Scroll down to see all posts. You can also checkout the Roadmap posts and Other posts.
Geofence integration Homeseer
On my Car Integration page you can see how I have setup a tracking system that integrates with Homeseer. What I really wanted is Geofences. This results in a couple of HS devices that tell me where my car is. Example: When my car enters a geofence I get a … read more…
Homeseer Email Integration
Homeseer can send emails but you cannot send emails to Homeseer. Using Jon00‘s Email plugin you can do this. Jon00′s plugin support forum: board.homeseer.com Functionality: Using email to trigger events and switch devices, integrated web-mail interface, announcements, etc. I use this script for a couple of things of which the Geo-fence GPS … read more…
Homeseer admin userinterface plugins
There’s a couple of plugins that can make your life in Homeseer a lot easier. – Account Links (by Jon00) – Webpage Builder (by Jon00) Account Links What? This allows you to change the look & feel of the Homeseer admin user interface. The most important functionality for me is … read more…
Updated Webcam script 0.3
Finally – being triggered by Jaybee’s discussion on Domoticaforum.eu I wanted to simplify my webcam script, taking away the need of running 1 script on the HS web server and 1 script on a generic IIS web server. It worked! On the WebCam script page you will find more details … read more…
Xexun TK-103 GPS Tracker
One of the most popular trackers are the Xexun 102 and 103 trackers. There’s imitation devices being sold so be careful. I have never seen a product where the documentation is so bad, the amount of documentation versions is so huge (each saying something different) and where there is NOT … read more…
Update GPS Tracking script 0.2
After my tracker being down I had not noticed that the GPS-trace website format changed a bit breaking my script. Version 0.2! Therefore I have updated the script so it will work again. Updates and details are available on the Car Tracking project page. Share this!
KAKU wireless LED light
Here’s an interesting new product from Klik-aan-klik-uit. The ALED-003 is a battery powered wireless LED light. The price is between € 15-17. What is it? A small box with 3 LEDs. The little box could be smaller but it houses 3x AAA batteries. A friend of mine bought one and … read more…
TV remote: controlling lights
My current TV setup consists of an LCD TV and a cable decoder. Every time I want to watch TV I had to grab both remotes: - Philips TV remote - Humax Decoder remote (which btw is the best and intuitive remote I have ever seen!) Challenge: get rid of the … read more…
Sleeping
What do you do when you’re going to sleep? Switch off TV & Cable decoder / TiVo / etc Switch off Lights Check door locks Switch off other devices Why not automate this? In the mean time you can use this automation to keep track of when you go to … read more…
TV everywhere
Note: “TV everywhere” could mean a lot more than what I have implemented. Goal: Watching TV in my bedroom with all functionality available through my cable decoder downstairs. How The Marmitek MegaVideo 55 splits the Cable decoder output to a Coax cable. The second TV at the other end of … read more…
Update: Worldpopulation Script
An updated version of the Worldpopulation script is now available. about 2 weeks ago I noticed that the old script did not work anymore. The problem turned out to be the source website (www.census.gov) which had changed the URL. I have updated the script and after a message from esschenk … read more…
Fujitsu Document scanner
Last week I received my Document scanner. In an attempt to make my home paperless this is the first step. I’m currently working on a Project Page, trying to capture some of the lessons-learned. This post is more about the scanner itself and the choices I had to make. Note … read more…
New HS Plugwise script
At the end of last year I saw the light and realized that my Plugwise script was functional but old and programmed in a bad way. The result was >350 lines of code now becoming <100 lines of code. I just realized that I should publish what I wrote. Here … read more…
Document Management
It would be great if you could help me think about the following: Something that I would love to automate: every piece of paper in my house Goal Scan every piece of incoming paper (mail) on arrival Conversion into searchable PDF files Tagging PDF files based on content … read more…
Cisco invests in home automator
My First thought: What would this give me in terms of employee discount: nothing. Plus they don’t have products that integrate with the software I use (#Homeseer). This however, is an interesting development that show how serious large companies start taking home automation. A good article on this subject can … read more…
New KAKU transmitter
Klik aan klik uit has released a new transmitter. You can use this transmitter to turn an existing switch into a remote. That means that an existing switch can now transmit a signal that turn on/off (multiple) existing KAKU lights/devices. Another KAKU product that has been on the market for … read more…
Garden update: Fast!
