Getting into home automation — II

My previous post, focused on some achievable targets in terms of monitoring and controlling devices plugged into the mains around the home. This post is the one which gets me excited — how to watch or game on any rooms which has a display in the house, via a universal interface which all the family can use.

Being able to watch the Boxee box, Apple TV (1st and 3rd gen), Sky+ HD or the Blu-ray in the other rooms around the house would be useful. Similarly, being able to game on the Xbox or the PS3 in different rooms offers flexibility for my family when we have guests and we need to give the kids different rooms where to hang out. It's also seriously good geeking project.

Saving you the long spiel in terms of what I've explored, this post focuses on the solutions now available, supported by relatively new standards and products which require quite a big investment (at least for my pocket) to make this happen. But first, let's zero in on what I'm trying to do here. There are 3 outcomes:


Centralise all equipment in one place. 
Simplify all rooms to a single display. 
Use common interface to access music, films, energy monitoring, lighting, climate control.


Seeing that I have up to 8 devices and 3 TVs in our family home, the first challenge was to understand what was achievable and how it is best organised to deliver multi-room AV. There are 2 aspects to this and Fig 1 brings this to life:

Fig 1 - 8x8 HDMI Matrix Switcher using HDBaseT Single Wire taken from the UK HD Connectivity site

HDMI Matrix Switchers
The first part is what all the HD devices connect to and then what can be pushed to one or more displays around the home. This is the switching device.  It has 2 parts to it a) control of the device via a mounted IR point attached to the source, through the matrix switcher and then onto the display itself.  It allows us to natively use the remote control even though the device is not present in that room.  The other part is b) feeding the HD source via conversion from HDMI to Cat5e/6 through the matrix switcher and out to the display itself via a HDMI/Cat5e/6 extender unit.

More recently, the multi-room AV market has been evolving from simple HDMI switching units to HDMI over Cat5/6 to now HDMI over HDBaseT as a platform. Over time, the evolution of the matrix switcher has overcome challenges in terms of HDMI cable length, signal loss/degradation and auto-adaptation to the display(s) being driven. The end result as shown in the Fig 1 is that each device feeds into a suitable equipped switching unit which has a HDMI in/out, IR in/out and Cat5e/6 out to each display panel. The more HD inputs in, drives the size of matrix switcher your need.  In my case, it gets to an 8x8 which is a beast of a unit (and expensive).

When I first looked into multi-room AV, my thinking was that each source could be left in its original room and I could connect everything on a point to point basis via a centrally located switch. I quickly realised this would be inefficient and a mess to manage.  This ended up changing my thinking in terms of where I put it, how the matrix switcher would be wired to all the HD sources and how neatly I can hide it out of the way. Yep, you got it – it would work best, be more efficient and be easy to maintain and support if I centralised the sources and switcher into one main rack (hidden from the family of course).

User Interface
Of course, to tie this all together in a neat and easy way, I wanted a Sonos like way to manage it all and of course, using an iPad or an iPhone. After a number of discussions with my local hi-fi dealer (Musical Images – hat tip), Control4 came up as the platform of choice, which could meet my requirements. Reading up on them, reveals quite an established organisation who built up out the commercial market, are a leading vendor for residential home automation in terms of multi-room AV, Lighting and Climate control.  Their wireless control of historically uses the Zigbee wireless mesh design as opposed to Z-Wave, although the platform has an extensible part to it, in which drivers from other hardware vendors can be written to integrate into Control4.  My discussions concluded that their premier controller would fit my needs. Going through an authorised dealer network (registered most likely with CEDIA) would ensure the design, installation and support of a Control4 installation. They also take care of the requirements of the matrix switcher alongside all other elements in the requirement and design phase.

And of course, to use Control4 on iOS, there is a license cost which are delivered on a site or single device basis.

