The last couple of days I have got some very nice feedback on my image and a couple of persons that are willing to contribute on parts. That my little work was actually beeing used by someone else was over my expectations and it also wants me to make it work even better.

My coming feature list are as follows (without priority yet)
Build based on Rasbian
Support for input signals from duo
Storage and display of sensor data from duo
Support for USB-uirt
Skinning support for various devices and preferences
Database backup functionality

Please let me know if there are any other features you want. Everything is interesting for me, from ideas to detailed suggestions to source contributions. Comment on this post or drop me an email!

I have been thinking to upgrade my regular tellstick to a duo. This would allow me to include inputs from light buttons around the house (my killer feature is double click the off button next to the front door to turn off all lights in the house).

Unfortunately Telldus that makes those devices have some serious problem with their manufacturer so they have been out off stock for many months now. But yesterday I found a web shop that actually had some so now one is on the wy here.

I guess I have to start prioritise between my projects as there are now a lot of fun stuff that can be developed now.

Next week Farnell has promised sending me a raspberry pi, my second one. So now my home automation software starts to feel a little "good for now" and my next project begins, this will be about video streaming to ios devices and target is to be able to bring a video archive in the car for the kids to watch - if I can get hold of a working HLS segmenter software for Linux. Any one got any ideas?

Uploaded a new image some minutes ago. This one now uses API calls into telldusd for changing configuration. This means that there should never be a need to enter any console commands. What you do from the Administrative interface is all that is needed. Also this brings a more error handling to the modification of RawDevices so that it is not possible to configure things wrongly. As I lack hardware for testing all other protocols than arctech this is not fully tested.
See the special page of Home Automation for download details.

As allways let me know if you enjoy it or have any problems.

Created today, fixing a couple of problems.

Installation instructions added to a sepparate page at this site.

*** EDIT: New release that fixes some of the annoying stuff is planed, might happen tonight (june 26) or latest on friday night (depends on how well the kids sleep tonight) ***
Despite my comment on last post I found one of the two bugs I wanted to solve and the other one seems to be handled in general by the Raspberry Pi kernel developers. So here is the link to download the image. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-f4Kwg5BylTZmxGM2dvQUNhU3M
Just download and make a 4 GB (or larger SD card).

Then boot your Raspberry Pi and point your browser at it.
All configuration is handled in the Administrative interface that has a link at the bottom of the page, here you can add or remove devices and that is automaticly updated in tellstick.conf (need reboot to take effect). User is allways pi with password raspberry.

If you already have a tellstick.conf copy that to /etc/tellstick.conf, do sudo chmod 666 /etc/tellstick.conf and then point your broser to http://[rpi ip adress]/read_config/

Start by  going to the administrative interface and into Raw Devices. This is where you should configure everything similar to what goes into tellstick.conf - your actually hardware switches. Unfortunatly you need a reboot before changes take effect. (on my todo list).

When you have done the Raw Device configuration and rebooted you can play around with the switches from the main page http://[rpi ip adress]/ . 

Now you can start creating more complex devices. The following exist:
Group Device - Several devices are done at the same time. Capabilites should be ON/OFF and if all sub devices support DIM that could also be set. Example is to use this for whole house off.
Preset Device - Make several devices configured in a certain way. This is per device independent command so one device could be DIM and other could be ON and OFF. Example is to use this for "Movie time". Capabilities should always be Activate and nothing else.
Timer Device - Make a command a defined number of minutes into the future. Capabilities should always be Activate and nothing else.

Please note that all complex devices can act on all other Devices so a Timer Device could trigger a Preset Device that in turns trigger a Group Device. But make sure that there is no "ring" configured this will probably crash the system because of infinite recursion.

All devices share a couple of settings these are:
Name - Used in the administrative interface to identify it
HtmlText - Used for html rendering of the name.
Order - When the device listing is presented it is sorted by Order so if you want to rearrange the listing change number here.
Activate/OnOff/Dim - Capabilites, this is on my todo list to remove as user input. It controls how the device is presented.
Hidden - Not supported yet, have it not set.

Scheduled event let you configure to do a comand at a certain time and weekday.