2 weeks ago a gardener was going to completely remodel our garden. First assignment: take out everything. After that they were going to setup the garden according to our design. Just after they started I thought about my Garden- and Attic-camera. It would be funny if these take a picture … read more…
How to start (cheap?)
ere’s an overview of the steps you can take to start with Home Automation Main components Homeseer ($ 199) This is the core software that controls everything. You need this. RFXCOM (€ 90 – € 330) This allows you to send and receive almost every RF signal. I use this … read more…
New website live!
Finally, after quite a lot of work my new website is live. My old website was running on PmWiki which was Ok at the time but to add features it took a lot of manual coding. So I decided to move to WordPress. Why? WordPress has a lively community and … read more…
New Prowl features
I have tested new features in the Prowl app on the iPhone. It can now launch custom URLs based on the Prowl Application name. Interesting. If HomeSeer sends application name “doorbell” the app can launch a URL that shows me the last doorbell press image.. Challenge: You … read more…
Ventilation system
During Christmas I realized that I never documented the automation of the Central ventilation system in our home. The new page shows how it has been integrated in HomeSeer. No more switches in the Kitchen! The system will also automatically switch on when the bathroom humidity is > 65%. More … read more…
New 24/7 Server
Just received my new home Server. The current (old) server is running 24/7, consuming 180W. The new server consumes 24W. Calculating the business case for this new ‘server’ was pretty easy. There is that moment where you suddenly realize that this is an investment that’s going to earn itself. So … read more…
Smarthomes 2011
On November 17-18th the SmartHomes event will start in the Evoluon (Eindhoven). This is a great event to see what’s going on in the Home Automation world. Even though it’s primarily focused at Health care it’s probably the best way to network with your Home Automation peers from domoticaforum.eu. You … read more…
Audio integration
STATUS: project dead. Because of the fact that you have to run iTunes or WMP on your HomeSeer server I stopped this project. Currently I use the iRemote on my iPad to control iTunes directly. The only annoying thing is that you can’t see Album artwork for music that’s stored … read more…
My QNAP NAS
After talking about buying a NAS for almost 32 years I have finally ordered one. Which model? The QNAP 219P. Why this model? 2-drive to keep the cost low. I’ll use it with non-redundant drives to get the max capacity of 2×1.5TB. Here’s an excel spreadsheet to compare features and … read more…
Twitter authentication
It has been talked about before. Twitter will STOP supporting Basic Authentication (see post June 23rd below). With help of a friend I was able to find, test and document this workaround which is really easy to implement. See the Twitter project page. Share this!
Car Tracking
Goal Integrate Car location in HomeSeer to enable location/presence based services (heating, security, power consumption) More information is added on the Car Tracking page. How Using Xexun TK-102/TK-103 GPS tracker Application that receives and processes the received data HS acts based on defined rules Cost €80-120 Tracker €0 Software (just … read more…
GPS Tracking
Even though I have not been using it because it takes time, I still wanted to post the script that’s working. Based on the Orange GPS trace service I created a script that allows you to put your car location & speed in HomeSeer devices. More info is available on … read more…
Update: Database script
I have updated the Database Write script with a new feature. You can now write a device VALUE or STRING to the Database. Examples of how you could use this: Write the temperature to a DB Write free diskspace to a DB Write security status to a DB More info … read more…
After 30 hrs: iPad
30 hours after the official availability of the iPad in the Netherlands I couldn’t take it anymore. I found an excuse to go near an iCenter and bought the iPad. 6 hours later the Homeseer Touch client was up and running. It is a great device! Now I need TIME … read more…
Twitter Authentication going to break..
Twitter announced that they will stop supporting basic authentication starting June 30th. This will break my Twitter script! With the basic authentication that is currently being used you send a password to authenticate. Having multiple applications/websites talking to Twitter you almost need password management As an alternative they want you … read more…
Homeseer Device Monitoring
Battery Low? Communication failure? There’s a good chance you have devices with this status. How do you know about it? These devices don’t talk. So to solve this issue I wrote a script allows you to see if there’s issues with your devices. Once configured, this script will put the … read more…
World population
Looking at my counter scripts I noticed that the world population script wasn’t posted on this website. Now it is! You can find it in the left menu in the “Plugins/Scripts” section (‘Counters‘). It’s extremely easy to install and it will give you a HS device that contains the current … read more…
RF technologies – need more?
