The Aeon Labs Z-Wave Controller is a USB stick which has an inclusion controller.

I personally have not had luck using the inclusion feature of the Aeon Labs USB stick.  I bought it second hand so it is possible that it is not functioning normally.  I only mention it because there is a possibility it is a device problem for others to look out for in their systems so that it could then be corrected.

In my setup I leave the Aeon Labs USB stick in the core at all times and to add a device I use a HA07.  This includes the new device and then transmits that addition to my USB stick.  For the price its a nice tool that I only have to pull out and add batteries to when I get a new z-wave device.  HA07 Master Controller

Thanks for the experience with the lock.  I am considering adding one to my system in the future and was not decided yet on the Yale or the Schlange/Link Bridge approach to locks.  It appears now from your experience that both Schlange and Yale will require additional handlers for inclusion into my z-wave network.  I knew Schlange did but was under the impression Yale did not.

[LinuxMCE wiki on TTS]

LinuxMCE wiki on TTS

1) Create a scenario. In this example, I'm just going to create a climate scenario called "Test" 2) From the edit scenario page of your new "Test" scenario, use the dropdown to edit using the Advanced wizard 3) Add a new command by using the Device drop-down to select "Text To Speech" 4) You will now get a box where you can select a command to use. Select the "Send Audio To Device" command. 5) You will now get a list of command parameters to fill out:

    103 List PK Device - enter a comma delimited list of devices to send the audio to. For our test, just look up the device number of your On Screen Orbiter, and enter it here.
    9 Text - Enter your text here, such as 'Hello. This is a test. A B C 1 2 3'. Notice the single-quotes - they must be used!
    278 Voice - Here is where you can select any one of the installed voices. The default installed voices are:

 

With careful script editing, you should be able to cat the text into the script without too much difficulty...

What about defining a bash script variable and use the cat command to assemble the text???

You could even set scripts to to assemble other scripts on either side of the quotes by creative use of the cat command...

The intention of this post and what I tried to explain is that I am incapable of getting this working and was looking to work with someone who could.  Your ideas might work, the ideas I had about how I might build a template might work, but what I am looking for is someone who can make it work.  If nobody is interested then after I finish up my scripts and voices I will have to learn the template side.

PS: You really want something like this to be coming out of LinuxMCE?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3HeXxMGJvM&feature=related

Yes.  Some people like BlueCrystal and some like Uita, some people adore Star Trek and make orbiter skins to look like Enterprise terminals.  I like Portal so want my tts to resemble the antagonist's voice.  Everyone's ideal smart home/HA experience is going to be slightly different.  Some prefer it silently running in the background where I like constant activity updates.  It's clunky and unnecessary but I like command received messages announced back to me. 

Insert DVD > "Preparing your media for playback" > movie starts > "Adjusting ambient light levels" > lights dim.

As long as I am not shooting YouTube videos or presenting custom events in a way that portrays it as LMCE default then it remains my preference.  For other users though who like this type of approach I will share my implementations and allow them to use them if they want or modify them to their preferences.

Thanks Hari,

I have an Aeon Labs Smart Energy switch.  When I select Web-Admin>Automation>Show Energy Usage I get an error saying it cannot find the database.

To troubleshoot this I first went on the assumption that the switch was not detected as a energy meter so the database wasn't installed.  To test this theory I needed to know the above codes were.  Using that I looked up the codes showing in device data for this switch.  If none of the numbers in device data list equated to energy meter I would be correct. 

The above number meanings tell me that the switch is detected as both a switch and an energy meter but ONLY if that list is the same as the one LMCE uses for its device data.  I wanted to move on in troubleshooting so posted the above to confirm.

My next step will be to try and figure out where Web-Admin>Automation>Show Energy Usage points to.  If it is a pathname I can follow it until I see other db directories.  This would test another assumption that the link is wrong and energy usage db does exist. 

If both of the above options are checked out then my troubleshooting ability is expended and I would then ask for help with sqlCVS lookups.  Device Tree>Dcerouter>show entire log, shows that the device is changing usage info about 15 times a minute but is not clear if this is being logged anywhere.  How a switch in the off position is changing usage is another mystery I will need to figure out.

I have reached a point where I almost have status updates ready to be announced verbally by LMCE. 

Instead of my wake-up event saying "Good Morning, Jeremy", I am working on getting "Good Morning Jeremy, it is Saturday, September 01.  Outside temperature is 80 high today is 86."