How does it actually work?
While you can leave this all to a dealer, with all the inputs involved, I needed to get my head around how it actually works. I subsequently broke it down to this:

1. Master controller (say the HC-800) links into Router and Wifi network (Node 0)
2. Master controller is wired to HDMI Matrix switcher via Ethernet
3. Master controller creates new home mesh network for Control4 aware devices
4. Matrix Switch is also connected to each source device using IR
5. Each TV display also has an IR connected back to the matrix switcher
6. Each TV receives the converted Cat5/6 signal via the HDMI Ethernet Extender which is located close to the TV itself
7. The Control4 Software is programmed to replicate each native remote control of your source devices
8. Each device receives command by IR  

Fig 2 plays this out nicely using the single ethernet cable standard with HDBaseT

Fig 2 - Matrix Switcher using HDBaseT and a Control System such as Control4, taken from the Wyrestorm site

If any of you are experts in this area, then bear with me, I'm learning some of this stuff for the first time.  Any corrections or suggested changes are appreciated to make this clearer for anyone else reading this post.

There is also a really insightful Official Control4 forum where users and dealers exchange and share knowledge on installation, tips and support. You can glean a lot from here. Don't you just love the power or the web for collaboration :)

So, to achieve my objectives at least for an intial phase of getting my AV sorted, how much would this set me back? Up to £13k using the Control4 plus HDBaseT type switchers alongside racking, cabling, software licenses and design and installation from a Control4 dealer. Throw in a UPS and that's just the set up cost. I still need to figure out what the annual charges for maintaining this sort of environment would be.

I suspect there are some challenges with this set up. For example, can you really game with Xbox and PS3 with controllers over IR?  This may not work. However, the beauty of this platform is that is very flexible.  Adding in Lighting and Climate control through devices such Nest is all doable with Control4 being a platform where drivers are written for it. One of the other requirements I have is around energy monitoring with real time cost displays which again looks very doable with the requisite investment.

While the missus likes the idea of a de-cluttered equipment across the rooms and an easy to use way of access all the entertainment in a familiar way, think there a more challenging issue of selling this idea off the back of a new kitchen extension. I'll keep you posted on how this one develops :)

Getting into home automation — I

I've been recently talking to a friend of mine, who has been an advocate of getting into home automation.  It's a very interesting area given the development of a combination of most devices having an IP and being able to route signals via custom controllers, which in itself play nicely with smartphone and tablet apps. To be honest, without the motivation of a major purchase, it's been a case of getting a handle of where it may add value in my set up.

I have two areas of keen interest:

• Controlling devices connected to electrical outlets around the home
• Centralising AV entertainment around the home

In order to generate focused interest, I identified I wanted to get the following outcomes of these interest areas:

1. Monitor and control my assigned devices/electrical points around the house. Turn them off and on, automate basic functions and see how much they cost  in energy terms
2. Watch Blu-rays, HD media streamers in the lounge, or den (home office) and the bedroom.  Easily add more displays as needed. In fact, watch one source to multiple sources where needed

Home automation brings a number of technologies and evolving standards into play in both wireless and wired situations.  I needed to understand the key ones in the commercial and residential market to build budget estimates for the sorts of investments I might want to make in the future.  This is the first of 2 posts on the subject in terms of what I'm looking at in terms of initial research.

Device, energy monitoring and control
The Vesternet guide to home automation is a reasonable starting point to get a handle on the range of wireless technologies involved in terms of their history, functionality and implementation in products you can buy and install at home on a DIY basis.  Z-Wave seems to be the front runner, in terms of easy buy and plug-in products around the home. It also seems the more flexible, future proofed and integrable of platforms with the other area of interest (such as budget range the MiCasaVerde products.)

Using the interactive home planner on the site, and focused on the device energy management goals, it's gonna cost be £1.1k to be able to fit out a master controller and 20 sockets around the home. From a software standpoint to configure and manage the devices, group them in into zones and generate scripts/schedules to automate stuff, the Fibaro Home Centre 2 has Mac client and an iPhone app.

An achievable project, this would allow me to realise the management of all plugged in devices around the home.  It's also easily extendible to light switches and motion detectors around the home. Not sure I like the fact that home security is vulnerable to remote access and hacking exploits.

As a probabe small footprint Linux OS PC with Atom processor and custom GUI, it's full featured in terms of a range of devices you could add, configure and ultimately control and automate.  Their product video demonstrates this. However, a key requirement was to be able to report on the cost of each zone or separate device via Z-wave devices. Perhaps a module they will add, assuming there is a real roadmap on this niche European created platform.

Of course, early adoption in an evolving market carries a degree of risk, but in terms of deploying an easy to self-manage solution this has some nice design touches which may warrant a closer look.

