Very nice way to piece together a home automation system on a budget. Check out BitWise Controls, http://www.bitwisecontrols.com, for another solution that will give you a more flexibility (espcially on the user interface), but not kill the budget.

You be sure to stay non-self righteous yourself.

What’s wrong with just leaving it on the coffee table, or any place else? If you want to change the lighting while you’re on the couch, it’s easier to reach.

Care to share your reasoning?

I also have been doing HA for years, hacked an X10 computer
interface b4 they were commercially available. I now use
Insteon/Indigo for lighting/electrical control. IR control is via
lircd. I plan on doing something very similar to this project.

Insteon is great stuff, much more reliable than X10, but be aware
it does eat the watts! The keypad controllers are especially hungry.

I did my first system with about 15 keypad controllers and literally watched my monthly power bill climb by +$25. Kill-a-watt meters do NOT give an accurate measure of their power consumption, beware. I retooled, replacing most of the keypad controllers with switchlink controllers and got the power consumption down to something reasonable. Remember that every insteon device is a vampire, and you can’t just “unplug when not in use”.

Indigo (perceptive automation) is great software for controlling
insteon devices. It is web based, so you don’t need to deal with
all the “apple app crap” to write your own software (don’t get me
started). It is based on CherryPy (www.cherrypy.org), which is
a library/paradigm package that embeds a lightweight web
server in your app. I am going to use this to create apps
similar to/integrated with indigo for the lircd component of
my system, as well as the other odd components I have acquired
thru the years.

I need to add a way to stream video to the ipad/safari. For
my whole-house music control I rigged up a video monitor camera in front of my sirius satellite receiver. So you can control
the sirius device via lircd and get video feedback of each step
at any of the hardwired monitors. Once it gets to the ipad/safari
I can change channels, etc. from anyplace in the house without
having to guess where the last button press actually took me.
This concept could be applied to other devices where “a picture
is worth a thousand icons”.

Steve

here are limits to design that can be done with the software running the system considering it is simply an html page without the ability to handle CSS the way I’d like

This implies that your system can handle CSS in some form, which in turn means you may be able to do more than you think: CSS in blocks within the HTML can do everything CSS in stylesheets can, and even if you’re restricted to inline CSS, the only thing you lose is the ability to use pseudo-classes like hover.

Avoid X10 switches, they are slow and unreliable. In particular
they are disrupted by the use of compact fluorescent lights.

Insteon is more reliable, and faster. Start small, get a keypad
link in the desktop console, a lamp link dimmer, and a switch
link. You could start with something like this:
http://www.smarthome.com/2490B1/KeypadLinc-INSTEON-Lamp-and-Wall-Dimmer-Control-Kit/p.aspx
add one of these to make testing easier:
http://www.smarthome.com/2402BK/Tabletop-Enclosure-for-KeypadLinc-Black/p.aspx

Set them up in various places around the house and see
how they work. You will probably find specific combinations/locations
that fail: noise from appliance motors, lights, etc. can cause
issues. These usually can be fixed with filters, etc., but you
don’t want to make a large investment in a technology that turns
out to be unusable at your site.

Check the subtle details, a unit might work flawlessly UNTIL the
freezer next to it happens to be running, at which point it
fails completely. You might find devices that turn on, but fail to
turn off reliably because the device itself creates noise blocking
the ‘off’ signal.

An OK (but not enough detail) book on insteon is:
http://www.smarthome.com/9363/INSTEON-Smarthomes-for-Everyone-Paperback/p.aspx

If you intend to do a more complex setup, you will find that
insteon (or any other technology) will not do everything
that you need. You will end up using several different
types, and have to deal with the added complexity of
making them “get along”. To your list of equipment add
a mac mini (or other low power 24/7 computer) to run
an interface to the devices, as well as a wifi hub to talk to
your iPad:
http://www.smarthome.com/2413U/PowerLinc-Modem-INSTEON-USB-Interface-Dual-Band/p.aspx

Plus, you really need to describe what ‘All Lights Off’ means?

By all means, it’s a neat idea but how expensive are the ‘alternatives’ you hinted at really. I just can’t imagine the ipad being an inexpensive solution to anything

-A poor person

You stay classy underdesign!

I am not anti-tech by any means but I just use lots of power bars to turn off my vampire devices and seem to have the same savings without spending thousands on gadgets.

This seems like a great idea to me. Out of curiosity, what size magnet did you use?

Have you done any research into the total amount of power consumed by the monitoring system around the clock (i.e. timers, motion detectors, iMacs, iPad, cameras, displays)?

Most of this probably wouldn’t be worth it for me, as I’m keener on energy savings than on having a Star Trek house. I mean, when I go to bed it makes more sense to switch off the lights than to tell a timer to switch them off in ten minutes. Still, cool stuff.

I expect that Android is the far more likely to be the OS of choice for such things. It isn’t because Android has any great technical leg up (though the Apple lock down isn’t terribly useful if you are only using it as a kiosk), but because you can slap Android onto any cheap stripped down touch screen computer and it will happily chug along. A bare bones pad with nothing more exotic than a USB port and maybe a microphone will give you the exact same functionality as a shinny iPad while at the same time padding your ass with a few hundred extra dollars. I really just can’t envision Apple offering anything to fill the ‘cheap as humanly possible’ niche, which is pretty much what you want in a kiosk style touch screen.

Same thing that happens when you get tired of watching your ultimate fighting and monster truck videos and pull the cord on the lightbulb to go to sleep in your mom’s basement.

Automation Rookie

See how the author has grouped the functions together based on colour, and has provided himself with some shortcuts to execute series of frequently-combined functions? The key to a good, Mac-like interface is a minimal approach focusing on the most often-used functions. Style is a secondary concern, and I think the minimal approach looks good; probably a lot better than a grid of smaller, semi-embossed icons in a vain attempt to duplicate the iOS springboard.

UI form follows function, not the other way around. But if you think you can do better, let’s see it!

http://ikera.tumblr.com

I’m pretty impressed with the whole thing. I got one of those graphic light timers from thinkgeek.com and I’m proud of myself for being able to program it for a vacation. Alan demonstrates clearly what it means to be a Happy Mutant Make. I love it.