Control Your Home with the Apple Remote

Shion is a relatively new home automation application for the Mac.  The OSX software is open source and the latest version includes support for the Apple Remote.

“Shion 1.0b3 is now available – This release includes Growl integration, Apple Remote support (hit “Menu” when the application is active), and support for querying the state of devices’ brightness (though, this feature currently requires Growl). The interface has been cleaned up a bit, too.

I’ve cleaned up some of the INSTEON communication code, so those using this as a reference should take a look at the changes under the hood.  Shion is released under the MIT License. Source code and binaries may also be downloaded here…

shion.aetherial.net :  [Via: blogs.oreilly.com]

UPDATE We’ve just had an email from Shion’s dveloper, Chris Karr, on updates and new features coming soon…

“I’ve put in a lot of time into the application this week to seriously revamp and improve it, and I’m planning a major new release after the new year.  Some of the new stuff that I’ve implemented or fixed in the last couple of days:

1. AppleScript support: This makes Shion scriptable on the Mac so that people can write their own scripts to control their household. For example:
tell application “Shion”
activate device named “Reading Lamp”
deactivate device named “Coffee Maker”
end tell

or

tell application “Shion” to deactivate all devices

2. Revamped AppleRemote support.
3. A web-based iPhone client that communicates with the desktop app – (See screenshot below)
4. Growl support.”

Thanks Chris, we’ll be watching with interest!

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