Automated Home

Ah the Raspberry Pi and Home Automation, a match made in heaven.  Now a new software project “RaspLogic” aims to provide a smart home controller offering a simple interface to build powerful macros. The project – RaspLogic is a software that want to make a simple, user friendly and cheap way to control things in [...]

Yes yes, I know you’ve heard it a million times before but we love Plex!  One of the best new features over recent months, PlexSync is used with the many mobile devices in our family, it’s such a fantastic way to take your media with you. Here’s a scenario, it’s Friday afternoon and you know you have [...]

Here’s an interesting take on energy saving using the iPhones Geofencing feature to turn off the central heating automatically when no one is at home. Introduction - With the advent of Apple’s iOS 6 comes the ability to use geo-fencing, a way of sending notifications based on your location.  I have often thought about how much [...]

  The “RaZberry” is launching next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.   The $59 kit includes a hardware daughter board that snaps onto the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO connector plus a license for “Z-Way” controller software.  Read on for the full PR and links. “The Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive yet powerful mini-computer that’s taking the development [...]

Here’s a nice little hack using Siriproxy running on a Raspberry Pi, connected to a relay attached to a motorised garage door system.  Check out the video and the forum post for the code… raspberrypi.org   :   raspberry pi on Amazon Want More? - Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed. You can even [...]

We love a good hardware hack and here’s a great one from Automated Home reader Martin Howell. A Velleman IR kit plus a makeup mirror and some Arduino jiggery-pokery allows Martin’s home to let him know when there’s something in his mail box on the gatepost. My mailbox is on the gatepost, and the erratic [...]

We’ve seen plenty of interesting Siri hacks over the last couple of months, but here’s a slightly more seasonal variation.  The guys over at iHomeTouch have married a little X10 Home Automation with a Spotify playlist all kicked off using SiriProxy.  The macro is launched in an interactive conversation with Siri.  Check out the video [...]

A couple of weeks ago a group of enthusiasts got together in London for an un-conference, Home Camp 4.  A technical community interested in using open systems and low-cost, often re-purposed hardware to change the way they use energy and appliances around the home.  Editing of the videos has been completed and you can watch [...]

This months My Automated Home feature comes from Tom Lawrence, a final year student at Staffordshire University.  Along with his friend Andy Jackson, he has created a bespoke C# home automation system which controls X10 and XBMC with clients for Android and Windows Phone. Submission by:Tom Lawrence – I’m Tom, I’m a student with two [...]

In this months ‘My Automated Home’ feature, Nigel Giddings shows us his ingenious set-up that grabs a 3G signal from one corner of his rural idyll, beams it 300 meters back to his home and redistributes it to the family.  If you’re in the countryside and conventional ADSL or cable broadband is not available, then [...]