Smart Home Blog

If you’re interested to have 8 inputs and 8 outputs to your home automation system that are network addressable from your LAN then Aviosys IP Power 9212 is what you need. It’s supposed to be used together with devices like PIRs, door reed switches, toggles switches and Key fob receivers. The box’s equiped with RS232 port to communicate with PC and GPRS interface with Motorola V878/C550 and Sony Eriksson T630/K700i. Software features include SMTP Alerts, embedded web server, Dynamic DNS and wakeup by LAN support.

The Aviosys IP Power 9212 is available for £89.99.

[via AutomatedHome]

HomeSeer is going to ship its new home controller – HomeTroller Series 2. The diskless and fanless unit is designed for low energy consumption. It provides an interface to the Lutron®, Leviton®, Z-Wave®, UPB®, Insteon® subsystems and can be controlled from in-wall button controllers, touchscreens, wireless remotes, microphones, PDAs, PocketPCs, telephones (voice and touch-tone control) and personal computers. Built-in web server offers easy way for unit configuration and access to the system from anywhere.

The HomeTroller Series 2 runs Embedded Windows XP w/HSProtect™ and HomeSeer HS2+ w/HSSentry™ software. The price is $895.00.

Mavromatic – well-known home automation geek, shared his opinion about Windows CE based touchscreen controller CUWIN 3500. It seems really cool! For about $600 we get 7″ touchscreen panel with resolution 800 x 480, SD slot, Ethernet port, RS232 x 2 / RS485 x 1 or RS232 x 3, USB, Visual Basic, EVC supports.

Theoretically, it can be use as LinuxMCE Orbiter. Because it provides a software for Windows CE. If yes, it can be the best combination of the price and functionality for wall-mounted control panels.

About 1.5 years passed since the first version of Pulse controller was announced. Now it’s time to present a whole home automation system from Pulse Technologies. It’ll include a new Pulse controller equiped by Z-Wave / KNX/EIB adaptors, 2 ethernet ports and RS232 and run Windows CE, and three types of touchscreen control panels – two in-wall and one – portable. Additionally, the system offers native clients for the iPhone/iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices (if I understand clearly – web based).

The Pulse Technologies will allow to control not only lighting or temperature. It also supports popular multi-room media systems, DLNA Certified and UPnP network entertainment products and client software for Vista Media Center.

The new Smart Home System from Pulse Technologies will be launched officially at the up-coming Light & Building 2008 exhibition in Frankfurt (April 6th to 11th, 2008).

[via AutomatedHome]

Control4 has added Linux-based, ZigBee-compatible home automation/media networking controller – HC-500. It’s positioned as the mainstream controller choice in between Control4’s low-end HC-300 and luxury HC-1000. The primary goal of producing of HC-500 is a media server, intended for large home theaters requiring extensive I/O connections for device control. However, it also will coordinate lighting, temperature, video cameras, and manual controls such as blind- and garage-door openers. The HC-500 sprots a 160GB hard drive which is, in my opinion, extremely small even for modern media center. Additionally it’s equipped with two USB ports, one Ethernet port, four serial ports (DB9), analog and digital audio I/O jacks, and ZigBee and optional WiFi adapter (Control4 chooses ZigBee because it’s an open standard, unlike Z-Wave, and has more bandwidth. However, support of Z-Wave is gonna be added as well).

The HC-500 can be controlled via on-screen GUI on TV, a various touchscreens or web interface. Using Windows-based Composer Home Edition application, users can customize the system according to his/her requirements.

The HC-500 is shipping now and tagged at $1500.

[via LinuxDevices]