Automated Home

If you weren’t following the horror story of Wired journalist Mat Honan’s personal hacking over the weekend, then do yourself a favour and read his article or watch his interview on This Week in Tech below. It’s clear that Apple and Amazon’s security procedures were less than impressive.  They have already been changed as a result of this [...]

We recently discovered another GSM controlled switch for remote control of your central heating.  This is one of the most affordable units we’ve come across yet so we contacted the company and had them install a unit for us.  Here’s how it works… . The Hardware – The unit itself is a GSM module called [...]

It’s hard to believe, but its four and a half years since we built our first proper rackmount media server for the Automated Home.  Our tutorial for the MkI is still one of our most popular articles and it’s easy to see why (you may like to read our tutorial on the original Jukebox server [...]

  The iPhone and iPod Touch continue to prove themselves the platform of choice for Home Automation developers.  Now high-end Smart Home company Crestron have released their own app that allows management and control of climate, lighting, shades and security systems over Wi-Fi and even the cellular network. "Crestron App Provides Fully Integrated Control From [...]

We’ve had our Sonos setup for nearly three years now and it continues to be a joy to own and use.  Our original setup of 2 x ZP100s (the zone players with built in amplifiers) was recently added to with a third un-amp’d ZP80. The new ZonePlayer was swapped for the ZP100 in the AV [...]

(click to enlarge) Party! The “Bits” Arrive [UPDATE - After you've read this, jump to our updated JukeBox MkII article] Old Timer – Since ripping and centralising all our DVDs and CDs a few years ago our “Jukebox” server had grown and grown and was in need of replacement. With 5 years of digital photographs [...]

Home CCTV – I have had CCTV at home for 8 years now in one form or another. Over that time camera performance has increased, whilst prices have fallen. Par for the course where most technology is concerned I suppose. A year or so ago I bought a Samsung CCTV switcher from eBay to view [...]

The following is an account of the interfacing of my HomeVision to my central heating controller by Keith Doxey.  Keith’s DIY Home Automation website can be found here www.diyha.co.uk. Also check out our Heating Control Forums Here. Existing Controller The existing heating controller is a 3 channel affair – Upstairs, Downstairs and Hot water. We [...]

Welcome to the Automated Home Wiring Guide. This guide documents the installation of the various wiring systems around our new “automated” home. Hopefully the information will be helpful to others faced with the same task, or provide inspiration to those considering it. I’m a firm believer that a picture can paint a thousand words so [...]

You run hundreds, maybe thousands of metres of cable round your home. People look at you funny, some point at you and snigger. This week the advantages of a having a cabled home were realised once again. After a 12 month “sentence” using the Pyramid style IR-RF-IR repeaters we were so fed up. It was [...]