Saturday, July 17, 2010

Making the most of Home Tech - Rob Inskeep

Used to work in an R&D company trying to think and live 3-5 years ahead - access to funding for gadgets on that basis... but...
Married an accountant => not same access to funds :)
=> need to get most out of what you have.

Buffalo TerraStation 6 yo PPC processor (later were ARM)
Community supported
SAMBA 3 etc.
Central disk storage
Disks scratch DVD's - kids
Linksys WRT(54G) Tomato etc.
...tweak power etc.
WAF - Wife Approval Factor :)
Media Center (Windoze, due to WAF)
MCE anyware/anywhere http://thegreenbutton.org
genre mood aartist etc. playlists
NASA space telescopes etc. - Hubble etc.
photo on web - South Island from ISS - stunning :) (NASA site?)
photos of holidays etc in place of just TV - helps to talk
Power usage monitoring
Special agent Laszlo - turning stuff off
Local weather (station on house)
walk dog? hang washing out? etc...
weather underground
Cost/kWh
Old house with old dodgy phone wiring - slow DSL
Google powermeter
http://inskeep.net/weather/
OpenMesh - ex Moeraki (evil?)

Media piping from one end of house to other
PRMA? VRMA?
PS/3 media server?
Samsung TV's VLMA? DLNA? hack to make TV think stuff is in a local USB device - so will play anything :)
Android TV Sweden?
Linux MCE
HDMI replacement over Cat5/6 - HDNet?
PoE?
100Mbps minimum capability required
SpeakerCraft NIRV
http://www.mynirv.com
64 zones of HD
2 pairs of cat6 to every plug
add boards in e.g. stairwell/cupboard
playlist follows you around the house

MythTV should be best IP TV backend
allow frontend to use web I/F
France - set top box IPTV for TV
from ISP
well-known standards
WDTV ? Linux under the hood - how to tweak?

WiFi not a great success
5.5 etc saturated as well as 2.4
old house - wiring round back of cupboards etc. (not in walls)

Build in Cat6 etc. - min 2 runs to each plate
@ least 2 outlets per room
3 for lounge etc.
Regret: not running ducting
future options: fibre - more coax - keep power etc out of network ducting - UHF / sat baseband etc.
PT106 Telecom - separations of data/power etc.
not many people implementing it
Fletchers?
large building companies
G.J.Gardner - can do but don't initiate the conversation by default
Google "cable your house Auckland"

LED lighting?
Solar panels - requests coming in for LEDs - different - beam shaping etc. and colors etc.

RightHouse - free advice
Passive systems (e.g. tilting house slightly to max insolation, extension options etc.
Waitakere ecoAdvisor -- hopefully will continue under the SuperCity
carrott.org/power/ power meter
type 5000 into box, then click somewhere else (bad JS)
Revenue meter from TradeMe $30
Dry contacts and flashing light
WallWarts from The Warehouse
Ripple control - helps - sometimes doesn't switch back on (West Auckland)
Meridian is state-owned - profits back to NZ
Genesis NZ owned but coal users
TrustPower - wind etc. - but overseas owned
"Contact is Evil"
Mighty River
Meter RJ45 - to - USB - replicate, virtualize it to various programs
?Query by mail to speaker?

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