Alfred's musings

So, as mentioned before , I've embarked on building a custom home automation solution. Why? Because I can't find anything that will do all I want it to do. So, by having a custom solution that can talk GPIO, Serial and Ethernet... and possibly a few extra bits via GPIO (such as IR, RF, Zigbee and more), I can also hook in Hue and EasyHome and more... I'm glad to report that I'm making good progress. I've got the bare bones working: My Arduino can switch things on and off, dim things and follow instructions. It's the core brain in my set-up. It does some of the switching through some opto coupler relays, and I can later do more like IR and RF, and have some LEDs connected through PWM to do dimming. But because it does not talk natively to the outside world well, I'm using a serial interface to a Raspberry Pi (via USB). And on the Pi, I'm running Apache and I've built a simple API that will allow me to call it via commands like http://pi/switch.p

I've always been a fan of corporations poking fun at themselves and making, creating, engineering fun. The Pixel is a thing of beauty and design, and as Google's own site claims... it's got some LEDs "just to make it look cool" . And today, I found a fun way to fire up these LEDs beyond the subtle glow that it normally gives. On the Pixel keyboard (not an external keyboard) tap the following: <up> <up> <down> <down> <left> <right> <left> <right> b a Now I've got another way to get attention in a meeting :)

I'm posting this from a Pixel , and have my first chance to get my hands on it... and I'm impressed! Why? It's really well made and beautiful. The screen is exceptionally sharp, and the machine is lighting quick. Opening up my gmail account was instantaneous... no wait, no loading screen... and this is on a machine that has never seen me before. Back lit keys, key weight, screen image (from any angle), touch pad surface, build quality all count towards just a beautiful, slick experience. And I'm sure the touch screen will just become the norm over time. Triaging a few emails by touching the screen made for a welcome change, and it's very usable. I like it! On the down side: I'm looking forward to a UK keyboard, more touch geasture aware sites and built-in 3G or faster mobile data access. Would I buy one now? If money was no object, absolutely!

I've got a big plan to build a all singing & dancing lighting (& automation) system for our new home, and decided to use Arduino to act as controller unit (with lots of IO). I got hold of an Arduino board, and within a few hours of playing with it, I've got my own code on the Arduino now switching on/off a couple of relays based on other sensors. Next, in order to control the lighting from a tablet or phone, I wanted some way to address the Arduino via an IP network, some JSON API or something. One option is to get the Ethernet shield for Arduino, but as it was as expensive as a Raspberri Pi, I opted to buy the Pi. In again less than two hours of playing, I've got my RPi up and running with an Apache web server that I can interact with. The point is this: In under a week elapsed time (including shipping!), just spending a few hours in the evening in front of the TV, with no prior knowledge of Arduino or Raspberry Pi or even any prior Linux experience, it was eas

I recently bought Hue Light bulbs , and I am very excited about the possibilities of these bulbs. And, as hoped, they can (subject to deep pockets as they cost £50 per bulb!) become the backbone of a nice lighting system @ home. Essentially, these are LED light bulbs that just screw into a 220V light bulb socket. (Cheap, compact bayonet cap converters are available .) They switch on/off like a normal light bulb, but save a bit of energy and fade in/out so it's a bit nicer. But wait. There's more. They can change colour too. And all can be controlled by an iPhone or Android app. And the idea is that you can set up a scene that has one corner of your room a bit more red, and the rest a bit more orange so that you get the feeling the sun is setting right in your living room, or blue & white to remind you of your Greek holiday... Technically, the bulbs contain some Zigbee 2-way device to device communication that talks to the Philips Hue hub. The hub connects via Ether

On turning on my Chromebook at work today (I don't bother brining my Mac to work any more), I noticed that, instead of the usual screen mirror or switch, I can now view my desktop on *both* my Chromebook screen and external monitor with no problem... at full resolution, just like what Windows or a Mac could do. If you spend most of your time on the web, a Chromebook really becomes more and more compelling!

Thanks for the tip  +Allister Frost  - the "Science of persuasion" is a good reminder of the things we could be doing every day to increase our ability to influence.