Home Automation Kit Includes Arduino, RasPi Dev Boards

DeviceGuru writes "WigWag has developed a home automation kit that combines a Linux-based 6LoWPAN router with sensor units running the open-source Contiki IoT (Internet of Things) OS. Users can add ZigBee, Bluetooth, and other modules to expand the home network, and the WigWam development kit provides shield development boards for use with Arduino and Raspberry Pi SBCs. Users control the devices with a smartphone app (initially Android-based) and associated WigWag cloud service, which lets the devices remotely respond to sensor-based events such as motion detection, rain, noise, etc. Developers can create rules-based scripts for controlling devices using WigWag's open-source Javascript-based DeviceJS development environment. WigWag used a Kickstarter page to fund production and has already tripled its goal."

Comments

Bill Gates: The Road Ahead

[Full of Dreams]

Back in the 90's, as a kid, I read Bill Gates: The Road Ahead book where in a few chapters he talked about all these cool home automation kits and machines he had dreamt about and actually built a few in his house. It seemed pretty cool at the time. According to Wikipedia, his house is highly automated:

Guests wear pins that automatically adjust temperature, music, and lighting based on guest's preferences upon entering a room.

http://money.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/1997/11/23/xanadu-20 (from 1997)

The technology is at times subtle, but always present. As you move about the house, your choice of art appears on high-definition television monitors. Music, lighting, and climate settings all tag along, too. A small pin you wear lets the system know who and where you are. You can go to a computer terminal to pick out a movie or television program. It will follow you to the nearest screen. Only the phone nearest you will ring, assuming you've told the computer you're taking calls at all.

Gates himself first fueled the fires of curiosity about his house. He wrote a chapter about it in his bestselling book, The Road Ahead. The book came with a CD-ROM featuring a "virtual tour" of the private house. Book and CD-ROM buyers were so interested in the building he bragged about that they want to know even more about it. That's why U.S. News studied house plans and pestered Gates's representatives to find out more than he revealed at the time the book went to press.

Bill Gates built the dream automated house alraedy in the 90's. What a great man. You should buy the book and read about it, it's a great glimpse at the idea of automated homes. And rest of the book is interesting read about the early ideas of the future of computing.