a big thing to have lying on the coffee table and the mouse needs a flat surface to work properly.  So I went looking for something smaller...

This months "My Automated Home" feature is from Keyvan Rahimian who shows us around his DIY IPad based home automation set-up. The system uses an impressively professional looking visual interface in conjunction with with a hardware Ethernet to IR gateway from Global Cache to control his AV and Sonos whole house audio systems...

While updates to Plex have slowed during 2010, the developers haven't been slacking.  On the contrary - they've been beavering away, putting in late nights around the world's time zones from Hawaii, North America, Europe and New Zealand.  The reason?  A project code named 'Alexandria', a ground-up rewrite of the library that's at the heart of the system and that promises to take the Plex Media Center to the next level...

This months 'My Automated Home' comes from Delmar Fadden, a man that's no stranger to electronics.  As a retired avionics and flight deck engineer he's spent a lifetime at the sharp end of control systems.  Now with a passion for home automation, he takes us on a tour of his Seattle smart home system which runs on ECS...