Smart Home Blog

Boxee team made a good present for all Netflix and Boxee fans on the Valentine’s Day. Netflix finally arrived to the Boxee Box! It’ll be available after firmware update (1.0.4.17443) manually or automatically. The Netflix Boxee App gives access to the huge collection of movies and TV shows in SD and HD quality. But unfortunately for US and Canada. The rest world is still waiting for Netflix expansion or some similar service. In any case, if you live in US or Canada and have Boxee Box and Netflix subscription just update it and enjoy!

Last week MythTV team released a new version of its software for HTPC – 0.24. There is a lot of new features and major changes like new MythUI OSD, Blu-ray disc/folder parsing and playback, Embedded text subtitle support in MKV and others, Experimental Broadcom Crystal HD hardware decoding support, large audio, OSD, captioning/subtitle and video playback refactoring etc.

The MythTV 0.24 supports HD video and audio as well as various TV tuners and DVB cards. It makes that software unique solution to build power HTPC. I like XBMC. But it’s needed integration with VDR to provide PVR functionality. While MythTV has that feature out of the box. Sure XBMC offers rich integration with online services and simple way to develop plugins. But still. Also don’t forget about possibility to control X10 or Z-Wave devices from the MythTV box.

You can install the MythTV 0.24 from tarballs or using special MythTV distribution or packages for your Linux distribution. Also we expect to see that version in the LnuxMCE soon.

FAKRO announced a few new Z-Wave products for skylight type windows – an electric FTP-V pivot windows, an ARF blackout roller blinds and an ARZ roller shutters. Z-Wave support allows to control window from remote control or control panel of home automation system. Also built-in moisture sensor can close the window when it detects the rain. Using the ARF blackout roller blinds consumers may control illuminance in the room on summer and prevent loosing of heat on winter. Integration with smarthome system (thanks Z-Wave support) will give a possibility to create various scenarios to make your home more comfortable.

[via AutomatedHome]

Many of you should know about possibility to control AV equipment connected via HDMI from remote control of one of those devices. Sony calls it Bravia Theater Synch, Toshiba – Regza Link, LG – SimpLink etc. But basically all those technologies use CEC – Consumer Electronic Control – bidirectional serial bus that allows components to control each other across an HDMI cable. However, in case of Sony, Toshiba, LG etc that technology works only between devices from the same manufactures. The new kwikwai unit not only fixes that limitation. It also allow to send commands to two AV devices via LAN, USB or RS232 ports. That fact makes this device extremely useful when you need integrate AV equipment into whole house automation system. It’s more reliable then IR transmitters and gives more flexibility and power.

The kwikwai unit can be used as a tinkering and discovery tool as well. It provides a web interface to see detailed communication information between devices and allows to send specified command to the connected device. So, professional integrators may have a big benefit to use it.

The kwikwai unit is already available at £230.

[via AutomatedHome]

DreamPlug PC is a new devices from Globalscale Technologies – well-known producer of GuruPlug and SheevaPlug. It has 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva ARM processor, 512MB of DDR-2-800MHz RAM, 1GB of microSD storage for system files, two gigabit ethernet ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA 2.0 port, SD card slot, Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth and a headphone jack. It’s ready for Debian or Ubuntu installation as well as for other Linux distribution.

The DreamPlug PC can be a good base for home server (you can use Amahi, for example) or smarthome controller (mini distribution of LinuxMCE). It’s compact, energy-efficient but has enough power for serious applications. Also device has a good price – just $150.

[via DVICE]