I would like climate section orbiter scenes that when pressed state "current temperature is 81, wind speed 5 from southwest, no active alerts"

1001 other ideas I could type here, but I have an issue and need some help from another user to get this working.

What I have =
Several small scripts that can pull current conditions either from the internet for weather, yahoo headlines, etc.  I also have scripts that can pull information from local resources such as state, current time/date or other background programs.  This information is pulled and written to a temp text file.  From command line I can run these scripts and have festival or espeak read back the text file in the format I want to hear it in.  My current work is trying to combine these into one large script that depending on what conditions are used will output different information.  Because the text to be read is pulled from one reused text file everything stays clean and there is no need to add a rm line.

Roadblock =
Text to Speech template in LMCE only accepts 'quoted' statements.  There is no way to get a path/to/file.txt into the event/statement area. 

What I need =
Someone good with web-admin/template creation to rewrite or create a new Text to Speech template that accepts path.  The command to run my scripts can exist in the event so this new template does not need to include 'run script', in fact it would be best left with path to text so that it stays clean.  Moving statements from other existing events to path would be easy.  Create a location called ~/spoken that can house all the tts statements as separate .txt files, my constantly updated current_conditions.txt will be just one of them.

How to collaborate=
Your template to me: via instructions to create.  I do not believe anything will need to be written to make a template capable of reading from a path so just explain how you created it.  If there are issues that require you to write something then we can use sharing methods described below.

My scripts to you:  A few of these require adding weather-utils which is in the repository so there is nothing special other than an apt-get install needed.  My scripts are really simple bash commands made executable.  They can be sent as text via email, personal message etc.  When you get them of course look them over to see what I am calling and how I am filtering content to be spoken.  Once you know I didn't just doomsday you, you execute a gcc command to compile and another command (sorry I forget atm) to make it executable. 

When it is clean and we are satisfied I will get permission to upload to sqlCVS and others will be able to use this function as well.  Pat yourself on the back at this point and call yourself a semi-dev!  Honestly I get frustrated with 'almost' getting things working under LMCE and think this is a good way to use what I know so far without several more weeks of template/GSD research. 

Message me if you are interested in helping and be sure to include any unique things you would like announced.  Be creative, it can be done!  Stock listing, tv schedule, NASCAR standings, Douglas Adams ebook, personal and work emails, calendar appointments...

Final Notes:

I will be supporting this, meaning if it breaks I am the one who has to redo my scripts.  If the format or language of the source data changes it would likely output gibberish.  I would then need to change the way I pull your information for tts and resend it to you.

I am a Portal fan so wherever possible I am trying to make my announcements shift pitch etc to sound like GLaDOS.  To do this I need to either create a new voice for festival or do some creative work with recurring statements within my announcements and lay them out as regular audio files to overlay announcements.  It's gonna be tricky but if I can get around some hurdles it would be amazing!

Future add-ons for this:  My HA theme is Portal/Max Headrom/LawnMowerMan(movie not book) inspired so to complete and compliment these announcements I hope to one-day to add video so that my home has a face and AI personality.  For a robotic persona I can fire a mpeg to on-screen orbiter of GLaDOS moving about while the announcements play, for a more human/cyborg persona I am going to have to come up with a way to mimic mouth movements and that is not going to be written this year...       

Copied from micasa verde wiki.  I was hoping a lmce/zwave pro could take a look and verify these are the same numbers that web-admin displays?  I am troubleshooting a problem getting energy usage from a module and wanted to make sure it was configured properly.

On a ZWave's properties you'll find 2 values to show what the device can do:

Capabilities    209,140,0,4,17,1|38,39,112,114,115,117,134,
Version    6,1,91,3,11

The first 6 numbers in capabilities are what is reported by the ZWave ZW_GetNodeProtocolInfo function (0x41): Capability, Security, Reserved, Basic Device Class (, Generic Device Class, Specific Device Class. If the Capability is >= 128 then the device listens for commands, otherwise it's a battery operated device that only wakes up occasionally.

The version is what's reported by the COMMAND_CLASS_VERSION command VERSION_REPORT. There are 5 values: Z-Wave Library Type, Z-Wave Protocol Version, Z-Wave Protocol Sub Version, Application Version, Application Sub Version. The Application version is specific to the device and not defined by Z-Wave.

