Submitted by “Home Automation … covers many areas, including remote and timed control of lights and electrical home appliances, distributed media services, and communication. Over the last 10 years, many hardware manufacturers have presented their own proprietary solutions to these problems. Unbeknownst to them, a groundswell of developers from around the world has been providing similar solutions to the free and open source community.” If you want to know how to remotely tell your computer to switch on the kettle and boil a cup of tea, switch on the lights, or just draw the curtains the read the full story at Freesoftware Magazine
Where can purchase these X10 devices in the US?
There are tons of places to get these devices. Here’s a place that I’ve used in the past: http://www.smarthome.com. But look around a bit. X10 is a widely available system.
The question is whether most of us need anything but a simple mediacenter. Personally I don’t.
Besides, I’m still on my way configuring what was supposed to be a simple MythTV installation.
I dont know about anybody else, but I would love to have any and all of this.. not because it would help make my day to day life easier.. But because it would be fscking awesome to mess with my nosy neighbors and unsuspecting roomates from work. Oh and it would be cool.
Gimme cell phone access on top of that, and im sold!