Items Tagged With hardware

This item featured on lots of Tech News sites today, looks interesting...

"It's possible in Japan (just like in almost every other country in the world) to get solar panels to feed your house with electricity through a "control panel". Sharp presents their type of control panel today, the JH-G51X series. This panel gives you in real-time the power consumption in your house, the power charge the solar panels are generating and an indication that the energy generated by the panels is enough to satisfy the need for power in your house at that moment (we could call this the Consumption/Production ratio, and this will also give you an indication on how much kW you can sell back to your local electricity supplier and how much profit this would generate). All in all, this is a very complete control station and it's really easy to read too...

"EIBshop.co.uk teams up with Theben, the acknowledged European leader in EIB/KNX heating control, multi-channel dimming and timers - Theben, a well-established Germany manufacturer of EIB/KNX (European Installation Bus) products, have teamed up with EIBshop.co.uk to provide products and technical support to UK users. "We are delighted to be able to showcase our control products with EIB Shop", says Edwin Soltek, Export manager for Theben, "I believe the EIB market in the UK is about to take off, and EIB Shop is a great way for us to get our new devices to the people that need them"...

Quinten Uijldert (lets just call him by his IRC name - "Q") has documented how he has converted an old laptop into a digital photo frame. He has used Damn Small Linux as the OS...

"If you take an old IBM Thinkpad 560X, a £7 beech frame, some glue and a bit of patience you can make yourself one of these :). The OS is Damn Small Linux and the slideshow software is Feh...

Thanks to Total Telematics for their opening discount offer to Automated Home readers...

"I'm happy to announce that Total Telematics has finally made it off the ground with a number of products which are ideally positioned for medium/experienced automation enthusiasts to integrate into their own automation environments. From simple Data Acquisition to complex Ethernet enabled microcontroller boards, fully assembled with 30+ I/O lines, Total Telematics is striving to provide the best and most cost effective Telematics and Automation solutions. Hardware, Firmware and Software together with bespoke Design/Build ability means that Total Telematics is able to cater for all needs and levels of experience.

To kick off, Total Telematics has taken advertising in the UK Premier Electronics magazine, Elektor, and as a special offer to Automated Home readers, Total Telematics is taking 15% off any order for the next month simply by entering "Automated Home" when asked for a coupon code...

Some News from Simply Automate on their new products...

"The HA Basics range has been extended to include three new USB units to provide basic but all essential input, output and sensor functions. Coupled with the recently released Harmony 5 software, these units offer reliable and fast switching / input sensing for a range of applications - all without the speed issues associated with X10.

Harmony Announcer, released this week, is a powerful text to speech engine for Harmony 5 - complete with a choice of 3 realistic British SAPI5 Voices, you can make announcements, reminders and warnings via Harmony or X10 events. Pre-order on 0845 644 3330 to be the first to receive this powerful software when released on 14th March.

Automated Home readers are offered 10% discount on published prices for USB units by ordering on 0845 644 3330, simply quote "Automated Home" as discount code"...