Smart Home Blog

Mavromatic made good video review of Logitech’s Harmony One Remote Control. The remote looks nice. It includes a 2.5” color touchscreen LCD and can be easily connected to PC for update its database of IR codes. The database is very huge and includes all known brands. The preferences of remote can be stored online using Logitech web service. So, you won’t loose them or will able to access them from any PC.

Now fly in the ointment. The combination of hard keys and touchscreen doesn’t look handy. It’s impossible to perform all operations using only one hand. Because the price is not cheap the Harmony One Remote Control seems an appropriate solution only if consumer has a few A/V or other IR controlled devices which are not connected to any home automation system. Otherwise it might be more efficient to use something like Nokia Internet Tablet with integrated smarthome interface.

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A new model of luxury remote with touchscreen NevoS70 was announced on the CES 2008. Its features include:

• Non-line of sight control using Z-Wave(TM) bidirectional wireless communications to ensure reliable command execution and to show the power status of entertainment equipment in the home
• Extended battery life and broad home coverage
• Connection to the home network for multimedia control with industry standard wireless technology (802.11g)
• Ability to view and control any device that has a compatible embedded web server, such as many web-based cameras and media servers
• Control for many home automation devices
• Access to web-based services to deliver real-time information such as news, sports and stock quotes

Together with a NevoConnect NC-50 base station, NevoS70 provides non-line of site IR control, serial device control and power sensing for efficient macro programming and control. NevoS70 communication is based on industry standards—WiFi, UPnP and Z-Wave—to ensure compatibility with a wide range of devices in home entertainment, control, and networking.

Sounds amazing! Looks also. To get NevoS7 in your hand you should just wait a bit and pay $1,199. This is a tiny cost for such perfect device.

[via CePro]

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Today I found that analog of FiireChief for LinuxMCE - remote control with built-in gyration. It looks very close to FiireChief except the three buttons for UI2 and “Follow Me” to transfer media. People on the LinuxMCE forum confirmed that that remote works fine with LinuxMCE.

The price of Gyration Media Center Vista Remote is £109.99 (including wireless keyboard) and it can be ordered in Europe.

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The universal remote control gurus from Remote Central released their latest video report on 15 new controllers from CEDIA Expo. The 14 minutes (including 720p for the owners of high bandwidth connection) video covers the technology, interviews with manufacturers and even gets you in to the Remote Central / Universal Remote Control Inc. CEDIA party.

Following remotes are presented in the video:

• Acoustic Research AARU449
• Control4 RCZ-SRC2-B
• Crestron MLX-2
• Marantz RC9001
• Marantz RC3001 & RC2001
• Niles iRemote TS
• Philips Pronto Professional TSU9400
• Philips Pronto TSU9200 and Prestigo SRU8015
• Universal Electronics Inc. NevoQ50
• Remote Control Systems Inc. TSR750
• Remote Technologies Inc. T2-Cs
• Remote Technologies Inc. T3-V
• Remote Technologies Inc. U2
• Universal Remote Control’s Complete Control MX-980
• Universal Remote Control’s Complete Control MX-810

What is your choice for universal remote control?

[via CEPro]

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Using Nokia770 or its next generation N800 is limited just your imagination and a little bit of hardware issue. The new Maemo application Ir Remote Control can be a good confirmation of that. The application gives a easy way to use Internet Tablet as remote control for your A/V equipment and home appliance.

The first versions of the Ir Remote Control used a dedicated PC with running LIRC server there. The latest one has its own LIRC back-end and supports IR Trance Ethernet to send IR command via LAN.

Basically, the Ir Remote Control uses LIRC client library to send desired command:

netirsend --server 'localhost' --port '8765' 'SEND_ONCE' 'Yamaha_RAV16' 'Vol+'

where
- server - IP address or service name where LIRC is running;
- post - LIRC server port;
- SEND_ONCE - LIRC directive, can be also SEND_START and SEND_END;
- Yamaha_RAV16 - the name of remote supported by LIRC (the command LIST can be used to get the list of all remotes);
- Vol+ - desired command, in that case - increasing of volume.

So, using Nokia770 or N800 together with IT Trance Ethernet and Ir Remote Control gives you an elegant and efficient way to control your IR stuff.

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