Smart Home Hacks

Credits

About the Author

Gordon Meyer (http://www.gordonmeyer.com) is a writer and software engineer who lives in a fully automated home located in the heart of Silicon Valley. His house, nicknamed CoasterHaus for its proximity to an amusement park, is better wired than most businesses and is smarter than your average house cat. It makes sure he gets up on time in the morning, watches over his dog while the family is away, and contacts him about missed visitors and telephone calls during the day. It even tucks the family in with a weather report and story each night.

When not living like George Jetson, Gordon is a designer who specializes in technology for writing and delivering onscreen instructional material. For more than a dozen years, his uncredited manuals and help systems have been used by millions of people worldwide. This book is his foray beyond the anonymous world of corporate technical publications.

Gordon holds degrees in sociology and broadcasting. He is the author of a seminal study of computer culture, The Social Organization of the Computer Underground. Prior to devoting himself to the study of technology and deviance, Gordon worked as a professional magician, an avocation he continues to this day, which perhaps explains his interest in making the difficult seem easy, throughout all of his careers.

Contributors

The following people contributed their hacks, writing, and inspiration to this book:

• Ido Bar-Tana is a microprocessor design engineer by day and a home automation hacker by night. His web site (http://www.geocities.com/idobartana) is the Google-ranked #1 site for X10 home automation. He can be reached via email at [e-mail] and welcomes any home-automation-related questions and comments.

• Matt Bendiksen’s mission is to bring intuitive home automation to geeks everywhere. Over the last 20 years, Matt has been using computers to monitor and control home environments. In 2002, Matt founded Perceptive Automation and has received rave reviews on Indigo, its Mac OS X home control server. Visit http://www.perceptiveautomation.com to download a free trial version.

• Edward Cheung was born and raised in Aruba, where he started his hobby of electronics as a young boy. After high school, he continued his education in the United States. After completing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Yale University, he joined NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center, where he currently works on the Hubble Space Telescope Project. Edward enjoys developing hardware for space flight and his hobby of home automation.

• Dean Davis operates AfterTen Software (http://www.afterten.com) and is the author of WeatherManX, CIDTrackerX, and other Macintosh programs.

• Arthur Dustman has been doing home automation for about three years. He has expanded from the X10 standard package to a 5 x 5 room to hold all his equipment. He uses HAL2000, Adicon Ocelot with C-max, nine Secu-16s, one Secu16-IR, 94 Relays, one scm-810 mixer, nine pzm-10 microphones, nine Xantech keypads, nine custom wall panels, and much more. He has created many custom circuits and devices to automate devices that have no “factory” interfaces. His motto: “There’s always a way to automate anything.”

• Michael Ferguson (http://www.shed.com) is the principal author and designer of XTension for Mac OS. Michael began experimenting with electronics in 1955, began writing code and designing computer systems in 1964, and has done nothing more useful since then.

• Bill Fernandez is an avid electronics hobbyist, home automation aficionado, do-it-yourselfer, home handyman, fine-art photographer, martial artist, husband, father, and all-around nice guy. Bill is known for having introduced Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to each other, and for having been Apple Computer’s first employee. Professionally, Bill is a consulting user interface architect.

• Dan Fink is the technical director of Otherpower.com (http://www.otherpower.com), which is a web site dedicated to alternative-energy enthusiasts and their experiments. Dan has lived in the remote, mountainous area west of Fort Collins, Colorado, for 13 years, with no grid electricity or phones, and generates his power with solar, wind, and hamster. He administers the company’s servers remotely from home over VSAT satellite Internet, which leaves extra time for experimenting with homebrewed wind turbines, weird science projects, and silly ideas such as hamster-powered night lights. Dan’s publication credits include articles in Home Power, Back Home, and Zymurgy magazines.

• Richard Gensley is a founder of HomeTech Solutions (http://www.hometech.com), a home automation products company in Cupertino, California. He currently teaches seminars on lighting control and automation including the use of X10 and related technologies. He authored a number of “Mr. Module” feature articles in Electronic House Magazine, which addressed subtle and clever applications of the X10 technology. His automation experience includes work as an automated flight controls engineer and serving in key management positions with computer and industrial automation firms.

• Mark Kelly

• David A. Kindred ([e-mail]) is a richly blessed home automation enthusiast who resides in Kemptown, Maryland, with his sons Andrew, Kit, and Josh, and his loving and understanding wife, Pam.

• Robert Ladle is a retired electrical engineer living in the Seattle area. He is a self-taught computer nut who has been using Mac computers since Apple’s Mac SE model first came out in the late 1980s. Bob has been interested in automation of all types, beginning with radio control models in the early days to his current home automation activities. He first started using XTension in 1991 and continues to develop and experiment with new uses and applications to enhance the field.

• Guy Lavoie currently works for a telephone company doing software support. He has been involved in home automation since 1998 and enjoys working with Applied Digital’s Ocelot and Leopard controllers. He holds a degree in Industrial Electrotechnology and enjoys programming microcontrollers in assembler.

• Reynold Leong (http://www.kjsdoghouse.com/autohouse) is currently in year 10 of his never-ending home automation project. He spends a lot of time automating stuff so that he can have more time to be lazy. “Laziness is our inspiration.” Donations are encouraged and welcomed.

• Rob Lewis remembers when X10 equipment was sold under the BSR brand, and still can’t understand why most people have never heard of it. He’s currently vice president of business development at Shared Media Licensing, Inc. (http://www.weedshare.com), a new company that pays music fans to share files legally on the Internet.

