Home Automation DIY

NVS, the maker of Home Control Pro iPhone application (formerly known as Vantage Remote Pro), slashed price for its offering from $449.99 to just $189.99 to celebrate release of version 2.0.

Home Control Pro is an iPhone and iPod Touch App designed to control your Vantage Infusion System. It automatically gathers data from Infusion Master to populate system-wide control of buttons, lights and thermostats.

What’s New in Version 2.0

Please make note of all system ip address before installing this update. You will need to reload all Vantage Systems after installing this update.

Automatically configures load types as a slider or a toggle button.

Button states now display as the LED color, supporting multi button states and colors.

Support for button Press, Hold Time, and Release.

Organizes buttons in order, under the Keypad they are associated with.

New Custom Pages, supports direct control and feedback of a Tasks VID.

Task VID’s controlled in Custom Pages can be set for a button press, press-release or press-hold-release.

Support for Vantage Systems with Multiple Masters/Controllers.

Removed 30 second auto refresh feature, added a manual refresh button. App still refreshes when an area is accessed and after a button press.

Added edit section to change ip address of a system.

Improved editing page of unwanted areas, loads, thermostats, and buttons.

It’s no secret that professionally installed home automation touch panels are very expensive. Could we make a panel that will be useful, easily customizable and relatively cheap? You bet we can!

Check for example this New Zealander’s home project that, with a little more polished GUI, could rival the better professional models. With the total cost of roughly $1200 US dollars (though it could be easily downgraded to $500-600) this project will allow you to control your home automation set-up, listen to locally stored music and Internet radio, play photo slide-shows, surf the web, watch online video and even automate creation of a grocery shopping list.

How would you lower the cost of the project? Instead of assembling a full-blown Core i5 multimedia machine check out one of the Intel Atom 330-based systems from Shuttle or Acer. They will put you down only $200-$300, they are small, they run cool and quiet and are capable enough to handle 1080p video.

One of the ready-to-roll systems is Acer AspireRevo AR3610 that ships with Windows 7, so you’ll save on OS as well. Check RevoHTPC blog on how to put together a multimedia system based on the Revo net-top.

Now, go have fun building a touch panel and share your stories and projects with us.

Being a home automation enthusiast I’ve seen a lot of different light switches, keypads and even LCD touch screens. And to tell you the truth majority of them are either pretty boring or too complex.

And then there are light switches from Belguim-based Basalte, that has a very sleek website, but also some pretty innovative switches, that were rightfully awarded with numerous prestigious design awards such as Red Dot and iF product design. (continue reading this article and leave comments here…)

If you (like myself) were impatiently waiting to get your hands on one of the ISY99i home automation controllers now might be a good time to get one as they are on sale at both Smarthome.com and Amazon.com.

What is ISY99i?

ISY99i kit w/PLM

“The ISY-99i series is the most affordable and flexible
standalone home automation solution for any INSTEON/X10 installation.  Whether you are a DIYer, an electrician, or a home automation integrator you will enjoy the ease with which the once tedious task of programming INSTEON devices is accomplished.”

ISY99i eliminates the need to run a dedicated PC (or MAC) computer to contol events and run automation programs. It is compatible with a wide range of INSTEON and X10 devices, including: (continue reading this article and leave comments here…)

Last Updated: December 21, 2009

This is Part 3 of The Ultimate List of Home Automation Software for iPhone.

For your convenience the short link to this post is http://tinyurl.com/iphonehas3 (as in iPhone Home Automation Software, Part 3).

• The Ultimate List … Part 1
• The Ultimate List … Part 2
• The Ultimate List … Part 3

(continue reading this article and leave comments here…)