Smart Home Blog

A British startup called AlertMe offers a remotely managed security system that runs off a Linux-driven Hub. It tracks various sensors via popular wireless protocol Zigbee, and then reports back to AlertMe’s servers, which in turn relay alarm events to the customer via SMS or email. The system might include a door/windows sensors, motion, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

The AlertMe Hub is equipped with an ARM9-based Cirrus EP9302 and includes 64MB RAM and 64MB flash, plus a small boot ROM. There’s also an Ethernet port, LEDs, and audio in and out. The hub provides both battery backup in case of power failure and a GPRS radio in case of broadband failure. It’s also equipped with a ZigBee radio, using an Ember EM260 co-processor running Ember’s ZigBee EmberZNet PRO stack.

The price of AlertMe security system is $800 plus $23.50 a month. It seems a good alternative to ordinary security systems which used wared sensors and linked with dedicated security control center.

[via LinuxDevices]

Share This

British Columbia-based embedded board and development services vendor Techsol announced a customizable touch-panel equipped single-board computer based on Linux. The wall-mounted, 4.6 x 3.7 x 1-inch TPC-43 comes with a 4.3-inch touchscreen with resolution 480×272. It’s powered by an undisclosed ARM-920T-based system-on-chip (SoC) clocked at 200MHz or 266MHz and has 64MB of “mobile SDRAM” and 64MB NAND Flash. The TPC-43 is based on Linux and supports both Qt and GTK+ for producing GUI.

Additionally the TPC-43 comes with zPoint Experimenter’s Kit to setup and control a ZigBee mesh network. As you may know ZigBee is a modern wireless technology for home automation. It’s a competitor of Z-Wave which looks more perspective for me.

In any case the price in $400 seems reasonable to such device. To have possibility play with ZigBee devices you should be 100 bucks additionally. So, the whole set will be $500.

Share This

If you have some ZigBee devices connected into one network you might be interested to extend their range by adding XBee Wall Router. It’s designed to patch areas within a ZigBee network where signal erosion or loss occurs due to distance limitations or air interference. So, your network will work more stable and its range will be extended.

Additionally, XBee includes integrated temperature and light sensors. So, just for $79 you will get not only extender but two additional devices in your network.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Share This

Yesterday ZigBee Alliance announced a free public availability of “the ZigBee Home Automation (HA) public application profile that offers manufacturers a standards-based approach to introducing new wireless home automation products globally, eliminating the need for proprietary technology”. ZigBee is gonna to be a good competitor to Z-Wave. Both use “a standards-based technology with world-wide approval”, have reliable and flexible network topology and offer elegant devices.

ZigBee is used in the commercial home automation systems Control4 and Colorado vNet. Spanish on-line shop offers many ZigBee based devices approved for Europe. LinuxMCE currently supports only Z-Wave but people from Malaysia started to request of support ZigBee as well. Because Z-Wave frequency is not allowed there. So, I hope that LinuxMCE will support ZigBee in the nearest future.

Share This

The Cyber-Rain XCI is an eight-zone sprinkler controller system based on ZigBee wireless protocol. Together with PC-based software, it allows conveniently set watering schedule and reduce consumption of water. Because Zigbee is a two-way communications protocol, the sprinkler system talks back to the PC, enabling users to track water usage. The controller reports every time each sprinkler comes on. You can use the activity report for fine-tuning the sprinkling schedule or keeping track of water usage for individual zones.

The Cyber-Rain XCI automatically checks the local weather forecast several times a day via the Internet (I suspect it needs a PC for that) and makes appropriate adjustments to the watering schedule. The system also takes humidity into account. It’s good but the most appropriate way is to connect the sprinkler system with weather station and use temperature, humidity, presence of rain from there instead of the forecast.

Cyber-Rain XCI is currently available and priced at $295 for the first sprinkler controller system, and $245 for additional controllers.

[via Electronic House]

Share This