I am looking at taking my first steps into home automation. I plan to move house in the next 18 months so want to be skilled up so I can automate my new home.
I want to control the system from a computer, have wired components (my air-space is precious to me for other things) and be easily self-installable/configurable without having to get "professionals" to mess it up for a silly cost. This suggests idratek as a good technology to sink into - but I'm open to looking at others.
As a place to start I want to be able to achieve:
- More intelligent central heating control (i.e. switch on different thresholds)
- Automatic secondary lighting based on presence and ambient light
- All controlled from a computer
Please could somebody assist me in what I would need to buy? From looking through their catalogue it seems:
- Cortex Trial
- PCU-001 USB interface
- PLH-001 light/humidity/motion sensor
I'm a little unclear on powering the system - to start with I'm going to want to be running this isolated to see what I can do with it and if it's worth me investing any more. The guides and terminology seem a little confusing for me.
One final question - is protocol documentation available? I appreciate that Cortex has an API, but I would like to interface directly with the system as the rest of my home runs off Linux - documentation is always preferable to reverse engineering.
Thanks.
I want to control the system from a computer, have wired components (my air-space is precious to me for other things) and be easily self-installable/configurable without having to get "professionals" to mess it up for a silly cost. This suggests idratek as a good technology to sink into - but I'm open to looking at others.
As a place to start I want to be able to achieve:
- More intelligent central heating control (i.e. switch on different thresholds)
- Automatic secondary lighting based on presence and ambient light
- All controlled from a computer
Please could somebody assist me in what I would need to buy? From looking through their catalogue it seems:
- Cortex Trial
- PCU-001 USB interface
- PLH-001 light/humidity/motion sensor
I'm a little unclear on powering the system - to start with I'm going to want to be running this isolated to see what I can do with it and if it's worth me investing any more. The guides and terminology seem a little confusing for me.
One final question - is protocol documentation available? I appreciate that Cortex has an API, but I would like to interface directly with the system as the rest of my home runs off Linux - documentation is always preferable to reverse engineering.
Thanks.
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