Misterhouse - a Home Driven by Perl Scripts

An anonymous submitter copies from the website: "MisterHouse is an open source home automation program. It's fun, it's free, and it's entirely geeky. Written in Perl, it fires events based on time, web, socket, voice, and serial data. It currently runs on Windows 95/98/NT/2k/XP and on most Unix based platforms, including Linux and Mac OSX. It can talk, it can check your messages, control the lights, program your VCR, and what is best - it understands spoken commands. It can even track your car by interfacing to a TNC. And there are 600 users and 209 authors contributing to this project. Cool, eh?"

Comments

slash

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be the first time that we can slashdot a house!

Very similar to MIT's Project Oxygen

[Jerk City Troll]

MIT's Project Oxygen is a very similar concept. It's meant to create intelligent environments that respond to your routines and commands as well. Naturally, Oxygen seems to be far more complete, but less likely to fall into the hands of just about anyone. Check out their site, it's a great read.

It would be cool, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

...none of it will work properly when Perl 6 comes out.

A sign of the apocalypse

[Call Me Black Cloud]

209 Perl programmers coding scripts to run my house. Who would be insane enough to run that code? All thoughts about the maintainability of Perl aside I find I require my house to do very little text processing.

Re:A sign of the apocalypse

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl can thank decades of sloppy programmers for its bad rap as far as readability and maintainability. The language itself can be as clean as you want it to be, unless you have a manic hatred for sigils. Perl is also superior at more than just text processing, you know. IPC and databasing (DBI/CGI) are also extremely powerful and easy to do in Perl. As for running the code, well, it depends how you look at group projects...do more people just add to the disaster, or do they catch each other's mistakes? Perl folks (those who love Perl and spend a lot of time developing Perl apps) are generally pretty clever...

/.'d already...

[stagmeister]

... will he still be able to unlock the door when he gets home from work?

Re:/.'d already...

[arivanov]

Nope, but not for the reason you have been thinking of.

Mister House (which itself is OK) is usually used to drive X10 hardware which excuse me for the engineering language is a crock of shit. Low bandwidth (several bits per second) shared bus over power line. Once you got past 4-5 peripherals and it has just started to look really usefull you start getting gremlins. Lights coming on and off by themselves, central heating going haywire and so on. Most importantly it starts taking up to 10 seconds for some of the sensors to respond to a poll. So your garage lamp gets turned on 10 seconds after your IR sensor reacts.

No thanks.

Do not smoke this shit (have friends who do though). Once I am done with all the current house work I will wire some of the stuff but it will be using good ole cat5 for the sensors on dedicated wiring. And good ole cat5 to the relays once again on dedicated wiring. And some use for some good ole serial boards that will otherwise byte the bullet. Possibly once again driven by a heavily modified mister house but no X10.

Re:/.'d already...

[kfhickel]

You just need to get higher quality modules, and do a little background work. I've got more than 40 devices with no problems, although I haven't gone the heating/cooling control route (yet).

Re:/.'d already...

[Smidge204]

I don't understand why making a computer the primary control for everything in the house has such appeal. Especially things like lighting and heating.

Most occupancy sensors have a built in set of contacts (optionally two sets sometimes) specifically for switching lights. If you want to monitor or override the sensor with a central computer, that's perfectly doable... but there's no sense in sending a signal half way across the house, prosessing it, and sending a signal all the way back when the sensor itself is perfectly capable of dealing with it directly.

Same thing with heating. If you're going to need a thermostat for each room/zone anyway, why not let it control the heating directly and have the central computer step in only as a secondary control? No lag, more robust (since otherwise the computer presents a single point of failure) and probably more modular.

A simple stand-alone controller to open and close window shades (for example) can be built for a few bucks each, and you'ld probably only need one per room, if that many. What would it take? Photo cell of some kind, relay, power supply, small PIC or other microcontroller package, and a motor. No big deal!

