Smart Home Blog

Sometimes you have to take it with you, and that’s when the Sahara i400 by TabletKiosk makes its move. Unlike a laptop or even a standard PC, a tablet PC isn’t meant for traditional PC applications like Web surfing, but it’s ideal for going from room to room and running applications like a home theater or even your lights, heating, and A/C.

There’s no keyboard; either a touchscreen or pressure-sensitive digitizer stands in. The i400 has a 12.1-inch XGA screen and a 179-degree viewing angle. It’s just under an inch thick and weighs in at 3.3 pounds. Other extras include Intel® Celeron® M ULV 423, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 60GB SATA Hard Disk Drive, Built-in Wireless a/b/g Networking, Bluetooth, a fingerprint reader, two USB ports, a PCMCIA slot.
Sahara supports both Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro and openSUSE Linux. The price starts from $1700.00. Additionally, you can buy a bunch of accessories for Sahara to put it on the wall, for example.
We’re going to buy one Sahara to test it as stationary Plutohome Orbiter. So, I hope the feedback will be posted soon.

If you’re tired of a bunch of audio-video remote controls and you’d like to consolidate their functionality in one of those cheapie manually programmable “universal” remotes, Logitech’s Harmony 890 just might be what you’re looking for. The 890 comes with a combination USB-based battery charger and dock to connect it to your computer. The 890 Windows-based software provides a nice interface for defining your devices (audio-video components) and putting them together in a variety of useful on-off, initialization combinations.
Harmony 890 allows to control up to 15 devices, including any home-entertainment equipment, plus lighting and household appliances.
The price of Harmony 890 is about $399.00. It isn’t cheap but I hope that this price is defensible.

[via Gear Digest]

Hidden Bathroom Dimmer Switch is a elegant way to bring light in your bathroom. The Bathroom Switch Sensor Pads allows the user to place them behind most materials such as Ceramic Tiles, Wood, Plastic, Glass, and even Metals, users can create switches in virtually any shape and situation. In Bathrooms the Sensor Pads can even be placed behind tiles reachable from the bath or shower and allow switching and dimming in total safety.
The variations of the Bathroom Switch controller include ramp-up dimming, ramp-down switch-off, time delay switch-off and a unique nursery switch-off.
The new Dimmer controller and its variants, can be activated from up to 6 Sensor Pads; so the operation of lights from various places – even from the bath – can be achieved easily. A version with momentary output is available for connection to X10.
The price of the switch is started from £21 and increased for dimming options.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Booting MiniMyth from a Compact Flash card is a great way to build a Silent MythTV Frontend. Although many MiniMyth users boot their systems by booting over the network, this may add a level of complexity that you would prefer to avoid.

Hardware Requirements:

• MiniMyth Supported Base System
• Compact Flash to IDE Adapter – This is what will enable your MythFrontend to boot from the compact flash card.
• Compact Flash Card – The card MiniMyth is loaded onto. 64MB may work, but I’d go with 128MB or more. You can find 1GB cards for under $40.
• USB Compact Flash Card Reader – This is what we will use from another system to load MiniMyth onto the compact flash card.

For more information have a look this article on MythPVR.

• Linux System – We will need a Linux system to use to install onto the compact flash card using the USB Compact Flash Reader.

Here is a Domia Lite starter kit RRP for home automation just for £29.99. It contains three appliance switches and one remote control. It’s an ideal way to get yourself started.
The appliance modules simply plug into any wall socket to control any appliance (up to 1000W). Appliances connected to the modules can still be controlled manually. The modules respond to On/Off commands, however they can also be controlled as part of a group of devices by using the Group Switch on their side.

[via eHomeUpgrade]