Smart Home Blog

Since I wrote about MAME plugin and JavaMO for LinuxMCE both applications got a good progress. MAME plugin now displays correctly extracted game’s meta data and picture (see its Screencast). So, hope to find it in the next 0710 beta 3 build.

The results of development of JavaMO – Mobile Orbiter for phones with support of Java, can be tested on the next build of 0710 beta 3. The Orbiter works fine on the Windows Mobile and a Nokia Symbian phones. So, can’t wait the next build to play with it!

And finally the extremely annoying bug with wrong checksum in the CM11A interface was fixed recently! Additionally many improvements were made to give consumers more repayable X10 interface. Well done!

As you may know LinuxMCE supports smartphones under Symbian OS 1st edition, Windows Mobile 2003 and Treo as mobile Orbiters to control your home. It uses Bluetooth to communicate with smarthome system. So, it’s too difficult port every time the code to the new version of mobile OS. So, a big fan of LinuxMCE Hari decided to develop the Orbiter on Java Mobile platform. In that case we can have universal code which can work even on ordinary mobile phone with support of Java and Bluetooth. The idea of Java Orbiter will be more attractive if you remember about Google’s Android.

The progress of development of JavaMO (Java Mobile Orbiter) you may see on the picture. It’s really cool work! To get the latest news about JavaMO, please, read that topic on the LinuxMCE forum. If you’d like to participate in development or investigate the code just checkout it from the SVN repository. All contributors are very welcome!

LegendTV is one of the Google Summer projects. Its goal is to create an alternative to MythTV for Linux-based machines. LegendTV has an architecture similar to MythTV – apparent separating to a front-end and a back-end. The front-end will handle playback via a Java3D-based GUI. The back-end will offer similar functionality as many existing PVRs: scheduling, recording, file management etc. Currently the project author concentrates on Linux version. But following by Java slogan “Written once, works everywhere” or something similar, versions for Windows and MacOs are also planned.

I can be wrong but IMHO Java technologies are too heavy and resource-intensive for home using. I don’t think that the LegendTV can be work efficiently on Pentium II with 256Mb RAM as VDR can. Anyway, let see how that project will grow. Basically, it’s good to have reasonable number of choices to build home media center.

Recently I wrote about home automation with Python. The good opportunity to do that is using your preferable program environment and automate your home. Today I found another good project – jHomeNet. jHomeNet is Java Home Automation system based on Java, of course. Since it’s Java the system supports any operation system (at least Linux, Windows and Mac OS) where Java can be run. It also needs Mysql database. Currently jHomeNet allows to control 1-Wire and x10 devices only.

The first release of jHomeNet was on August 2005. Since that time the system can do a few things only (according to user’s manual). But as I see jHomeNet includes an application server and there is a chance that it will be expanded to the other area of the house and will support more devices.

If your use CM11A to control your x10 devices that software might be interesting for you. The CM11A emulator is a Java application developed by Jaap Gordijn which allows to do following:

• Emulate CM11A itself: X10 command, event and status report.
• One or more simulated X10 devices (on/off devices, dimmers): On/Off devices and dimmers and two way devices.
• A remote control: using a command line interface, you can change the state of X10 devices, and the CM11A emulator reports this accordingly.

You can download the CM11A emulator here.