Running a dedicated wire is still a good idea regardless. *maybe* using one or two X10 devices for things that might not lend themselves to hardwiring, or something you might not have around long enough to warrent dedicated controls. (Holiday lights maybe? I dunno...)
=Smidge=

I dunno...

[TopShelf]

HOMEOWNER: Open the patio door, Misterhouse.

MISTERHOUSE: I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that...

Yikes!

Great for lazy crominals...

[jocks]

Simply shout "Shut the curtains, switch off the lights, disable the alarm and unlock the front door" through the letter box.

Coffee, Security

[schnarff]

Now if only we can get a coffee machine that's compatible with this, I'll be set. :-)

Of course, the other thing to worry about here is security -- I sure would hate to get 0wn3d by some idiot who then had the power to play with my lights, change my channels, etc. I know the easy crack here is to say "then just don't run it on Windoze!", but I won't take that road because RedHat, etc. are almost as vulnerable if improperly configured.

Tried MisterHouse

[Your_Mom]

I've tried MisterHouse (a year ago, take this with a large helping of NaCl), and I was not that impressed by it. It has all these "Gee Whiz" features, and there are some neat things, but you need to run it on a dedicated box, with a lot of horsepower. I would much rather have a smaller, more compact version with less features.

If you have the computing power to use it though, try it, it's fun :)

The FSW Life Cycle

[3rd_Floo]

1. Start a project
2. Succeed in making a good project
3. Get noticed by /.
4. Loose your bandwith allocation for the next year
5. Go under because the bandwith nazi creditors are after your free project.

Looks like they are midway between 3 and 4... huummm =P

Site ./ - Yahoo groups messages

[implex]

This may be of value for more information as the site is ./d
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MisterHouse/messages

I named my wall "Larry"

[celloloop]

Course listing at the local Home Depot:

7:30 Kitchen and Bathroom Tile installation
8:30 Decorator Paint techniques
9:00 Perl syntax for home automation

Name your house's components:
my($Wall) = "Larry";

Bluetooth

[Pendersempai]

Imagine this technology combined with a simple Bluetooth ID that you can carry in your wallet:

• Lights turn on as you enter a room and turn off as you leave it
• The music you play on your networked audio system follows you from room to room
• The movie you're playing pauses automatically when you go to the bathroom
• The heat is turned down when you leave the house
• Your rooms of your house, in general, snap to attention at your presence and stand at ease when you've passed

Re:Bluetooth

[paiute]

Didn't someone living near Seattle build a big ass mansion with all this in it? How'd that work out for him?

Re:Bluetooth

[PerryMason]

* snap to attention at your presence and stand at ease when you've passed

And they'd have Genuine People Personalities? It'd be a door's pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done?

I'm not too sure if its all a good idea. Don't forget that history has shown the marketing division who came up with GPP to be a bunch of mindless jerks who were first up against the wall when the revolution came.

Re:Bluetooth

[surprise_audit]

All of which are just fine if you're the single occupant of the room (or even house), but when there are multiple other occupants, there'd better be some very good conflict resolution software in the loop.

Sure, it's easy enough to count the folks in any given room and make the decision to turn the lights off when the last person leaves, but what if I like the lights bright and my wife doesn't? If I'm in the room with the lights bright and she walks in, should it dim the lights? Pick some point between our two references? Same goes for TV channels/volume, room temp, etc.

And what about visitors? Imagine a SuperBowl party where the host leaves the room to take a leak and the TV shuts down... Guess you'd need to hand out IDs as visitors enter the house...

It would still be cool, though. :)

Re:Seems to be using X10

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to clarify: X10 is a standard. It's not inherently evil. It only seems that way because of the company that is also called X10 (the one that does the pop-ups, etc.).

Fewer brownouts due to airconditioners?

