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X10 Xmas Light Control with Pan and Zoom
zzxc writes "Last year, slashdot mentioned Alek Komarnitsky's 2002 Christmas Light display with the ability to turn ON and OFF each zone of lights. This year, he has added the ability to pan and zoom the camera in the web control, which works from 5-12 MST. You can select zoom from 1-5x, pan horizontally and vertically by selecting the angle, as well as turn each zone of lights ON or OFF. He also has sensors that tell you the current temperature, humidity, if it detects stars (vs clouds), and more. However after last year's 22,000 web controlled lights, he's "burnt out", putting up less than 4,000 lights. Last year, his lights pulled 78.6 amps of current. This year, he is only pulling about 14.7 amps. Also, last year his home T1 line was completely saturated by all the press attention. This year, he's ready. (Note that this is not referring to X10 wireless video cameras, but to power control devices using the x10 protocol.)"
I didn't see the answer to the question everyone is asking: can you pan far enough to see the girl in the bikini by the pool?
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Making it 10 trillionth overall" - Simpsons.
Seriously, though, I'd bet that this site would do really well if on xmas eve, santa showed up and deposited presents, and then did a pole dance or something.
stuff |
"The localtime is 1154 - the webcam/webcontrol will be operational in 5 hours, 6 minutes". Come back later.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Do we need a link to everything that caught the posters eye ?
What's the big deal? What was wrong with the good, old-fashioned throw-some-lights-in-the-bushes-and-in-the-gutters light scheme? Now, everyone's house either looks like the front yard of a church or a disco roller-arena from the 70s. Its John Travolta meets Jesus.
This year, he's ready.
Do I hear a challenge?
Isn't this a little dangerous? I mean, putting all that light out there, couldn't an airplane mistake his house for a runway?
:)
And who pays this guy's electricity bill?
So what if I'm jealous. Let me be bitter.
It appears his children were born upside down. I think doing the Christmas light is his way of coping with the pain and anguish.
TT
I did the same sort of thing. Hooked up the x10 and had the little cracker control a power module. Used the php x10 stuff and people could turn off the camera at will.
The driver which I help write is working under linux. The controls of the camera are not working right now (Porting driver to 2.6.0 kernel).
I did not get enough sleep, people would keep turning on and off the camera. Click, Click and Click all night. 8*)
If anyone would like to help/patch or use their x10 cameras here is the link:
http://www.emuit.com/webcam.html
There was another guy who set up webcams in his house and put all his lights on X10, and allowed people to control them over the web. Thing is, he's STILL doing it, it must have been going for a couple of years now.
This story reminded me of it, so I went back, and he's live on the thing STILL, so well worth checking out.
It's here at DriveMeInsane.com (definitely an apt URL).
mogorific carpentry experiments
It looks like he got rid of most of the gizmos and only has three lights hooked up now. He used to have about 12 sets of lights, and you could also control a remote control car that had a camera on it. I guess that all gets a bit expensive to maintain though. Oh, and you could do the sprinklers, and look at his doorcam.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Is anybody else wondering why exactly this guy had a T1 line in his house in the first place last year? Furthermore, is anybody else a little disappointed that he didn't decide to upgrade his T1 line to a home T3 line this year instead of paying for hosting?
I know, I know, it's not just that company that does the annoying pop up ads.
Sorry, whenever I hear X10, it just creates so much rage in me I won't even bother reading the fine article.
Let my lesson be learned by all advertising execs. Annoy your customers enough, the backlash and bad feelings may last forever -- or at least the life of your company.
p.s. SCO could stand to learn a similar lesson.
This project reminds me of Blinkenlights... This was an awesome project where you could display a small picture/animation/play pong/other on a building using the windows and interior lights as pixels. http://blinkenlights.de/
DrkBr
is my own T-3, my own T-3, my own T-3....
So I can have a Merry Christmas.
*sigh*
Er, yes, there are several dozen that make 'x10' hardware, x10 is a protocol, not just an irritating company; in fact, the protocol is older than the irritating company.
- Turq - "That's TRON, he fights for the users."
You've gone and slashdotted the most common words in the english language! Now what are we going to do?
public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";
apvector[99] list;
for (x = 0; x list.length(); x++)
{
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
if kid.nice == "naughty"
naughty(kid);
if kid.nice == "nice"
nice (kid);
if kid.state == (sleep || awake)
know(kid);
if kid.state == (bad || good)
know(kid);
}
for (x = "goodness sake"); x != ""; x = x)
cout "be good!";
public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";
this light orgy was powered by wind power (not generated by him, I gathered... he still had to pay for it).
At least he's throwing a bone to the Enviro types... who apparently numbered exactly one. That's right... one person challenged him to put the display on wind power and sent him a check... and he was the only one to actually send money
At least there's one guy out there willing to back up his environmental beliefs with cash...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
LED based Christmas lights take about 5% of the power of regular bulbs but are a lot more expensive. Given the amount of power that he's drawing, why not switch over?