Smart Home Blog

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]

iRidium Mobile development team recently released a new version of iRidium 1.4 for AMX. It’s supported by Windows XP/7/Mobile and available for downloading on the iRidum Mobile web site. The version for iPhone/iPad will be updated on AppStore till the end of next week.

New in the version 1.4:

• added commands @PPX, @PPG, @PPK, PPON, PPOF, ^BAT, ^BAU, ^SHO, ^BCB, ^BCT, ^BCF, ^BOP, ^ENA;
• added Chameleon Image option;
• borders functionality is revised;
• extended font support;
• added sound;
• added a queue of display support – Free Show sequence (in older version only one sequence – FILL, Image, Icon, Text);
• added a full-screen mode for desktop;
• improved performance of the Windows mobile version.

The team is continuing work with the next 1.5 release where you’ll find new features. Also they’d like to remind you that you can still get a free version of iRidium here.

OmWave produced the most elegant Windows Home Server, in my mind. Its OmServer is wrapped in the smoking hot case and equipped with 4 hard disk drives for 4TB of storage, a 2GHz Celeron processor with 1GB of memory.

Starting price is 960€ which is not so expensive for such gorgeous design.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

German company HIGHDEF Technology Gmbh offers a very nice looking Vista MCE based home entertainment systems. It includes a TV reception with HDTV and a twin tuner, a hard drive and DVD recorder, DVD and CD player, archive for video, music and photos, and Internet and email, as well as video on demand. The Box One has probably the best case for media center I have ever seen. It’s an excellent mix of an austere style and functionality. The Box One fits to others A/V devices ideally.

To control the Box One media system the 7″ touch panel and the keypad can be used. The old school remote control is also an option. Based on my personal experience it’s the best way to control media center.

Recently ControlThink introduced ThinkRemote Community Edition, software that offers consumers access to Windows SideShow content from electronic devices found in nearly every home – mobile phones, portable game consoles and remote controls. Following devices are supported at current time – Windows Mobile phone or PDA, Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, Java-enabled phones, Sony PSP and Playstation 3, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, Web browser (I hope it won’t be just IE).

Well, the ThinkRemote platform seems cool. Especially if you use Windows Media Center or some Windows-based home automation system such HomeSeer. I’m not a big fan of Windows OS or its software. But the idea of SideShow is excellent. Hope Linux community will have something similar or better as usual.

[via eHomeUpgrade]