[bentfork]

The site says that it has speach capabilities. I really like this one:

Notice, the sun is bright at 32 percent, and it is cold outside at 24 degrees, so I am opening the curtains at 8:07 AM

Actions similar to this can save a lot of energy. Curtains are a super efficient way to control internal temperatures, if and when they are uses correctly. How many of you remembed to close your blinds before you went work? ;)

Now if there was only a script that would output this:

I noticed there were dirty dishes in the sink when you went to bed last night. They have been places in the dishwasher. [Insert spouse name here] will be pleased.

Re:Fewer brownouts due to airconditioners?

[cybermace5]

Ok. Let's get one thing straight here. I do NOT want my house handling kitchen knives and other pointy objects. "I noticed you and [insert spouse here] had a fight. They have been buried out in the yard. I am sure you will be pleased."

Why just PERL?

[Maradine]

After all . . .

The house that PERL built:

. . . has more entrances than you know what to do with, and most of them lead to the same room anyway. Random geeks walk by and obfuscate your living room for fun.

The house that RUBY built:

. . . makes eating dinner confusing, as when you drop your spork (an instance of class spork, which multiply inherits from classes spoon and fork, two subclasses of class utensil, a subclass of . . .) your not really sure whose member method your picking it up with. Using the bathroom is right out.

The house that LUA built:

. . . swing at the large rat. You hit! The large rat disappears in a cloud of red mist. You have killed the large rat. The grid bug misses. The grid bug misses. You are jolted by the grid bug. There is a fountain here. Do you drink from it? (y/n) Your god is angry with you. Curse the day that all the nethack and angband developers integrated lua into their games. The grid bug misses . . .

Re:Hardware

[codezion]

Hardware List (taken from FAQ:

(Google Cache)

6.8 What sort of hardware do you have in your house?

This is what is currently (04/2001) in Bruce's house (see mh/docs/mh.* 'List of supported hardware interfaces' for more info):

- Mh running on a dual 600 PIII Win 2K box great for quick mh debugging :)

- SB Live Value sound card (supports simultaneous sound sources)

- PCI ByteRunner 8 port serial card

- PCI phone modem for callerid logging and announcements

- Linux box for hosting misterhouse.net

- 5 other networked computers for mp3 client/servers, shoutcast server, games, writing, and work from home

- Radio Shack PA amp with a PA speaker in each room

- Wiring closet with 3 DIO weeder cards and 2 analog cards

- 16 relay card from jameco for PA speaker switch

- Home brew motor/relays for up/down control of 9 Window quilt curtains

- RF sensor in the mailbox across the steet

- WX200 weather station from Radio Shack

- Relays controling garage door and furnace heat and fan

- Digital input sensors on doors and garage door

- A few iButtons for testing

- X10 IR commander and CM17 for sending IR signals

- X10 CM11 with X10 consoles in each room for control

- X10 motion sensors, light, and appliance modules

- Matrix-orbital LCD keypad for local output and control

- WAP cell phone for remote queries and control

- A ham radio TNC for tracking 2 GPS APRS equipped cars

- NetGear router with mh monitored SYSLOG data for tracking internet traffic

- MSVoice VR via a Andrea Desktop Array microphone

240 V Network, e.g. Europe?

[stere0]

Apparently, all the hardware supported by MisterHouse runs on 120V.

Having to use 240->120 and 120->240 transformers would be practically impossible. Does anyone know of hardware that would work on this side of the Atlantic?

Re:240 V Network, e.g. Europe?

[JaredOfEuropa]

MisterHouse seems to use controllers using the X10 protocol, which is widely available in 220V. Here for example.

Use a Mirror

[/dev/trash]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/misterhouse
or
h ttp://www.misterhouse.net:81/

sourceforge.net

[Lilferret]

http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ I've been following this site for a while now. The components used are x10 .. no not the camera http://www.smarthome.com/ You can get all the automated living stuff you want from sites like this. Lowes stores also cary a limited number of x10 lights and usually a thermostat or two.