The library types are:

C

ONTROLLER_STATIC               1 CONTROLLER                               2 SLAVE_ENHANCED                       3 SLAVE                                       4 INSTALLER                                  5 SLAVE_ROUTING                          6 CONTROLLER_BRIDGE                   7 DUT                                          8 Alphabetical Name                                                                    Hex Dec     Numeric COMMAND_CLASS_ALARM                                                                  0x71     113 COMMAND_CLASS_APPLICATION_STATUS                                          0x22      34 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION_COMMAND_CONFIGURATION                  0x9B     155 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION                                                          0x85     133 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION_V2                                                  0x85    133 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_CONTENT_DIRECTORY_MD                                  0x95    149 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_CONTENT_SEARCH_MD                                          0x97    151 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_RENDERER_STATUS                                          0x96    150 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_TAGGING_MD                                                  0x99    153 COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC_WINDOW_COVERING                                  0x50    80 COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC                                                                  0x20    32 COMMAND_CLASS_BATTERY                                                                  0x80    128 COMMAND_CLASS_CHIMNEY_FAN                                                           0x2A    42 COMMAND_CLASS_CLIMATE_CONTROL_SCHEDULE                                   0x46    70 COMMAND_CLASS_CLOCK                                                                   0x81    129 COMMAND_CLASS_COMPOSITE                                                        0x8D    141 COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION                                                 0x70    112 COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION_V2                                                 0x70    112 COMMAND_CLASS_CONTROLLER_REPLICATION                                         0x21    33 COMMAND_CLASS_DOOR_LOCK                                                         0x62    98 COMMAND_CLASS_DOOR_LOCK_LOGGING                                          0x4C    76 COMMAND_CLASS_ENERGY_PRODUCTION                                         0x90    144 COMMAND_CLASS_FIRMWARE_UPDATE_MD                                         0x7A    122 COMMAND_CLASS_GEOGRAPHIC_LOCATION                                         0x8C    140 COMMAND_CLASS_GROUPING_NAME                                                0x7B    123 COMMAND_CLASS_HAIL                                                                0x82    130 COMMAND_CLASS_INDICATOR                                                        0x87    135 COMMAND_CLASS_IP_CONFIGURATION                                                0x9A    154 COMMAND_CLASS_LANGUAGE                                                        0x89    137 COMMAND_CLASS_LOCK                                                                0x76    118 COMMAND_CLASS_MANUFACTURER_PROPRIETARY                                0x91    145 COMMAND_CLASS_MANUFACTURER_SPECIFIC                                         0x72    114 COMMAND_CLASS_MARK                                                                 0xEF    239 COMMAND_CLASS_METER_PULSE                                                         0x35    53 COMMAND_CLASS_METER                                                                 0x32    50 COMMAND_CLASS_MTP_WINDOW_COVERING                                         0x51    81 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CHANNEL_ASSOCIATION_V2                         0x8E    142 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CHANNEL_V2                                                 0x60    96 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CMD                                                         0x8F    143 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_INSTANCE_ASSOCIATION                                 0x8E    142 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_INSTANCE                                                 0x60    96 COMMAND_CLASS_NO_OPERATION                                                         0x00    0 COMMAND_CLASS_NODE_NAMING                                                         0x77    119 COMMAND_CLASS_NON_INTEROPERABLE                                         0xF0    240 COMMAND_CLASS_POWERLEVEL                                                         0x73    115 COMMAND_CLASS_PROPRIETARY                                                         0x88    136 COMMAND_CLASS_PROTECTION                                                         0x75    117 COMMAND_CLASS_PROTECTION_V2                                                 0x75    117 COMMAND_CLASS_REMOTE_ASSOCIATION_ACTIVATE                         0x7C    124 COMMAND_CLASS_REMOTE_ASSOCIATION                                         0x7D    125 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_ACTIVATION                                                 0x2B    43 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_ACTUATOR_CONF                                         0x2C    44 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_CONTROLLER_CONF                                         0x2D    45 COMMAND_CLASS_SCHEDULE_ENTRY_LOCK                                         0x4E    78 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_ATTRIBUTES                                                 0x93    147 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_ATTRIBUTES_V2                                         0x93    147 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_MD                                                         0x92    146 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_MD_V2                                                 0x92    146 COMMAND_CLASS_SECURITY                                                         0x98    152 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_ALARM                                                 0x9C    156 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_BINARY                                                 0x30    48 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_CONFIGURATION                                         0x9E    158 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_MULTILEVEL                                                 0x31    49 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_MULTILEVEL_V2                                         0x31    49 COMMAND_CLASS_SILENCE_ALARM                                                 0x9D    157 COMMAND_CLASS_SIMPLE_AV_CONTROL                                                 0x94    148 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_ALL                                                         0x27    39 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_BINARY                                                 0x25    37 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_MULTILEVEL                                                 0x26    38 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_MULTILEVEL_V2                                         0x26    38 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_TOGGLE_BINARY                                         0x28    40 