Home Automation
This is a section devoted to my tools, gadgets and toys...
I have always been known as a "tinkerer". Back in junior high school I used
to try to impress girls with turning the lights in my room on and off by remote control. I
lived across the street from the Public Library and could sit in the window at the library
and watch my room lights go off and on. I then discovered that it didn't impress the girls
much (except for my wife) but it sure gave us nerdy guys something to talk about.
I briefly experimented with a pneumatic door closer (in reverse) in combination with a
home-made air compressor to open our screen door by remote control. It worked rather well
-- too well actually, it just about ripped the door off the hinges. It took a long time to
be able to admit that one to my father.
Fast forward to January of 1994 we had a intense
blizzard moving in and I was looking for a project to occupy myself. I proceeded to
replace ALL the light switches in the house with X-10
switches and control them via a dedicated X-10 controller called a Time Commander Plus from JDS. The controller (a
special-purpose computer) could be programmed by my desktop computer through a
serial port using a program called Event Manager. It gives me not only scheduled events
like "Outdoor lights on at dusk, off at dawn" but also sequences like my
favorite that turns on a series of lights from the family room to the master bedroom in
succession as you walk, turning them off as you pass.
I also use the system to control my outdoor lighting, fountains and pool lighting.
There is a battery operated remote that controls all the outdoor equipment from
poolside.
I recently added a 900Mhz Wireless Speaker system from Advent. The transmitter plugs
into the sound card of my PC (standard 1/8" mini-jack) and transmits whatever passes
through the sound card. I use it to play CDs and to listen to Internet Radio all through the house and beyond,
the range and clarity is quite good. A surprise benefit is that I also hear my mail
notification sound while in the shower -- the pinnacle of geek-dom.
My Setup 