Re:sourceforge.net

[jandrese]

Ugh, X10. I've used a fair bit of X10 stuff in my lifetime, and I'm quite convinced that they need to fire their current quality control people. Here's a list of the components and their reliability:

• Transciever modules, these are basically appliance modules with an antenna to recieve RF commands and a transmitter to relay them through the power lines. These are generally fairly reliable, although you need one for both phases of the power in your house, and they can act screwey (like not working when you plug in an extension cord). There is no way to make it not device 1 however, which is annoying since you need 2 of them in the house. The maximum power spec is rather low to boot.
• Appliance modules, simple on/off that accepts commands through the power line: pretty reliable, I've not had much trouble with these.
• Lamp modules, has circutry for dimming as well as on/off. Not designed to be used with anything but incandescent light bulbs: Completely unreliable. Lamps come on at random, the modules will stop responding to commands, etc... Usually it takes less than a week or two before the thing fails on me, and I've had a least half a dozen of these things over the years.
• Slimline switchs: The buttons wear out in about 2 months. Eats batteries like crazy.
• Regular big old white remotes: extremely reliable (havn't had a problem with one yet!), sips battery power (but it does need quite a few AAs). I've mounted these on the walls instead of the slimline switches
• Bottlerockets: Sometimes they don't like certain machines. I can't get it to work at all on a couple of my machines, but when they do work they're extremely reliable.
• Motion sensor: Failed within a month, lousy range.
• Replacement Wall Switch: About as reliable as a lamp module

To be fair, a lot of my X10 hardware has come from those free starter packs, but other than the lamp modules, that starter pack seems to include all of the reliable equipment. My opinion of X10 is that their stuff is good for demos, but not really ready for full time use.

Re:sourceforge.net

[Balthisar]

At the smarthome link, there are lots of third-party X10 compatible stuff. My favorite's the IR receiver that works with any programmable IR remote. Eliminates the need for the transceiver, but still works on one "phase" (in the USA there are two leads that are 240V to each other, but 120 to ground, but they're not really separate phases, otherwise you'd have about 210V to each other). Okay, the solution is a bridging capacitor, also available at Smarthome. Throw in across the "phases" in the circuit breaker box, and the X10 signal traverses them both. No need for a second anything.

Mrs. House?

[Amarok.Org]

It'd be a lot easier to program a Mrs. House. No automation needed.

YOU: "Mrs. House, turn on the TV."
MRS.HOUSE: "Turn it on yourself, ya lazy bum!"

serial input detects a change on a window sensor...

MRS.HOUSE: "I heard a noise... go see what it was!"

Re:Hardware

[kawika]

For basic control, you can get X-10 powerline control stuff at x10.com, or worthdist.com, or even your local Radio Shack. The computer-to-powerline interfaces run $10-$50, the most common one is the CM11a. There are also computer-to-wireless interfaces like the MR26 that let you receive keypad presses. The wireless keypads can also control devices directly.

There are plug-in modules to control lamps and appliances, they generally run $5-$15 each. You can also buy wire-in switches and outlets that can be controlled by X-10 signals, cost is $10-$70 each. So you probably don't want to replace every switch in your house.

There's a lot of activity on the comp.home.automation group if you want to learn more.

Misterhouse, my specs ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone asked what it can run on, I'm using it on my RH Linux 7.3 box on an AMD 400MHz with 256M RAM and a 30G drive (30% used). I've got 12 serial port in use (caller ID, weather station, CM11a, HCS II, dallas one wire network, etc. ). I need to put some more work into it but in a couple of weeks I'll be moving one of my Audrey's into the living room so we have a touch screen interface to MH from there. MH may not be a simple DIY project but it is extremely powerful. I have it turning things on and off as needed (such as printers attached to print servers, uses X10 to turn on and off the printer). I've got more than X10 but we don't want this message to get too long. Linux Home Automation
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ncherry/
http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/
http://hcs.sourceforge.net/

Why Bluetooth?

[tomzyk]

Huh. Why BlueTooth? If you just want it to initiate events while you move around/through the house, just put one of those RFID tags in your pocket and put sensors in all of the doorways. (Supposedly the sensors can only pick up the tags within a few feet.) This way you don't have any hardware that you still might drop/misplace/etc...

