Items Tagged With linux

In the second of our new "My Automated Home" series, Richard Farthing takes us on a tour of his Green Open Source House.  On a budget of less than £600 the Linux setup looks after property whilst keeping an eye on the carbon footprint too.  Read on for the free software recommendations, the Joggler photos, tips, the what he'd do differently next time and the what's coming next...

Why the Home Automation Hub?  I’ve always been keen on the notion of Home Automation, but two factors put me off getting started.  One, the cost of a decent HA controller (and I don’t mean a 24x7 PC).  Two, She Who Must Be Obeyed hates wires running around the place.  So, I worked with a friend to develop a low entry cost HA controller which we call the ‘Home Automation Hub’ (or HAH). We are now nearly two years into the project; it has taken a lot of effort (esp. on the software side) but has been great fun.  Best of all it’s based on a re-purposed WiFi router that can usually be purchased on eBay for around £10...

A few days ago we were contacted by the guys at LinITX.com Apparently they had a little box we'd be interested in.  Turns out the ASRock 330 is another nettop PC, but one with a nice GPU.  What makes this especially interesting to us is that the XBMC team have recently added GPU support to the Linux version of their world beating media player software.  So can this little £250 machine replace our weapon of choice, the Mac mini which costs double the price?  Read on to find out...

The OpenRemote guys have been pretty busy over the last few months.  From launching their new website and Twitter feed, to publishing a new YouTube channel.  But perhaps most tantalisingly this weeks blog post for the open source project shows prototype hardware up and running - sending commands from an iPhone, across Wi-Fi and out of their ORB hardware device to an IR signal.  Even more interesting it promises that "two more weeks or so and you'll be able to try it out for yourself"  Watch the video after the jump and read on for more information on this open source project and all the links...

Interest in Boxee has been growing steadily, especially since it became available on the Apple TV (we contacted Apple PR to ask them their views on installing Boxee on the Apple TV but they replied saying Apple declines to comment on this).  With a quarter of a million users, even before the Windows version has been released, Boxee are capturing people's imagination and with the possibility of new hardware boxes on the horizon with a "Powered By Boxee" logo on them, its time to sit up and take notice.  Read on for Automated Home's interview with Boxee Founder, Avner Ronen...