Smart Home Blog

Touchscreen PC WebDT 366 was suggested as WinCE Orbiter for Plutohome and LinuxMCE. But it was too expensive (about $1500 - $2000). But now the situation has been changed. There are a lot of touchscreen UMPC on the market and the WebDT 366 was discontinued. As result, its price (for used devices) was decreased and now it can be even budget control panel for the LinuxMCE installation.

One of the LinuxMCE developers Tom aka tschak909 created a micro-distribution of Debian (based on Lenny), which contains the Linux based Orbiter. So, you can find WebDT 366 and flash it by yourself by Tom’s image or you can buy already preconfigured device ($250) or/and bootable LMCE webpad orbiter installation USB stick ($25).

In any case with Linux image WebDT 366 got a new life. So, don’t miss opportunity to add inexpensive and stable 8.4” touchscreen Orbiter to your LinuxMCE installation.

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Marmitek, well-known producer European X10 and Z-Wave devices, announced its new 3 WayFull-HD HDMI Switcher Connect310. It provides three HDMI 1.3 inputs and one output with supported resolutions: 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. Switching between inputs is done either automatically (by signal level, I guess) or using remote control.

The 40EUR Marmitek’s HDMI switcher Connect310 is an inexpensive way to connect more HD devices to your TV. So, if your TV doesn’t have enough HDMI inputs or you have a big number of HD devices Connect310 might really help you to enjoy HD content on your TV.

[via AutomatedHome]

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If you already automate everything in your home then X10 Freeze Sensor might be interesting for you to expand a little bit your system. It’s installed inside your freezer using X10 Powerflash interface and allows to monitor the temperature. So, with X10 Freeze Sensor you’ll able to know about some problems with the freezer before its contents will die.

The X10 Freeze Sensor is available on the Smarthome site at $49.99.

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LinuxMCE development team has announced the release cycle. It’ll be 12 months starting from the version 0810. Peer Oliver Schmidt (”Possy”) will take up the role of release wrangler to try to keep developers on schedule and Zaerc is taking over the role of keeping the development build in good shape on a day-to-day basis.

LinuxMCE lost the servers and hosting that PlutoHome, Inc. had been providing for it the early part of this year. So, the big work was done to move the build servers, svn (back to the old charonmedia svn machine), forum, wiki and main website to the new location. But in spite of this the 0810-alpha0 is available for installation and testing. Good job!

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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]

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