Getting a handle on URL shortening

In the ubiquitous world of broswers, smartphones and tablets, we increasingly access and share content with social media using a variety of software clients (apps). For me, I use Reeder on Mac and iOS, FlipBoard, Zite, TweetBot on iOS, Osfoora for Mac and when on the Win7 desktop at work, I have TweetDeck for keeping a track of stuff.

I've noticed a number of  popular bloggers have their own customised URL shorteners and it seemed right for me to get into it. Of course, you need to do your homework in relation to

• Buying a short URL domain - I used Domainr for searching and seeing what's available
• Check for custom shortener support within the apps you use (I use Bit.ly and CloudApp Pro)

Getting the short URL may cost you. You may need to get creative. Added to that is the extension is country specific and as you will realise, country domain registrars require supporting paper work to complete such domain purchase requests. I initially looked at a .mo URL and found it has documentation evidence requirements to support the registration out of the country of Macao.

Apps such as FlipBoard or Zite, aggregate content and understandably want everyone to know that.  Hence, you can't customise URL for sharing articles out on your Facebook or Twitter timeline. Your typical RSS feeds or stuff you create gives you a free reign.

All you do is configure your URL shortener service to point to your domain, wait for the transfer to complete and then you're all set. Go into your client (in this case, Tweetbot, TweetDeck or Reader - on each device) and it's all good.  Your URL brand is now alive.

Be aware there's a wide variety of URL shortening providers and the apps vary in what they will support — hence the rather unexpected subscription I needed to make for CloudApp Pro to support my custom URL in Osfoora for Mac. The problem of course is choice.

Blackberry contacts madness

I don't play with Blackberry's much. I have a Bold 8520 which is the work issued unit which is pretty much locked down. It has access to the Blackberry World Apps store, but who wants to use apps on such a crappy device that was designed for mail and calendaring alone.

My missus had a Bold 9700. She liked it in terms of her mail stuff. She gets keyboards and is not into touch screens. It was time for her to upgrade. She wanted a bigger screen and better apps. Leaving aside touch enabled iPhone's and Android device, I got her to plump for the more recent Bold 9900. Better OS (7.x) and performance of apps from the store. Got her off contract by buying her one, so her TCO is potentially lower, it's unlocked so she can easily resell if it comes to it.

Given I've been on iPhone since the 3G, you pretty much take for granted the ease of upgrading phones to the latest model  Contacts on your SIM, use local backup or iCloud for moving stuff across. For me, it's been very painless in changing models. The problem with a this is that it's designed to be easy for human beings, and you get tricked into thinking everyone else would make it easy too. Not so, with RIM.

Here's the set up. She runs the Desktop Manager on the Mac and does the sync of contacts. Something ends up not being  right. I'm not even sure what's happened, but old contacts which were deleted have now come back on the new 9900. What transpires is that she has a SIM card with a contacts list and an Address Book which also has a contact list. Her text messages don't come over because they're stored on the phone. I start looking at what should be so basic to do, and find there's a ton of different context sensitive Option menus on the 9700 which need setting up cos they weren't there out of the box. An example, texts save to the SIM and not the phone.

After she does a clean up and ensure all her key contacts are in the Address Book, I take over and do it for her.  All comes over okay, then I add things like Pictures which require extra steps in iPhoto to come across  cleanly. I could go on, but I'm getting bored of moaning now.

So what a shambles. Why should this be so hard? Reading on the forums, it looks like RIM don't have a sweet spot for helping moving across devices.  The missus still has to sync with wires once a week to get her calendar and picture updates from the Mac to the 9900. Worse still, you do your research find out how to set up wireless sync on contacts and calendar with say Gmail. The Bold 9900 is nicer model for sure,  but have now had first hand experience why RIM are not everyone's cup of tea any more. And they say their future strategy will be less focused on the consumer side and more for enterprise. Seriously?

Recording iOS app demos

I've used Camtasia Studio in the past to better serve customers with quick fire demos for applications which I think customers should know about and use.

At the same time, and ahead of Mac OSX Mountain Lion this summer, developers have been reverse-engineering AirPlay and have found ways to get it working seamlessly between iOS devices and Mac.  MacStories picked out AirServer is a solid app which did the job and behaved well. About £10 to purchase outside of the Mac Apps store, but damn, this is useful.