• Warren G. Lohoff founded WGL & Associates (http://www.wgldesigns.com) in 1992. He designs, manufactures, and markets leading-edge home automation and irrigation products.

• Don Marquardt ([e-mail]) has been playing around with home automation for almost 30 years. Each move to a new home just brought more toys to play with. His current home has just about everything he could think of. In total, it has almost eight miles of various types of wire to handle just about anything. Now, even his car talks to the Internet. Don’s web site (http://www.k9soa.net) is open to visitors to take a little tour of Jeannie, The House That Listens. When you visit, be sure to sign his guestbook.

• Roger C. Meyer was an electronics technician, auto mechanic, carpenter, and gardener. His ability to design and build anything, including a fully custom basement with built-in intercoms, a workshop, ingenious storage areas, and a model train table that descended from the ceiling, continues to inspire his son: the author of this book. Roger was truly a smart home hacker before his time.

• Frank Perricone’s first gadgets were imaginary, cardboard mockups of TRS-80s. At age 14 he delivered newspapers to buy a Sinclair ZX-81. Since then, the toys have improved, but not much else has changed. He’s currently building his dream house with his wife and cat in rural Vermont, wishing for DSL.

• Jerry Prsha owns a Macintosh consulting business in St. Louis, Missouri, and is a member of the Apple Consultants Network. His home is automated with the application XTension. His hobbies are entertaining the kids (and parents) with elaborate Halloween displays, creating garden ponds, and of course, scaring the wits out of the unsuspecting repairman.

• Steve Simon is a software engineer who has been using home automation for personal convenience since 1997. He maintains a modest personal web site that can be found at http://homepage.mac.com/snsimon.

• Smarthome, Inc. (http://www.smarthome.com) is the world’s largest retailer of home automation products. Today, the company sells more than 5,000 products, including X10 remote control, lighting, wireless security, and home entertainment systems. Visit Smarthome’s web site or call [phone].

• Doug Smith (http://www.smithsrus.com) works in information technology by day and enjoys tinkering with home automation, computers, electronics, robotics, and music in his spare time. He occasionally has worked in the home automation industry and has contributed many articles to home-automation-related magazines and web sites.

• Greg Smith (http://homepage.mac.com/gregjsmith) is a longtime Mac geek living in New Mexico. Although he has to be a Windows “expert” for his day job, he would prefer to spend the day working on his garden, taking photos, working on his home automation system, or just doing about anything else. His family would appreciate it if they didn’t have to be beta testers for his smart home.

• Richard (Rick) Tinker has been actively involved in home automation since 1992, working professionally in the field since 1998. His interests include his family, home automation, home improvements, movies, and music. Currently, he is the CTO of HomeSeer Technologies, LLC of Bedford, New Hampshire (http://www.homeseer.com). His favorite home automation project is his PC-based MP3 jukebox. The automation items that have the highest WAF (wife approval factor) in his home are the laundry washer and dryer reminders.

• Henk van Eeden immigrated to the USA in 1962 from the Netherlands. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. His career started at a large northeastern utility. While there, he worked on a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Bucknell University. His last position before retirement was superintendent of a hydro and coal-fired electrical generating plant. In 1980 his interest in computers and home automation started to blossom. He purchased his first Macintosh in 1986 and has owned at least one ever since. In addition to other duties, the Mac has been running and monitoring his house for the past 14 years.

• Jon Welfringer is currently an IT director and has been working in the technology field for more than 15 years. His love for technology follows him home from work, as evidenced by his never-ending desire to integrate new technology into his family’s house. The number-one goal of his automation endeavors is to always make sure his family and guests feel at home with technology. As he says, “Automation in the home should be smart and intuitive without the need to perform training sessions for your family.”

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all those who contributed their ideas, techniques, tricks, hacks, observations, and code to this book. Your willingness to share your experiences and advice with others is very much appreciated.

Thanks to the following communities for their inspiration, camaraderie, and like-minded spirit: XTension Discussion List (http://www.shed.com/maillist.html), Indigo Forum (http://www.perceptiveautomation.com/phpBB2/index. php), HomeSeer Message Board (http://ubb.HomeDeer.com/), HomeToys (http://www.hometoys.com), and CocoonTech (http://www.cocoontech.com).

Thanks to Rael Dornfest, who saw the seeds of this book in my presentation at the O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference. I am forever grateful for this opportunity and for your encouragement, patience, and persistence that got this project off the ground.

Jackie Streeter, vice president of hardware engineering at Apple Computer, not only granted me the freedom to tackle this extra-curricular project, but also she has supported my professional growth in many new directions. Thank you, Jackie.

Brian Sawyer, who came on board at just the right time to help bring this book to fruition. Thanks for providing the perfect mix of editor, taskmaster, and friend. I’m looking forward to the day we meet in person.

Matt Bendiksen, Michael Ferguson, Richard Gensley, and Rick Tinker covered my back, technically speaking, and each provided immeasurable ideas, criticism, and clarifications throughout the book. The combined home automation knowledge of these four technical editors is truly encyclopedic. Any remaining deficiencies in this work are truly of my own doing. Thank you, gentlemen.

Even as I write these final words, the staff at O’Reilly—production, graphic design, marketing, and others—are busily working to take this book across the finish line and beyond. Without your expertise and contributions, all of this would be for naught. Thank you.

Finally, for my wife, Gale, who truly makes our house a home. I love that you not only tolerate my endless home automation experiments and whacky projects, but also that you’ll (occasionally) admit you enjoy them, too. You’re my best friend and biggest supporter, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my tomorrows with you.