Hell, just tape/glue/insert an RFID tag to your arm (like a nicotine patch or something) and you can walk around your house naked and still have everything working.

In that case...

[Faust7]

and what is best - it understands spoken commands.

I believe I'll be turning it off during sex.

X10 in general

[slasher999]

For those that don't know, X10 is the protocol behind a lot of the Home Automation hardware out there. I've been using a Windows based software solution for a few years now - HomeSeer - and it's fantastic. Runs on my wife's Windows 2000 workstation (that is always on). I've considered Mister House many times over the past few years, but never tried it out myself.

There are X10 solutions for use in Europe as well. Here's a jumping off point:

http://www.x-10europe.com/

Good luck!

Home Automation through web services

[bomblaster]

A group of 5 students (including myslef) did the same thing around 2 years back during our third year in CS - October 2001 - for the Microsoft Asia Student .NET competition. Implemented the Home Automation service as an XML web service that could be consumed by external applications (after authentication of course :) ) to view home status information as well as trigger actions on home devices remotely.
The devices were controlled by a software gateway on a central home computer thru Wi-Fi and the specifications for communication between the gateway and the home device were encapsulated in an XML driver.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/n ov01/11-14asia.asp
http://it.asia1.com.sg/newsdaily/news003_20011030. html

Re:here comes the inevitable

[scalis]

imagine a beowulf cluster...

That would be a suburb with one master key going to all the locks and random neigbours crashing in your house all the time...
Sounds like a blast!

Shoulda Seen This Coming...

[Mister Transistor]

I wanted to find out more about Mr. House, so I got a fresh cup from Mr. Coffee, and sat down at Mr. Computer. It wasn't working, so I checked Mr. Radar - it was jammed - yes, with Raspberry!

Only one person would have enough nerve to give me the Raspberry:

Lonestar!

(With Apologies to Mel Brooks)

Misterhouse and alternatives

[peel]

MisterHouse has been around for a while now and mainly relies on X10 modules. It works fairly well but as one other poster noted it really does need a dedicated box with a bit of muscle or it's a bit slow and frustrating to use. I came across it while looking for X10 software for linux, which it runs on as well as OSX and most versions of Windows. There are many similar products out there for Windows, Mac and even a few simple ones for linux. The most popular/commercial product was a piece of software for the ActiveHome module that came as part of IBM's Home Director kit (I can't remember what the old version was now it comes with HomeVoice). In all my years of using X10 I'd still have to say XTension for the Mac was one of the coolest products out there as it let you create a floorplan pretty easily and it ran well on an old 75Mhz PPC. Lately I've just been using Heyu which is a simple command line interface for linux that supports macros. Anything I want to do I can set a cron job to do automagically or start an ssh session and do from work or wherever. Sure there's no voice control, but personally I always felt a little weird even using speech recognition on the Mac, it could never quite understand "Who's your daddy?" -peel

Obfuscation Run Awry

[JojoLinkyBob]

Well I ran:

perl -e 's;;join"\n",map{unpack"B*",$_}map{unpack"u",$_}qw :&?(3^_H+^ &@HB`@(*` +&@)"`@(*` &?.#X^(+X &`I"`@$2` &@HB`@"B` &?(3^_A#^:;e;y;1;#;;s;$;\n;;y +;0;.;;'

on my house, and now it won't let me in! That's the last time I download from the obfuscated home automation script section.

Does this mean...

[identity0]

..that when you lose something in your house, you can regexp for it? ;)

What will the computer say?

[The Tyro]

Did you see the speech output? My favorite quote:

"Notice, there were 668 web hits from 74 clients in the last day."

Heh... wonder what the speech output for today will be...

"My mind is going... Dave..."

Homer's theme song

[thelenm]

Homer Simpson could do well selling this thing. "Mister House, that's my name, that name again is Mister House!"