Printable View
Curiousity bumps to me this early morning. can we write a program that will can switch off and on the air-con and other electrical acccesories at home? First of all, where we put that program? On what kind of devices? Can it be done?
hope to know.
Thanks!
With the right hardware yes it could be done.
Yes, it's been avaliable for a few years now, but it's only started to pick up recently.
Using the X10 protocol, your computer can send through the electrical instalation already in your home. This proto sends data when the voltage in the wire is zero, which happens ~50 times a second in this part of the world. The air-con would have to be enabled to understand this protocol, wich would come in quite expensive.
or one could be cheap and just have air conditioners with ethernet ports and then have a protocol based over that, it would only need a basic protocol to enable for air conditioning, on/off commands, and a tempurature dialing system(using a variable length encoding, the system would only have to interpret at max 8 bits, 1 bit to determine whether it is a on/off command or a tempurature, and the remaining 7 bits to select temp. between 0 -127.Quote:
The air-con would have to be enabled to understand this protocol, wich would come in quite expensive.
Air conditioning is a bad example though, as it is pretty trivial, what really gets tedious would be making a protocol for say.... an expensive coffee machine(that makes expressos,lattes,etc.), where you would have all these different commands, as well as a system of reporting when the water needs to be filled,etc.
EDIT: just for a side-note, bill gate's house already has air conditioning controlled by computers.
He's not the only one.Quote:
Originally posted by EvBladeRunnervE
EDIT: just for a side-note, bill gate's house already has air conditioning controlled by computers.
Quote:
We have the technology...
I actually think this technology would work well with answering machines.
For example, several of us use Instant Messaging clients, such as AIM, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, etc. Most of these programs give us the ability to put up an "away message" when we leave the computer temporarily.
I think this would work well with telephone answering machines. We could network our answering machines and computers together, and then when you leave your house, you could select an "away message" that would be played when someone tries to call your house.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mitchell
Curiousity bumps to me this early morning. can we write a program that will can switch off and on the air-con and other electrical acccesories at home? First of all, where we put that program? On what kind of devices? Can it be done?
hope to know.
Thanks!
The cheapest option to do that is to have a device controlled through a PC which will control the power to the device...
There are C programmable controllor boards for under 100 bucks. You can wire their inputs and outputs to the ac units, then it's just sending signals to whatever connection...pretty straightforward.
But why ? Why not use the normal switches provided for the very same purpose ?Quote:
can we write a program that will can switch off and on the air-con and other electrical acccesories at home?
so that you don't have to go and hit the switch yourself, so it can be done programatically on timers and at certain temperatures...we're programmers, if you don't like it get the hell out :)Quote:
Originally posted by goran
But why ? Why not use the normal switches provided for the very same purpose ?
another cool thing is if you have a business phone, like whats in a office, with the extra buttons on top. You also need a phone switching station. But with these devices you can turn on and off devices remotely. You can even open doors and close gates. Just a suggestion. Ive seen it done and its REALLY cool..
My air conditioner is already controlled by a computer; It's called a thermostat.
Howdy,
Entire factories are controled by PLC's it's simply a matter of how many contacts and i/o's you need.
A small PLC will only set you back a couple of hundred bucks... or you could reinvent the wheel set up an rs 232 network through your house to handle data colection and device controls, plumb that into your box and write the code to read the sensors.......
M.R.