When some people hear the words “home automation,” they think about the Jetsons or multi-million-dollar concept homes of the future. Others think home automation is just a geek fantasy that wouldn’t add any real value to their lives. Read the article at MacDevCenter.
Home Automation with Mac OS X, Part 1
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This person http://misterhouse.net/ already built one. It can run on linux or windows.
xtend and heyu for Linux do this, search freshmeat.net for loads of opensource software. Nothing new here (except it being MacOS X).
The main problem I find with X10 gear is that it is really sensitive to the crap wiring you get in apartments and old houses.
X10 didn’t go bankrupt for having *good* products (and not spamming or using popups….) ;o)
This article isn’t about home automation, it’s about doing it in OS X. Why do people always knock the OS that an article is written about? This is osnews.com and it’s all about different OSes. This is a great site.
I think it’s great to have this home technology work on different OSes. I use os x, xp, and linux. I love them all and when I get them all to work together with new technologies, it’s a great feeling.
I read the article and can’t wait for next week to read the second part. Thanks osnews for the link.
Okay, lets do the math……
We have a very enhanced estimate of the number of Mac folks out there, and give them 10%. Then we can estimate the number of Mac folks using home automation. It’s not going to take long to get into really “tiny” numbers here…
Think about it….. Far less than 10,000 comes to mind.
Maybe Mac owners aren’t bothered about home automation, I know I am not. Oh and my wiring is very good 🙂
maybe if you live in america with its bad building practices?
Actually, in America, the electrical codes are very very strict compared to most other countries. Unless you are in a very old house or building, the home wiring shouldn’t be a problem.
I found it interesting that home automation software exists for OS X. There are a ton more options available for Windows and Linux, but it’s nice to see potential for other OSes as well.
(Personally, I don’t plan on ever buying Apple products).
X10 products aren’t exactly the most reliable btw
“maybe if you live in america with its bad building practices?”
I’m betting X10 is generally more of a problem in the UK than the US, sir, seeing as most of your houses are (presumably) older than the ones in the US.
We’ve done the home automation thing at my house(s) and apartment for a number of years. Generally, in my experience, it’s less about the quality of the electrical system than just how it was designed. Obviously, this means you’ll probably run into problems more often with old homes than new ones. Indeed, our previous house (newer than our current one) was really excellent with X10, as compared to our current house, which is 40-50 years old.
Obviously, all bets are off if a shoddy contractor touched the place.
I don’t have any particular issues with X10’s stuff, either. We recently bought an Ocelot controller (X10 compat), but only because we have rather weird needs, as we are Orthodox Jews – so, we’ve got to adjust when the timers go on and off based on sunrise and sunset, and have the system be tough enough to handle issues like blackouts and accidentally flipping on and off lights. Doing it on the X10 controllers was a bit of a hack as compared to the Ocelot.
We depended solely on X10 stuff for our Sabbaths for about 2 years. It didn’t let us down very often.
-Erwos