With a whole forum full of techies, I would have expected at least one of you guys to have automated your home!

But I don't think anyone has.. has anyone done it or looked in to doing it, is X10 still the choice as I wasn't that impressed when I looked a few years back..

If I had my own place and wasn't renting I definitely would look into it more, although I'm surprised no one has had a go yet. I have a feeling Eggtastico might have looked into it a while back?

I have looked into this a couple of times. Right now I dont have enough money to even consider it but I was looking at maybe using an arduino  to initially interface with my burglar alarm. My basic idea is to have it turn all of the lights on in the house when the alarm goes off and also phone me so I can then either call the police or a neighbour.

The only thing holding me back right now is the cost, money is very tight. I already have my AV setup in a central space so everything can work from there. I was looking into HDMI over IP rather than just cat6 so I could use network cables already hooked up via a router but again cost is a major factor. Eventually I'll get it all done.

I half expect automation to become more popular when those £20-30 computers start to get mass produced. Would be easy to install those in different rooms to act as controllers etc?

A guy I work with has a lot of stuff, to me though a lot of it just seems like a giant waste of money and unbelievably lazy, I do not consider it a chore to dim the lights by getting up to use the switch on the wall

Quote from: zpyder on April 29, 2012, 14:34:14 PM
I half expect automation to become more popular when those £20-30 computers start to get mass produced. Would be easy to install those in different rooms to act as controllers etc?

I think they'd be a bit overkill - though someone will likely use them. Arduino as mentioned above might be useful. The raspberry pi might be more useful for actually controlling the whole set up I'd have thought.

I'm going to look into doing something with my place - not sure I'll go for the full home automation thing yet but certainly want something along the lines of the arduino in the living room, with an IR transmitter on and a wi-fi connection.

I've got an IR light/dimmer switch and want to just have an iphone app that will act as a universal remote for the TV, hifi etc... and the lights - just nicer to have everything on one remote. I figured having an IR switch for the lights saves faffing about with wiring etc... next step, if it works, would be to place another in my bedroom etc.. then if I find I actually make use of it then I'll look into getting some proper home automation kit.

I think the thing with X10 is that you can start from a few devices and keep adding, and there is support for pretty much any type of device, you can link them all up, and use remotes, phones and the internet to control them.

However total cost of purchase is probably quite high and it's reliant on your house mains lines playing nicely, and I'd expect there to be something other than X10 as well, surely X10 isn't the only one?

My Raspberry Pi turns up in a month and although I will be able to do a lot of home automation it's too new to be anything great soon, and I expect home automation my be a bit beyond my knowledge. Also you'd either need to run wires to each device or have multiple Pi's, which isn't what I want to end up doing.

Obviously as more and more I/O boards are created for the Pi it could make automation of certain tasks really flexible.

If you used pi's each room could be independent. After all you don't want the rooms to talk to each other, next thing you know they'll have decided the humans are a risk and will turn the air conditioning down to "kill" while you sleep...

I definitely want to use dedicated wiring so it'll be a more reliable and cheaper alternative to using specialist accessories.

x10 is to expensive in the UK, have you looked at http://www.lightwaverf.com/buynow.php
I have a trade account, so may be able to help you save a few pennies if you dont mind them being shipped
to me & then shipped on to you.

Quote from: zpyder on April 29, 2012, 16:56:32 PM
If you used pi's each room could be independent. After all you don't want the rooms to talk to each other, next thing you know they'll have decided the humans are a risk and will turn the air conditioning down to "kill" while you sleep...

Apart from the risk of the rooms becoming self aware, I'd want all the rooms to be linked, the example being if I went out the house I'd like to press a button to arm the alarm and turn off all of the lights etc..

I'll have a proper look at lightwave later, but after a quick look the options for that system seemed much more limited..

Regarding dedicated wiring at the moment I'm in rented accommodation although looking to change that in the next year or two, but there are some things I want to automate now..

I have an automated food maker.

I married the bitch and I've been fed daily ever since.

My first automation was a switch in the end of a cord that switched on radio and lights, I hung it on a nail by the door to switch on while entering and when bring the switch into the room and hang it on nail by the bed, easy to reach while in bed

I have all the lamps in the living room hooked up to an RF dimmer using a set of cheap remote plug socket controllers, frustratingly my Harmony cant control them, if it did I'd be in a pretty good place, as it is I still need 2 remotes.

Quote from: Eagle on April 30, 2012, 00:04:14 AM
I have an automated food maker.

I married the bitch and I've been fed daily ever since.

I hear those are really expensive though and the negatives often outweigh the benefits