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

[Matthew Rubenstein]

On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 07:20 -0700,
asterisk-users-request at lists.digium.com wrote:
> Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:11:59 -0700
> From: John Marvin <jm-asterisk at themarvins.org>
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Is there any Asterisk controllable
>         thermostat?
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
>         <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> Message-ID: <4577DADF.6090201 at themarvins.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> 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.

	Are any of these home automation systems compatible with homeplug? Or
WiFi, or BlueTooth? It seems to me that bundling a proprietary (or less
popular) network protocol (and HW) with the device controller fragments
the market, and prohibits reuse of the mass market network, which
prevents economies of scale for consumers and developers.


> John 
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein