Smart Home Blog

A new line of HDTVs from Toshiba – Power TV will be equiped with external battery. So, its owners will be able to watch favourite TV shows about two hours after power cut. Not bad, especially during Champions League play-off. Additionally, Power TVs will have two cool features – “Auto Signal Booster” to improve video from weak signal and “Auto View” to optimize picture settings according to the ambient lighting condition. Also HDTVs of new Toshiba’s line will have low power consumption. So, consumers will be able to decrease their electricity bills and save environment.

Bye Bye Standby has announced its new controller which provides a web interface to control its sockets, outlets and other modules. The controller should be connected to the internet. To communicate with Bye Bye Standby devices it uses radio frequency 433 MHz. So, you don’t need additional wiring.

To be able to use that feature Bye Bye Standby offers a web service. You need to create an account, register your controller and after that you can control your appliance, check its status and monitor energy usage from anywhere in the world via the web. Additionally, Bye Bye Standby on-line service offers sending notifications by email or SMS. But SMS is not free. you should pay for them as well as for using the service.

Sounds good but a bit now clear for me. I prefer to have built-in web server in the controller to avoid using such web services. Moreover, the service is not free. You should pay some monthly amount plus cost of SMS. But if you already Bye Bye Standby devices that controller might be interesting for you.

Bye Bye Standby Online Kit is available at price £84.99 inc VAT and three months of subscription to its web service.

[via AutomatedHome]

When you build a homeautomation system you should think about case when electricity goes down. This article – “Installing a Back up Power System” from Automated Home explains in details why need a back up power system and howto to develop it. The author describes which equipment do you need – UPS, generators etc. Hope it’ll helpful especially for house owners.