I've just returned from the Smart Home Show (22-25 March 2007) and in this, its third incarnation at the NEC in Birmingham, the public was treated to the best show yet! In a first for Automated Home, we have videos (youtube.com/automatedhome) from the show which should give a good taste of the event for those that couldn't make it and hopefully show some items that you may have missed even if you did visit...

Here's a nice blog review of Vista Media Center. Worth a read if you are considering the upgrade from XP MCE.

"Media center is ready for the big time, and I highly recommend it become the central entertainment hub of your home. With extenders in any of your major entertainment areas, you now have access to everything. All your music, all your TV, pictures, even video library is now available everywhere from a centralized location...

I've had the new Philips Pronto Professional TSU9600 for a little over a week now so I thought it was time for some initial impressions...

Submission By: Marcus Warrington - Like almost all the currently available UK X10 modules, the LD11 does NOT support status response. This coupled with the fact that X10 commands can sometimes "go astray" and seemingly disappear into the electrical ether before reaching the chosen device, means that the tracking of the current status of a device is very error prone...

Smarthome enthusiasts love to control and monitor their homes remotely. I've found nothing is as well suited to this as a Smartphone. Whether you communicate with your house via SMS text messages or email, or view your CCTV cameras remotely, nothing beats the screen size, data connectivity and portability of a Smartphone...

Submission by Andrew Hempsall and Colin Price

Located in a quiet Derbyshire village, this cottage had been uninhabited for more than 20 years and was virtually derelict when the current owners decided to buy it. The oldest part of the cottage was originally built in 1799 as a single dwelling, and the original parchment title deeds show that the house, garden and orchard were bought for the princely sum of £60.

Before renovation work began, the ground floor consisted of four very dark rooms. Now the house includes two bright reception rooms, a conservatory and three bedrooms. The house boasts a new oak staircase, along with oak internal doors and floorboards, giving a feel of the traditional, but that belies the secret - all the lighting, heating, air conditioning, audio and security are controlled by an EIB/ KNX system that is anything but old cottage. The system's finish has been carefully selected to bring modern life choices to perfect 'olde worlde' surroundings...

Submission by Steve Edwards - Over the last few years I have built up a fairly large collection of X10 equipment, this being one of the main things I like about X10, you can start with a very simple set up and add to it later. My own X10 system started with a mini timer and a couple of plug in modules.

My old style mini timer has worked flawlessly since I have had it and it is still in daily use but, to be honest, it's not the prettiest thing in the world and so when I came across it's replacement on my weekly tour of the Lets Automate website I was immediately interested...

What is a NAS? NAS stands for Network-Attached Storage. Basically just a box with a hard drive (or multiple drives) which plugs into your LAN to provide additional storage which can be accessed by users on the network. Read the full Wikipedia definition...