Just a quick post with some updates:

Commercial Home Automation

There are a number of products out in the market I;d like to give a test run and review here. I’ve listed a couple of these below. Unlike X10 these devices use web based techology.

Iris

Lowes have launched their own home automation tools known as Iris. You can see a variety of the devices here:

http://www.lowes.com/cd_Iris_239939199_

WeMo

Like Lowes Belkin aso have their own home automation devices under the WeMo brand:

http://www.belkin.com/us/wemo

dd-wrt

I’ve been experimenting with dd-wrt using a spare wireless router I have at home. It’s a great piece of software and allows you to turn a second wireless router into a bridge-relay for your existing network. I think I will actually end up using it for creating a second more secure network for running my home automation devices over. I can then use the existing wi-fi network for regular surfing, netflix etc.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

Gertboard

So after a long wait the Gertboard has finally arrived. It is in kit-form so I’ll be spending some time soldering the components together. Keep your eyes peeled for further updates on this!

Gertboard Kit