Known problems:

• SD card failed writes (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?uid=8999&f=28&t=8342&start=0)
• Creating Group devices/Preset devices that contain itself is allowed resulting in infinite recursion = crash
• Devices are not forced to have correct capabilites: Presets and Timer should allways be "Activate" and that is the only ones that could have that capability. Group devices should be OnOff, Dim only if all subdevices support Dim.
• You need to reboot (turn off-on power) before changes to Raw Devices take effect

As you see from my description there are still a couple of "not-so-well-working" things regarding configuration, I am working to resolve these. If you install this, please let me know what you think. It is allways intresting to hear from any users.

Today I solved the last set of bugs that I wanted to have solved before publishing my initial version of Home Automation for Raspberry Pi. For the moment the source is found here bitbucket. But I dont expect anyone to be able to make it run from that as it requires quite a lot of Apache configuration etc.
But tomorrow I will start to clean up my filesystem and after I figured out how to publish some 500 mb image file I will post a complete filesystem image for a Raspberry Pi here. (made for 4 GB SD cards). 

Features of this release that is still a very early in respect to functionality and quality are:

• Django based webserver with iphone optimized html + standard html (automaticly detected)
• Uses a tellstick by calling the tdtool commandline program
• Possibility to create group devices, timer devices (do something in x minutes)
• Possibility to schedule events on one or many weekdays and a time.
• Administration done by standard Django interface
• Uses standard /etc/tellstick.conf and modifies that from the web interface.

Last friday DHL knocked on my door to deliver a Raspberry Pi. For those that doesnt know what it is, it is a realy small computer running Linux. It didnt took long before I moved over my control software for lamps that uses a Tellstick from Telldus Technologies. Instead of normal light switches I have built in recivers from Nexa that is a remote controlled relay. This make me able to control almost all lighting in the house from anywhere.
Besides playing with my new Raspberry Pi I also built a plastic case to protect it somehow from my sons.
I will post more source code and project details soon on this. But for now have a look at my setup.

After enjoying the blessing of HDMI-CEC also known as Sony Bravia Sync (other vendors have other names). I wanted my media center pc to have the same functionality. After a lot of googling I came across this USB-CEC adapter by pulse-eight in UK. Around Christmas I ordered one and are so far very happy with it. I highly recommend it togheter with their special build of openelec that is XBMC "in a box". Installation takes 10 min and then your running.
That is the way I like it !
The downside is that I havent yet managed to get it to boot the XBMC computer from the HDMI-CEC commands from TV. So I still have to use my phone to wake it over lan. But this is supposed to work from pulse-eights latests release so probably I just have to fiddle with some USB settings on my computer. Just need to find time.


http://www.pulse-eight.com - I like!

For about a year ago I decided to by new TV and new audio system. Nothing fancy as I dont spend that much time in front of the TV (there are most children shows on there) and I definatly dont hear any difference on different speakers and amplifiers.
Decided to go for Sony TV and Sony home cinema equipment to go with it (including BlueRay player).
When everything was connected by HDMI cables it just works wonderfully, with a single remote I control the TV and when I set the input to be the BlueRay player the remote automagically switches to control that device. This is they way it should be. For Sony this control mechanism is called Bravia Sync. Other vendors have their own names (Anynet for samsung for example) and there is no full standard so if you want it keep your equipment from one vendor (cant belive they thought about that :-)
The standard of HDMI version 1.4 describes that it is optionally to include CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) that describe the physical layer and also some commands that could be supported for control between devices connected by HDMI.
I just love the way it works and my next task is to get my XBMC (media center pc) to use the same standard so that I dont have to have another remote on the coffetable (one to rule them all!)

It didnt take long for the TV to have the cable tv subscription card in it so that there was no need for a special digital TV set top box. And by adding a hard drive I am now able to pause live tv and make recordings everything with a single remote. The downside is that the tv guide is working terrible on Sony TVs (at least mine). It just shows current program and the next one. No more so it is hard to record something a little bit further in the future. It is also a terrible interface for pause live tv - first you need to start record it and then navigate to the recording and start to playback it. Why not just beeing able to make a single press on pause button (that is actually not doing anything when TV is active).