Home Automation System
I’ve hinted at this a few times, namely Windows Phone 7 App – HAWP7, so I thought I’d actually tell you what is it.
HA or Home Automation System is a result from visiting this site and wanting a similar sort of system. For a while now I’ve considering doing something like this but never actually getting around to it mainly because of University and moving house every year.
So I started writing a program. This was about a month ago when I should have been doing my Final Year Project but lets forget about that for now. HA started out simply doing stuff I was going via RDP on my Windows Home Server which included executing various scripts to sort TV Shows and backup websites/work/svn etc.
HA is a server and client application where the server does all the work. The client is just a client and tells the server what to do. This was loosely based on two year old piece of work called MD5 Cracker, that was an assignment and was a distributed system to cracking an MD5 hash, I pretty much just copied the network code and updated it to use JSON although it wasn’t the best it worked! This is when Andrew got on board and its become a joint project between us. Andy is doing a programming degree and is probably the cleverest person I know. It has worked some magic and made everything all cool and stuff!
So here is what HA is at the moment!
HAServer
Running on the Windows Home Server HAServer is headless and currently does the following
- Runs tasks and scripts on the server
- Directly controls X10 devices via a CM11u and keeps track of states
- Wakes sleeping computers via WOL
- Some interfacing with XBMC
- Communication via HTTP and TCP using JSON.
Being a month old the system is quite limited in features but we have big plans!
HAClient
HAClient is the main client and control interface for HAServer, its got the following features
- Setup-less (It gets the HAServer IP via broadcast)
- Configures settings on HAServer
- Fully supports all features on the HAServer
- Displays XBMC information and provides audio controls
- Able to switch x10 devices on and off
HAWP7
Since getting a developer unlock for my phone I been working on my client for my HTC HD7 Windows Phone Device. It currently support X10 via the HTTP API
HAAndroid
Andy has a Nexus One and wrote a client for it..
Still pretty early days but there you go, I’ll try to keep the site updated with its progress.. In the mean time here is an awesome picture Matt took with this new camera.
Update: HASystem got featured in this months “My Automated Home” over at automatedhome.co.uk : My Automated Home: Tom Lawrence – Home Brew X10 Plus XMBC Control
Power Consumption! – The cost of running a server…
We got our quarterly bill the other week and it appeared quite high. Gas and Electric came to a grand total of £520! It doesn’t bother me to be honest, I’ll turn a light off when its not being used but I don’t take that extra step to ensure I’m saving the planet or saving money although we a certain application I’m working on I may just start saving some pennies! More on that later..
Anyway this got me thinking of how much all my computers and various things consume, actually I’ve been thinking of this for a while but have only just stolen a watt-measure-thingy from my dad, who seems to get given them all the time by various companies.
So, I finally got my hands on one of these things and the first thing I thought I’d test is Stewie! For those who don’t know Stewie is my Windows Home Server.. It has the following
- 700w power supply
- 7 harddrives (2 x “green” harddrives)
- Intel Core 2 Duo processor
Matt and I both decided to guess the number of watts this beast of a server consumes. Matt suggested 400watts and I around 200-250watts. The result was a very surprising average of 150watts on idle and around 160watts when we turned on BOINC and started streaming some files! Pretty impressive I thought!
So how much does it cost to keep my server on all the time? Well we can work that out quite quickly with some simple Math!
Watts x Hours Used / 1000 x Cost per kilowatt = Total Cost!
so..
155 x 8760 / 1000 * 0.10p = £135.78
That is around £135 a year to run a computer on for a year! It is not bad and considering mine is pretty much in use / doing something all the time its very reasonable I think..
My First App – HideMediaFiles
I wrote a small app, not at app as such but more of a little tool for my Windows Home Sever. I suppose its not my first app as well as I have written apps for University but this is the first one I’ve written that I didn’t have to write.
HideMediaFiles is a small tool to hide all the media information in your media directory, all those fanart images and nfo’s. If your like me when you go directly to the folder it annoys you because its filled with lots of useful but annoying to look at files.
So anyway more info and a download link can be found over at the new App page! Here
Upgrading Windows Home Server
Its been a week since I have finished placement and I decided as well as preparing for univeristy which if I am honest has gone as far as checking if I have any days off, thought I would take on a not so small project. Upgrading my Windows Home Server! Its getting on for 3 years old and the hardware is much older and well due for an upgrade.
Its not cost very much so far as upgrading my main desktop a couple of months back. I have a spare motherboard and memory as well as a power supply. The only missing pieces are a CPU and case. I am using my desktop CPU and have a new faster one on order for my main PC. The case, well I have purchased a new one as well as a new hardware as I’d prefer not to use my old drives that are probably starting to degrade.
The case I have got for it is a Fractal Design Define R2. I had seen it a while ago and was impressed with its 7 internal drive bays and sound proofing features. First impressions I see these are actually working and its current near silient sitting on my worktop while its copying data across from the old home server.
Fitted The Xtreamer Cooler
I fitted the Xtreamer cooler the other night. I was a little concerned how easy the how-to made the whole process look, nothing is easy. To be fair though once I’d got the side panel off, which must have been stuck down with the worlds strongest double-sided tape the whole thing was a breeze to complete. It even looks good as an end product with the cooler attached. On a plus note it worked afterwards. I hadn’t slipped and ploughed a screwdriver across the chipset.
I haven’t however watched it enough since to see if the cooler actually works but reading around others seem to think so. Its also stopped acting up. After a little playing around after my previous post, here. It turned out the Windows Home Server wasn’t 100% happy with the Xtreamer on the network. Its fine now, the problem was the WHS, at idle spun down the hard drives when they were not in use and when the Xtreamer started to stream a file there was a delay while the hard-drives spin back up. This is ok when your streaming to Boxee, a PC etc as there is about a 2 second delay the Xtreamer however seems to get confused. I think I’ll file a bug report when I can test this more.
On a similar note the Xtreamer with its HDMI output is pushing me towards getting a HD TV. I’ve been watching the new series Life on BBC/iPlayer and the awesome shots they have in HD are just amazing but I’m stuck watching it on my PC monitor… for now.. any recommendations?
The Xtreamer
So I got a new gizmo a while ago. I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while. An Xtreamer, It streams video and music to the TV downstairs from the WHS. Its a good little product and works well. When it works, when it doesn’t its a little frustrating. I think last night it took 10 minutes to navigate the menus and sometimes it decides not to even play a file.
I have mine set-up on the Wireless N router (D-Link DIR-655) which doesn’t cause any problems at all. I wasn’t sure how well the wireless would work, as I don’t have the option to hook it up to a real connection, but no complaints with the wireless. One annoying point is the cooling fan inside the device. Its whinny even on the lowest of the low settings, sound a bit like a fly buzzing around. However you can turn it off but as I found out the other night after about 4 hours of streaming or being turned on its performance starts to get affected by it over heating. A new head sink add-on has just been released but still it shouldn’t really over heat.
Although when it works its a really good little device. The navigating the menus are quick but sometimes there is a little delay from the remote. I hope a firmware update maybe fixes of these issues when it arrived it needed updating so maybe another one is in the wind. I should ask google.
This is not suppose to be a rant or a review of it I’m just saying. I’ll keep this updated. I think I’ll get this heat sink and with a firmware update then maybe all these problems with go away!