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_TOGGLE_MULTILEVEL                                 0x29    41 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_FAN_MODE                                         0x44    68 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_FAN_STATE                                         0x45    69 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_HEATING                                         0x38    56 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_MODE                                                 0x40    64 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_OPERATING_STATE                                 0x42    66 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_SETBACK                                         0x47    71 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_SETPOINT                                         0x43    67 COMMAND_CLASS_TIME_PARAMETERS                                                 0x8B    139 COMMAND_CLASS_TIME                                                                 0x8A    138 COMMAND_CLASS_USER_CODE                                                         0x63    99 COMMAND_CLASS_VERSION                                                                 0x86    134 COMMAND_CLASS_WAKE_UP                                                                 0x84    132 COMMAND_CLASS_WAKE_UP_V2                                                         0x84    132 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_CLIENT                                                 0x34    52 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_SERVER                                                 0x33    51 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_SERVICES                                                 0x2F    47 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_CLIENT                                                         0x2E    46 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_SERVER                                                         0x24    36 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_SERVICES                                                         0x23    35 And here again listed by number.  Sorry but hand is sore from the above formating. Name                                                                             Hex Dec         Numeric COMMAND_CLASS_NO_OPERATION    0x00    0 COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC    0x20    32 COMMAND_CLASS_CONTROLLER_REPLICATION    0x21    33 COMMAND_CLASS_APPLICATION_STATUS    0x22    34 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_SERVICES    0x23    35 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_SERVER    0x24    36 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_BINARY    0x25    37 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_MULTILEVEL    0x26    38 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_MULTILEVEL_V2    0x26    38 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_ALL    0x27    39 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_TOGGLE_BINARY    0x28    40 COMMAND_CLASS_SWITCH_TOGGLE_MULTILEVEL    0x29    41 COMMAND_CLASS_CHIMNEY_FAN    0x2A    42 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_ACTIVATION    0x2B    43 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_ACTUATOR_CONF    0x2C    44 COMMAND_CLASS_SCENE_CONTROLLER_CONF    0x2D    45 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_CLIENT    0x2E    46 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_SERVICES    0x2F    47 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_BINARY    0x30    48 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_MULTILEVEL    0x31    49 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_MULTILEVEL_V2    0x31    49 COMMAND_CLASS_METER    0x32    50 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_SERVER    0x33    51 COMMAND_CLASS_ZIP_ADV_CLIENT    0x34    52 COMMAND_CLASS_METER_PULSE    0x35    53 COMMAND_CLASS_METER_TBL_CONFIG    0x3C    53 COMMAND_CLASS_METER_TBL_MONITOR    0x3D    53 COMMAND_CLASS_METER_TBL_PUSH    0x3E    53 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_HEATING    0x38    56 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_MODE    0x40    64 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_OPERATING_STATE    0x42    66 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_SETPOINT    0x43    67 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_FAN_MODE    0x44    68 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_FAN_STATE    0x45    69 COMMAND_CLASS_CLIMATE_CONTROL_SCHEDULE    0x46    70 COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_SETBACK    0x47    71 COMMAND_CLASS_DOOR_LOCK_LOGGING    0x4C    76 COMMAND_CLASS_SCHEDULE_ENTRY_LOCK    0x4E    78 COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC_WINDOW_COVERING    0x50    80 COMMAND_CLASS_MTP_WINDOW_COVERING    0x51    81 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CHANNEL_V2    0x60    96 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_INSTANCE    0x60    96 COMMAND_CLASS_DOOR_LOCK    0x62    98 COMMAND_CLASS_USER_CODE    0x63    99 COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION    0x70    112 COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION_V2    0x70    112 COMMAND_CLASS_ALARM    0x71    113 COMMAND_CLASS_MANUFACTURER_SPECIFIC    0x72    114 COMMAND_CLASS_POWERLEVEL    0x73    115 COMMAND_CLASS_PROTECTION    0x75    117 COMMAND_CLASS_PROTECTION_V2    0x75    117 COMMAND_CLASS_LOCK    0x76    118 COMMAND_CLASS_NODE_NAMING    0x77    119 COMMAND_CLASS_FIRMWARE_UPDATE_MD    0x7A    122 COMMAND_CLASS_GROUPING_NAME    0x7B    123 COMMAND_CLASS_REMOTE_ASSOCIATION_ACTIVATE    0x7C    124 COMMAND_CLASS_REMOTE_ASSOCIATION    0x7D    125 COMMAND_CLASS_BATTERY    0x80    128 COMMAND_CLASS_CLOCK    0x81    129 COMMAND_CLASS_HAIL    0x82    130 COMMAND_CLASS_WAKE_UP    0x84    132 COMMAND_CLASS_WAKE_UP_V2    0x84    132 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION    0x85    133 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION_V2    0x85    133 COMMAND_CLASS_VERSION    0x86    134 COMMAND_CLASS_INDICATOR    0x87    135 COMMAND_CLASS_PROPRIETARY    0x88    136 COMMAND_CLASS_LANGUAGE    0x89    137 COMMAND_CLASS_TIME    0x8A    138 COMMAND_CLASS_TIME_PARAMETERS    0x8B    139 COMMAND_CLASS_GEOGRAPHIC_LOCATION    0x8C    140 COMMAND_CLASS_COMPOSITE    0x8D    141 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CHANNEL_ASSOCIATION_V2    0x8E    142 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_INSTANCE_ASSOCIATION    0x8E    142 COMMAND_CLASS_MULTI_CMD    0x8F    143 COMMAND_CLASS_ENERGY_PRODUCTION    0x90    144 COMMAND_CLASS_MANUFACTURER_PROPRIETARY    0x91    145 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_MD    0x92    146 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_MD_V2    0x92    146 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_ATTRIBUTES    0x93    147 COMMAND_CLASS_SCREEN_ATTRIBUTES_V2    0x93    147 COMMAND_CLASS_SIMPLE_AV_CONTROL    0x94    148 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_CONTENT_DIRECTORY_MD    0x95    149 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_RENDERER_STATUS    0x96    150 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_CONTENT_SEARCH_MD    0x97    151 COMMAND_CLASS_SECURITY    0x98    152 COMMAND_CLASS_AV_TAGGING_MD    0x99    153 COMMAND_CLASS_IP_CONFIGURATION    0x9A    154 COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION_COMMAND_CONFIGURATION    0x9B    155 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_ALARM    0x9C    156 COMMAND_CLASS_SILENCE_ALARM    0x9D    157 COMMAND_CLASS_SENSOR_CONFIGURATION    0x9E    158 COMMAND_CLASS_MARK    0xEF    239 COMMAND_CLASS_NON_INTEROPERABLE    0xF0    240

