I'm an open source fan personally, so I'd do Misterhouse. My father had a setup a few years back that he home-built with a linux distro that was made for a little headless machine that he stuck in the basement. He got really complex with it and did all the programming himself in Assembly (he's a masochist) instead of making use of the built-in tools. He wanted to do it HIS way. It worked great though. My dad's HA setup was dialed into all of the lighting and thermostat controls for the house and it did some cool stuff. He had a temperature probe on the outside of the house, and the system would decide (based on outside temperature, time of day, and whether anyone was in the house) whether or not to run the A/C to keep the house cool, but first it would spin up all the ceiling fans.
In reference to the "serious flaws" and weaknesses...ever wondered why none of the home automation tech we've been promised since 1950 has come to be common in homes? Things like auto-opening drapes, autoadjusting lighting, stuff like that. Ever wished someone would just sell something like that? The reason we don't have all of this cool stuff is that there is a company (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that holds a bunch of over-broad patents on most of what we think of as "duh" innovations in home automation. They don't license or sell their tech. They just sue people who try to make stuff.
Patent Trolls suck! They need to stopped. And, the government needs to step in and stop them. They are killing technology in more areas then just home automation.
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This is because unions cost them way too much money. And, the unions were one of the root causes to the reasons the big 3 us car makers failed.
So the F what! More taxes for companies mean worse pay and higher cost of living! I agree with Bob9113.
I'm an open source fan personally, so I'd do Misterhouse. My father had a setup a few years back that he home-built with a linux distro that was made for a little headless machine that he stuck in the basement. He got really complex with it and did all the programming himself in Assembly (he's a masochist) instead of making use of the built-in tools. He wanted to do it HIS way. It worked great though. My dad's HA setup was dialed into all of the lighting and thermostat controls for the house and it did some cool stuff. He had a temperature probe on the outside of the house, and the system would decide (based on outside temperature, time of day, and whether anyone was in the house) whether or not to run the A/C to keep the house cool, but first it would spin up all the ceiling fans. In reference to the "serious flaws" and weaknesses...ever wondered why none of the home automation tech we've been promised since 1950 has come to be common in homes? Things like auto-opening drapes, autoadjusting lighting, stuff like that. Ever wished someone would just sell something like that? The reason we don't have all of this cool stuff is that there is a company (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that holds a bunch of over-broad patents on most of what we think of as "duh" innovations in home automation. They don't license or sell their tech. They just sue people who try to make stuff.
Patent Trolls suck! They need to stopped. And, the government needs to step in and stop them. They are killing technology in more areas then just home automation.
Here is where every IT Guy should start! http://www.digitaltigers.com/