Smart Home Blog

Recently the mCubed, well-known producer stylish small factor PC, presented its new device – RIPNAS. It combines Audio CD ripping, Network Attached Storage and Media Streaming in one easy to use small, quiet and fanless box. The CD ripping is fully automated and it doesn’t need user interaction. The metadata is retrieved 4 providers – AMG, GD3, MusicBrainz, freedb, with quality album art, spelling mistakes are automatically corrected using PerfectMeta technology. Ripped to a lossless format CDs are automatically shared for streaming for various network media players such Sonos, Logitech Squeezebox, uPNP/DLNA compatible players and iTunes DAAP.

The RIPNAS is based on Windows Home Server which offers complete home network backup for all family Windows PCs. It’s available with 640Gb HDD. But storage capacity can be easily extended by connecting external USB drivers.

The price of RIPNAS is not so cheap – €995.00. You can buy even semiprofessional solution with RAID support and many others options. IMHO it isn’t reasonable money for possibility to rip your CDs (and not DVDs). The lack of gigabit Ethernet is also not an advantage.

[via TestFreask]

Tranquil PC has announced the limited availability of the fanless T7-HSG Atom2 powered Windows Home Server and a Media Center PC (will be released soon). Both devices will be based on the Atom2 (Z330) processor which displays as 4 x CPU history streams in Task Manager and is 64-bit compatible.

The T7-HSG is tagged at £299.00 and comes with 512MB DDR2 memory, 500GB hard drive, 4x USB2.0 ports and Gigabit Ethernet. It seems that with Atom2 we can have noiseless and energy saving media PC but with enough power to playback media content including HD.

[via eHomeUpgrade and We Got Served]

HAI – Home Automation, Inc. recently announced its new software for Windows Home Server – WL3. It’s realized as an Add-in for a Windows Home Server and allows to monitor and control HAI Home Control System from any device with a web browser, including the newly announced iPhone 2.0, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, smartphone, computer, PDA, Internet Tablet etc.

The WL3 is flexible and customizable. It allows to change UI by applying different graphic and color schemes. Additionally, you can add RSS feeds for custom data, such as weather forecasts or personal blogs to the WL3 main page. So, you’ll able to read some news between watching video from your security cameras or checking status of various sensors.

The WL3 provides a web-based user interface. In my opinion this is the best choice. It has some limitations. But as advantage it gives a possibility to control your home from any device with web browser. Which is not bad any way.

The WL3 be shipping in July. Price is not tagged yet.

[via AutomatedHome]