Smart Home Blog

CommandIR 2 – a second generation of hardware extension for Linux media PC’s, was reviewed on the MythPVR.com. It allows to control Linux box itself and any A/V equipment via IR. The CommandIR 2 is equiped by four independently controlled IR blasters, on-board IR receiver, wired IR receiver (optional), six software controllable LEDs (they can be used to indicate something like starting recording, high level of system load etc) and USB port to connect the PC.

The CommandIR 2 is design specially for Linux. MythTV supports it from the box. But for other Linux distributions the CommandIR 2 can be configured manually.

The CommandIR 2 seems very interesting devices to extend control of home entertainment system. It’d be nice to add it into LinuxMCE since it already supports GC100, IRTrans USB, Tira-2.1 and USB-UIRT.

[via MythPVR.com]

mControl, well known Windows-based home control system, recently announced supporting of CentraLite JetStream devices. CentraLite JetStream uses Z-Wave competitor ZigBee. The system is fully expandable and can be integrated with other automation products such as thermostats, entertainment systems, and security equipment.

Actually JetStream functionality was added some time ago. But wasn’t announced till devices weren’t started to sell on the market. To see mControl and JetStream in the action see that video presentation.

mControl already support Insteon, Z-Wave, Rako, and X10. So, CentraLite JetStream will be good addition to that list.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Nice and clear looking stand for media center designed by Reynold Rodriguez. It isn’t so easy to find a good furniture to put there all parts of home theater including wall mounted plasma or LCD.

[via Unplagged]

After upgrading my LinuxMCE 0710 Beta 4 to final version I faced with strange thing. Sound and LiveTV didn’t work. I spent a few house to investigate that problem. And finally found that I have two sound cards and no any DVB:
linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Audiowerk2 ]: aw2 - Audiowerk2
Audiowerk2 with SAA7146 irq 16
1 [NVidia ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
HDA NVidia at 0xfe020000 irq 20
By some reason system recognized DVB card as sound.

I solved the problem with sound just defining NVidia as default card:
asoundconf set-default-card 1

But still didn’t have any luck with DVB. Thanks for folks from linux-dvb mailing list solution was found. The new Audiowerk2 driver recognized all saa7146-based cards as sound cards:
static struct pci_device_id snd_aw2_ids[] = {
{PCI_VENDOR_ID_SAA7146, PCI_DEVICE_ID_SAA7146, PCI_ANY_ID, PCI_ANY_ID,
0, 0, 0},
{0}
};
To avoid that I just added snd_aw2 into /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. Now my LinuxMCE works like a charm!

LinuxTag, Europe’s leading exhibition on Linux and Open Source took place from May 28 – 31, 2008 at Berlin’s Messezentrum unter dem Funkturm. LinuxMCE community participated in that major event. KR, Zaerc, Hari, DanielK22, Posde, ddamron and TSCHAK showed mostly full range of devices supported by LinxuMCE: Z-Wave adapter and modules, IP phones and cameras, different kinds of Orbiters – Nokia Internet Tablet, JavaMO, Symbian MO and Windows XP, and remote controls. That exhibition installation can be used as a start for newbies who want to have home automation system with rich functionality and open code in their houses. That wiki page contains a bunch of nice shots which shows LinuxMCE in action. Also that PDF presentation might be interesting for all who’d like to know what is LinuxMCE and its basic functions (thanks to Daniel).

My congratulations to LinuxMCE exhibition team, all developers and community (I’m also a part of LinxuMCE community :)). We’re making amazing product!