Combo with Camtasia? I can now record demo's from iPhone and iPads mirrored on to the MacBook Air or the iMac and have Camtasia running in the background to capture in the background. It's post record editing, if you didn't know..is excellent.

I suggest you check it out for yourself.

My first VoIP phone

Following attendance at the Unified Comms Expo in London back in March, I had a curiosity to look at VoIP (you'll need to sign up to playback the video) and see what I could play with in free time. I decided to start with a my own number with a desk handset + headphones from my home office.

Previously, I'd had frequent problems using the ClearOne wireless starphone on my main phone line at home. It was mainly issues the audio quality of the wireless exception. Call/audio quality was ok when the mute button was on, but when I left it off (I sit and talk on a lot of conference calls as part of my job), the call audio quality was terrible. Again, don't think it was the line as the DECT phone and other land-lines extensions were all good.  Possibly wireless interference.

I bought a Snom 300 and MM3 headset from my ISP. Fully featured and supports all the key codecs for VoIP and SIP. My ISP also provide SIP servers and the Snom was recommended and worked great in their environment. I had one VoIP number which was configured on the Snom 300 when it arrived. I simply plugged in the ethernet cable in which connected to the office switch and picked up a dynamic IP. The ISP customer broadband control pages allow you to configure inbound and outbound rules alongside general security of your VoIP line to ensure it does not fall into the wrong hands and run up a very large bill without you knowing. Easy.

Spec wise, their call servers use G711 within SIP/2.0 protocol for 64kps data for calls. Call plans for PSTN calls are competitive and given I had several calls to US and UK audio conference providers over a major incident spanning a weekend, and it worked a treat.

All in all, much better to hog my own office line at home, and leaving the analogue line free for the family. Cost wise, the ISP telephone call costs are itemised and its straightforward to claim business calls (not the line itself of course) on expenses. It's better than running a 2nd home phone line with BT (line rental and calls).

However, there were an few interesting things, I wanted to get sorted:

1. Inbound calls - when testing, I found I couldn't call into the VoIp number as it simply wouldn't respond  Why was that?
2. Mobility - wouldn't it be great to not be tied to the desk, but use softphone clients?
3. Security - should I be worried about eavesdropping on my calls over the net?

Inbound calls
Basically, I found this was due to standard NAT being enabled on my router (Billion 7800N). That is, it can't route back to an internal IP from the outside world. NAT is seen as traditionally evil and a cause of lot of broken VoIP/SIP set ups. I'm actually one of the lucky ones to have a router which supports Application Level Gateways (ALGs) for common port mapping functionality which is useful for SIP.  It was just a click of a radio button to turn it on the router admin pages. I'm told ALGs functionality on manufactuter routers for SIP can be flaky sometimes and vary in terms of their implementation to a standard. Luckily for me, I didn't need to do a whole bunch of firewall rules from my ISP to allow inbound calls on the VoIP side.

Mobility
I was recommended the Bria client on both iPad and iPhone. Works beautifully. Very quick to set up your VoIP number and SIP provider details. Even plays nicely over 3G. I now have some flexibility to get local cost business calls regardless of location (toll bypass anyone?). Take a look at Counterpath, they seem to have a whole range of VoIP/SIP software solutions.

Security
Beyond password as a basic security, I did consider encryption of the tunnel to the external SIP servers and encryption of actual voice data (not that I'm doing anything classed as sensitive or requiring to be that secure).  TLS and SRTP are the transport protocols here. I trusted my ISPs guidance that there was little chance of anyone intercepting the traffic between  me and their SIP servers, but I'll keep an eye on this one.

So all in all, a good investment. Set up cost was about £165 (Snom 300, Headset, Bria clients for iOS).  Recurring costs wise, the number is about £3 a month + calls on a transparent call plan. I haven't measured the ROI, but it makes more sense on the VoIP as opposed to the waste on line rental charges and all inclusive call plans with BT.  Of course, in terms of resilience, I may want to look at a back-up ISP I lose my broadband connection with the ISP. The Billions can accommodative an simultaneous ADSL connection at the same time as a fail over. Seem ominous I'll look at this at some stage, although again it need a 2nd phone line with all the fixed charges which come with that.

Plus it's more tech to babble about ;-)