Smart Home Blog

I thought about buying wireless compact keyboard for my LinuxMCE hybrid server a long time ago. Something like that illuminated keyboard. And finally I bought RF Wireless Multimedia Tiny Keyboard. It’s really light and small. Also it has a big advantage over the illuminated keyboard – a trackball and mouse buttons. I was scare a bit about supporting of that features in Linux. But the keyboard started working properly right after paring with adaptor.

Another cool feature – switching off mouse to save battery. Personally I use mouse very rarely. So, that possibility is very helpful for me. I think that the RF Wireless Multimedia Tiny Keyboard is very good addition to Windows or Linux based HTPC.

Using application Zemote ($3.99) developed by Zigzix you can easily turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into smart remote control for your HTPC. The Zemote communicates with HTPC via WiFi and needs additionally Zemote Receiver which should be installed on the media center side. Currently Windows XP or Vista version is available only. The OS X Zemote Receiver is coming soon. It’s sad that there is no any word about Linux version on the application web site.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Sling Media announced its SlingPlayer Mobile player for iPhone and iPod Touch. It’ll allow to watch live stream or recorded TV shows directly on your Apple smartphone. The player will be available on iTunes right after approving. You may also find the SlingPlayer for Symbian, Palm, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile on the Slig Media site.

[via AutomatedHome]

AMEX announced its two new digital photo frames – SR-7 and SW-7. Both of them have 7 inches TFT color LCD with resolution 800×480 and allow to display your photos from USB memory stick or MS/MMC/SD/XD/CF card. Additionally SR-7 has built-in indoor thermometer, radio controlled clock, dual snooze alarm and calendar and SW-7 – weather forecast, built-in RF 433MHz wireless thermometer / hygrometer
which can be linked with up to 5 remote sensors with auto scroll, display the sunrise / sunset, moonrise / moonset time and sun moon location display according to defined home location. This is a very useful functionality in my opinion.

The AMEX digital photo frames SR-7 and SW-7 will be available soon at expected price $129.00 and $139.00 respectively.

[via Engadget]

I already wrote about energy meter Kill-a-watt which might help you reduce your electricity bill and improve our environment. Creative engineers from MAKE hacked it to add WiFi connectivity and possibility to post measurements directly to specified Twitter account. As result the information from the Kill-a-watt can be received quickly and can be shared with followers. The new device is called Tweet-a-watt

The Tweet-a-watt was designed for the Core77 Green Gadgets competition and its source, schematics and the idea was released as an open-source hardware project. I suspect that we will have such devices in the production soon.

[via SlashGear]