Smart Home Blog

Brando keeps making life of HTPC owners nicer and easier. Its new Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard is not bigger then ordinary remote control but provides QWERTY input, mouse touch-pad and navigation buttons. It has built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery which can be charged from PC USB port, and a lecture laser pointer in case if you need it.

The new Brando Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard probably the best portable keyboard for HTPC I have ever seen. The keyboard is supported by Linux, Windows and probably Mac OS X and it can be found on the Brando site at $92.00 or on the TomTop at $59.99 only.

[via Engadger]

Echoflex Solutions announced its EEK200C Evaluation Kit. For only $149, integrators, OEMs and smarthome enthusiasts will be able to explore the breadth and performance of EnOcean wireless energy harvesting technologies in different conditions as well as capabilities of EnOcean PTM, TCM and STM radio modules and interoperability with other EnOcean-based products.

The kit includes following devices:

• TCM-200C: bi-directional communication with the transceiver module that connects directly to a laptop or PC allowing Windows® based applications to monitor and control;
• STM-110C: solar powered sensor module with integrated reed switch, temperature sensor and set point adjustment;
• PTM-220C: mechanically powered switch module used for on/off and dimming applications.

Additionally the WinEtel utility should be downloaded and installed to monitor radio packages in the EnOcean network.

I like the EnOcean principles of energy harvesting. That approach is not just saving energy and, as result, money and environment. But it also makes consumers life easily because they shouldn’t replace batteries in their devices at all. So, I hope that the EEK200C Evaluation Kit will help integrate EnOcean technology in the many popular commercial and open source home automation systems.

[via EnOcean]

Recently I found the Verve – the first (at least I had never seen before any) commercial lighting control system based on EnOcean. EnOcean is a modern wireless technology to easily build your home automation system. Comparing with another technologies such Z-Wave or ZigBee, EnOCean has a big advantage. It doesn’t use any battery to power devices. Instead of that it convert electromagnetic, piezogenerators, solar cells, thermocouples etc into usable electrical energy.

There is, unfortunately, not any detailed info, price and availability of the Verve. But it’s nice to see that EnOcean becomes more popular.

P. S. I just would like to remind you that LinuxMCE has basic support of EnOcean too. See that wiki page for more details.

The EnOcean Alliance did a big step to success. It openned a specification for its energy harvesting wireless sensors. What do it mean? It means that more producers can make EnOcean compatible products. It also means that devices produced by different manufactures will have a good interoperability between them. And finally openned specification will help integrators and developers to add support of EnOcean devices in their home automation system.

EnOcean already offers unique feature for its devices. They don’t use batteries. Instead of that they transform electromagnetic, solar energy, thermocouples etc into usable electrical energy. That approach gives you possibility to build green system and save your money and environment.

I’d like to note that LinuxMCE supports EnOcean devices. The implementation is not fully featured so far. But I’m sure it’ll be extended in the future.

The USB Wireless Handheld Keyboard and Touchpad looks like a substitute for ordinary remote control. It has a 48 keys QWERTY compact keyboard with backlight and 2.8″ touchpad with left and right mouse buttons. Using those it’d be easy to search movies in the media library or control playback. I just would like to have dedicated arrow and Ok buttons.

The device uses 2.4GHz radio frequency. So it allows to use it up to 30 feet effective working range. It has built-in rechargeable battery (I don’t like that) and possibility to switch device off to save energy. It’s supported by Windows as well as by Linux. The price of the USB Wireless Handheld Keyboard and Touchpad is $62.

UDPATE: That Handheld Keyboard and Touchpad can be also purchased from EFO web site just for $40, plus $5 shipping to any country. Also they promise that device is compatible with Mac OS, Linux, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista and Window 7 as well as with Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Wii. Probably I’ll order it.

See the device in action in demo video below.
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