We are working on the largest Crestron project we ever head. It is going to be 8 zones of HD video switching and 34 zones of distributed audio. We are going to control it with a pair of 37" touchscreen tvs and 22 RTi remotes. We are going to be doing some tricks to hide electronics without losing control. Look forward to more information and hopefully some freebies and tutorials.

I purchased a hardware development kit from synapse-wireless.com . They make a really unique zigbee platform that runs python byte code quasi-natively. I am really amazed with it so far. It is very nice when you come across a product that actually does what it says it will. The wireless range really goes 75+ feet and it really does turn on in 100 ms. It joins the network within another 100 ms. By comparison it takes 300 ms for the human eye to blink. That means it powers on and connects

I'm using AMX at my house and I love it. In the future I will be posting a screencast of how it operates. There is a lot of design decisions that need to be made and I'm trying to make it as open as I can.

Here is a fairly large control4 installation. I try to give a good narration but I wish I would have stayed quiet.

Combining security system with phidges and twitter for awesomeness - More DIY How To Projects

Here is a rough and quick walk-through of a deployed AMX system. Our "30 day" trial install has almost been a year without any problems. Its reporting back to a server (so I can confirm my claim).

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I'm getting into the phidgets more and more. I'm including a sample video and the python code used in it. Sorry for the awful narration. def interfaceKitSensorChanged(e): #print "Sensor %i: %i" % (e.index, e.value) repeatLoop(e.value) return 0 def interfaceKitOutputChanged(e): print "Output %i: %s" % (e.index, e.state) return 0 def repeatLoop(num): if num > 100: interfaceKit.setOutputState(0,True) interfaceKit.setOutputState(1,False) interfac

This is a little scary. Control4 is working well enough in my house and at our casita that I find myself trying to find ways for them to succeed. That is a victory in and of itself

What do we do? We are trying to bring home automation to the masses. What makes us different? Instead of trying to launch a new product that users and dealers have to leave their current brands to adopt, we want to commodotize much of the design and programming for them. Who are you competing against? Our strategy is to make (or use existing) dealer agreements with all the major players (Crestron, AMX, Lutron, Vantage, Control4, RTI)

Our demo order just arrived and I brought home an HC-300, ipod dock and wireless outlet switch. I'm updating firmware now. Hopefully I'll have a working system in a couple hours.

I do a lot of complaining about Crestron, but I just completed a project with RTI remote and it made all the difference. The T2-Cs should be sold on every job. It is very straight forward to program in SIMPL. Customers seem to like it. What more could you want. I will be posting a sample project in the [examples] section.

I am working on documenting where I want to go with my career. I thought that a roadmap may be more accurate than just setting goals. I have work on the calendar until August. I'm sure it could run all the way to the end of 2009. Currently, I am most interested in the author/publisher relationship. I would like to be a content (software) provider and have a publisher/sales/marketing department.

So far the first day of training is going well. They are doing a good job explaining their market position and the direction they want to take.

see! girls do like me!

I'm always surprised how flat Denver is. Southwest is using HP computers running XP for their digital signage. I'm sitting her watching it reboot. I think it is disconcerting. Aren't planes more complex than pretty text?