Currently I’m using X10, Zigbee (Plugwise), X10 RF, Oregon and Visonic devices. I figured that I should one extra RF technology: Klik-aan-klik-uit. Just ordered KAKU remotes, switches, lamp & device modules at Eshop.nl. Let’s see how that works. The good thing: They’re incredible cheap and wireless. So no slow X10 … read more…
Homeseer server crash
When my remotes (lights), TV and other devices stopped working I found that my HomeSeer was not accessible. It turned out that the operating system, Windows crashed. Fortunately my HomeSeer is running in a Virtual machine. So after re-installing Windows, Homseer was back up & running relatively fast. Here’s my … read more…
Homeseer management
Don’t have enough time to manage your Homeseer system? Same here I found that a lot of time spend was to monitor and maintain the HomeSeer system. The first question is: what do you have to do? Are you overlooking something like the system running out of disk-space? I have … read more…
NAS, what to buy?
It would be great to have centralized storage in my house. What to buy? Looking at features QNAP and Synology offer many features per $. For QNAP I have created a spreadsheet (Excel 2007) to help you making a choice (model, costs, capacity, etc). The spreadsheet has 2 tabs: Create … read more…
Blue-ray player?
I have received my first Blu-Ray DVD’s. So where’s the Blu-Ray player? There isn’t. I don’t want ANOTHER device under my TV that plays ‘old world’ media. So I bought a Blu-Ray PC drive just to RIP DVD’s to MKV files. These can then be viewed through the Media Center. … read more…
Car Monitoring
Today I received my Kiwi Wifi . This is an ODB2 interface that uses Wifi to talk to OBD2 applications. There’s a couple of iPhone apps that support the Kiwi Wifi. Now I have to find a way to link it to HomeSeer It’s all about integration and getting as … read more…
Live home data
You can now see the live (outside) temperature at my house. This is displayed in the box on the right side. Currently the way to do this is pretty complicated and not easy to configure. To simplify and make it easy for everybody to use I will need to spend … read more…
Doorcamera broken
I wish you all a healthy and happy 2010. My door-camera did not have a good start. It’s broken Need to order a new one as replacing it under warranty (ordered in Hong Kong) would probably cost more than buying a new one. A new camera was ordered. When it … read more…
Mac Mini
Yeah! Just received my new computer: Mac Mini! Yes, this is my first (personal) Apple computer. It’s a great little device with low power consumption that will play a central role in home entertainment. How? One of the things I want to use this for is: Music (through iTunes) Digital … read more…
Heating (CV) Control
Something that was on my to do list for a long time: document one of my older projects: Heating Control. This project allows you to control your Central Heating system (actually, the thermostat). I have to define “control” because you don’t have full control. What can you do: Switch a … read more…
Homeseer Twitter: Push Notifications
Today I have updated my Homeseer Twitter script. It includes a couple of bug fixes but the main new features is support for Apple’s Push Notification Service (APNS). This is kind of a ultra-fast free SMS to your iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch. VIDEO: understand Apple’s Push Notification … read more…
Switched to Macbook Pro
Can you believe it? Today I switched from an IBM laptop with Windows XP to an Apple Macbook Pro with OSX. is a big change. I love the Apple hardware: it looks great feels great but OSX is something you have to get used to!! Everything can be done using … read more…
Secret project arrived: Niels!
After nearly 9 months it looks like the first release of our project has been completed. Right now I’m in London Heathrow, but I’m about to fly back to Amsterdam. Unfortunately we haven’t received the manual! We’ll trust our instinct and Google. More details will follow soon! Update: Now I’m … read more…
iPhone broken
Today my iPhone Wifi completely stopped working. Last week the phone suddenly became REALLY HOT and Wifi got worse and worse. Now Wifi is completely gone. T-Mobile: “Talk to Apple, we did not supply the phone” Apple: “Talk to T-Mobile, they are the only provider selling iPhones in the Netherlands” … read more…
Apple Push Notifications
Updated my Twitter script to support APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) using Prowl. Instead of sending an SMS or a Tweet, the house now pushes a notification to the phone. Advantages: It takes about 5 seconds to get a message Cost of a notification = € 0 Prowl for the … read more…
Homeseer Twittering!
Twittering all day? Now have HomeSeer send tweets based on events. Example: Car is gone but front door opens energy usage high temperature etc. It’s an easy to use script that gives you a lot of flexibility in sending tweets. You can create a separate account for your home and … read more…
Traffic information
Today I posted my HomeSeer Traffic script that I have been using for a while now. What does it do? It puts traffic jam information for the roads that are important to me in HomeSeer devices. 1 device shows the ‘country totals’ (length of traffic jams) and one device shows … read more…
Doorbell monitoring stopped?
