[asterisk-users] Is there any Asterisk controllable thermostat?

[John Marvin]

Doug Crompton wrote:
> I remembered I had an x10 bottlerocket in my X10 junkbox so I connected it
> to a spare serial port on my linux server (asterisk resides there) and
> implemented with some mods the code mentioned earlier....
> 
> http://lorance.freeshell.org/asterisk/#asterisk-can-control-the-world
> 
> and it works great. Now I have one more way to control X10 devices. I can
> even call my VM on the way home and turn on my lights or whatever before I
> get home.

I would suggest that people who don't already have an investment in home 
automation equipment should look at Insteon rather than X10. Insteon is 
a next generation version of X10 that provides backwards compatibility 
with X10. The devices are a little more expensive, but not as expensive 
as some of the other alternatives. Insteon provides 2 way communication 
and is a lot more reliable than X10.

If you already have an investment in X10 devices you can slowly convert 
to Insteon, since Insteon provides backwards compatibility, i.e. X10 
controllers can control Insteon devices and Insteon controllers can 
control X10 devices, however you won't get all the advantages of Insteon 
until you have Insteon controllers controlling Insteon devices.

For people with some soldering and basic circuit design skills, you may 
want to consider using ethernet as a home automation bus for some 
things. I love the Olimex PIC WEB and PIC Mini Web development boards 
(they cost $49.95 and $39.95 respectively). They have an ethernet port 
and an expansion connector for the available PIC I/O pins. Microchip 
provides a free C compiler for Pic processors, and they also have an 
open source networking stack that works on the Olimex boards. So with a 
ribbon cable connector and a small breadboard with a few IC's and/or 
driver transistors you can build a device that responds to commands via 
the network (or via a built in web server) from your Asterisk server 
that does about any task you can think of. Lots of fun ... I'm currently 
building a voicemail indicator (my wife didn't like me taking her 
answering machine away with the blinking lights when we switched to 
Asterisk voicemail) using a PIC Web board. Next project will be a web 
based sprinkler controller.

John