Submission by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - WHAT IS ROOMBA? Roomba is an 'intelligent floorvac' designed, as the manufactures put it, to "...keep your floors clean in-between periodic deep cleanings". In normal speak, it's not going to replace your existing vacuum cleaner, but it will reduce the times it needs to come out. It's manufactured by iRobot for distribution in the States. At the time of writing, they have no plans for official distributors in Europe...

What has this got to do with Home Automation? Well a bit actually as you will see when you take account of the features.

What is it? - The Kiss Coolview is a 15" wide format TFT screen which looks very attractive indeed and would fit into many a home or office and not look out of place at all. Nice silver screen surround with just five buttons, one small LED and one small IR receiver on the bottom section...

Submitted By: James Traynor - After the demise of my Nokia 7110 it was time for a new phone. My history of phones included the Nokia 9000 communicator, which was a great device that survived 2 years of very heavy and often rough use. It's main failings were a huge and heavy case, a quirky charger and a slow OS. The phone did it's job and did it well, it had a keyboard, it could send/receive email/faxes/sms, it could browse the internet (not that funny little WAP thing) and the most useful feature was the speakerphone...

I've had some problems with my TiVo signaling the Sky Digibox. I'm using a Pyramid affair to control TiVo from the bedroom upstairs and these seem to be notorious for sending out spurious IR. This noise then interferes with legitimate signal between TiVo and the Sky box. So, I decided to try one of the new RF2Links from PaceLink.

The RF2Link is a "hard wired" solution that takes the IR output on the back of TiVo and inserts it into the Sky Digibox on its RF2 connector in the same way the Sky TV Link IR extenders do...

Well, Christmas is upon us once again, and recently it's all been very serious here at Automated Home what with talk of X10 this and KAT5 that. Therefore in a more lighthearted spirit, I present for your enjoyment the Tomica Bitchar-G Miniature Radio Controlled Car! And in case you're still wondering, the home automation content of this article is as close to zero as makes no difference...

I first saw this Ultra-Compact laptop on the net, I had no idea just how compact the machine actually was as you do not get a good idea of it from a picture, something I hope to have rectified with some of the photos I've taken here...

My BlueToothed Life! - Okay, I gave in and bought the laptop with all the bells and whistles, more connectivity than you can shake a stick at and I'm happy with that bit and the performance of the laptop. Now there's this little matter of Bluetooth the new short range wireless communications protocol, originally mooted by Ericsson a few years back and now devices are starting to appear..

For many of us, the PocketPC seemed like the perfect instrument to use as a universal remote control. A great colour screen, easily useable with your fingers, small and lightweigh, where's the catch? Well, the catch is range. The PPC, like the Palm before if, suffers from a wheezy IR transmitter. In fairness it was never designed to beam across a room to turn your telly up. There's been no real hardware solution to this problem, until now that is...