Today I found out that the Marmitek SM10, used to monitor doorbell activity stopped working. Looking at my trace-files it stopped around August 18th. This is pretty annoying as I don’t get camera images when the doorbell rings etc. After a fast and easy process to return the SM10 … read more…
Secret Project
Almost 7 months I have been working on my next major project. Think it will turn out to be more complex than I could have ever imagined. However, the good news is that the estimated release date is still early November. Sorry for not updating the website very frequent. Need … read more…
New cable modem
Just got a new cable modem for my home internet connection. Do I need a connection this fast? Installing the modem was easy (it came without a manual!). Upspeed: 5Mbps! In 3-4 months time they will upgrade to 80Mb and next year to 120Mb (with DOCSYS 3.0 max of >200Mb) … read more…
Monitor shower water usage
Today I finished my shower monitoring project. To monitor the water usage each time we take a shower we need to do one thing: weigh ourselves. When we step on the scale it will know who takes a shower based on the weight. Then it will measure and capture the … read more…
Infrared integration
Just received my discounted IRTrans module, ordered with a group of Domoticaforum.eu members. It’s a small ethernet connected device that can receive and send IR signals. This allows me to control every device near my TV using HomeSeer! Detailed information of the installation, Homeseer integration and configuration tips … read more…
Touchscreen design
Today I have posted a couple of screenshots that show how my touch-screen user interface looks like. One challenge that I encountered was: Where do you start designing the screens? What goes where? What do you want to include and what not? The result is that I designed the screens … read more…
Wind and Rain Monitoring
Goal Monitor wind (direction), rain and baromatic pressure How Using Oregon Scientific sensors that can be received by the RFXCOM receiver. The RFXCOM has a connection to HomeSeer. Cost €150 Oregon WMR200 weather station with all sensors, or: €50 Oregon rain monitor €100 Oregon wind monitor Optional: Solar panel power … read more…
Secret Project
For a while now I have been working on the biggest, most complex project EVER. It’s a long-term project with an estimated official release date early November. Currently I cannot really give you more information. Fortunately I will be able to provide more details very soon! I might even setup … read more…
RFXCOM upgrade
My RFXCOM LAN device had an old transmitter which was unable to handle the new generation of KAKU (Click on click off) devices. One visit to the RFXCOM headquarters solved the problem. Now I have the new RFXmitter. Now I can start doing tests with the new KAKU devices. The … read more…
Weight monitoring
Today I was able to deploy my new weighing scale. This scale is built by Oregon Scientific, also known from weather stations and sensors. What does it do? When you step on the scale, a wireless signal is send to my server. The RFXCOM receiver picks up the signal and … read more…
Weight Monitoring
DONE: will add project page later Goal: Monitor weight. Awareness is key for losing weight. How: Using Oregon Scientific weighing scale that can be received by the RFXCOM receiver. The RFXCOM has a connection to HomeSeer. Cost: €40 Oregon BWR102 Todo: Order, setup, configure & document (last item not done … read more…
Rain sensor
Today I received my rain sensor. No time to test/implement the device, that will have to wait until Sunday . The rain sensor will be integrated in Homeseer. This enables integration with Twitter, statistics and to notify me if doors or windows are open when it starts raining. More details … read more…
Garden camera
Today I placed a webcam in my garden. A normal camera would never last more than 2 hours before my wife would remove it . The WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of a PTZ camera in the garden is close to ZERO. Therefore I had to think of something. The result … read more…
Everybody online?
Who is ‘sharing’ their live home data? Pieter ‘Bwired’ created a website that makes it easy to share certain data. You decide what information you want to share. Generally people share temperature/humidity information and possibly energy consumption. Look at the Domoticaworld setup by BWired. We all run a script … read more…
Albatron Touchscreen
Today I have picked up my Albatron 7″ Touch Screen after a combined purchase order organized by Chak (thank you!). Albatron is not a known touch-screen manufacturer but they did offer a good deal on this Windows CE based (YUCK!) device. More information is available on the Touchscreen project page. … read more…
Car presence
I just finished my project to see if my car is home or not. HomeSeer now has a device that tells me if the car is there. To see if the car is home I’m using a cheap Oregon Scientific Temperature sensor. Combined with the RFXCOM plugin Homeseer can see … read more…
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