LG Ally : works with no issues.

Q1 - How many MD systems are needed? One per TV?

Correct, though you can do some tricks to move audio/video to multiple rooms the best solution is a MD at each location.

Q2 - How many cable tuner cards are needed?

One tuner per MD, now there are cards/usb devices that have multiple tuners in one.  The HDhomerun has 2 per, so 3 of those.  Do not forget that with tuner cards its 1 per MD PLUS one for every scheduled recording you have.  To stream to 6 MDs at once and record 2 shows would be 8 tuners.

Q3 - The core system, what type of power is needed if I wanted to have all TV streaming at once? (Not that it would happen.)

  A valuable lesson about "power",  think in terms of I/O and eliminate bottlenecks in your core hardware and you will be very happy with less than TONS of ram and proc power.

Q4 - What is the best way to control the TVs, BluRay and other devices? IR or through service ports?

I personally am a fan of RS-232 (service ports) but to ask for devices with it in an electronics store always gets deer-in-the-headlights look.  IR works, if the device comes with a remote then lmce can send it commands.  If you want to try alternate means of connection such as ethernet and usb then I am sure you will find the help you need here. 

Welcome to LinuxMCE.  I look forward to hearing how your system comes along.  One last note,  you WILL use more storage than you thought possible.  If you want a impressive DVD collection, HD recordings, a couple thousand songs the storage space goes fast.  My very small lmce setup already has more TB than my last corporate jobs' server.  If you are wanting to get the core/MD/AV all going at once I would go ahead and either get a large oob NAS or build an expandable one.  Keeping my storage on my core is one of my regrets and will have to be resolved before I run out of powersupply or case room.

I ended up writing a simple shell script, I will copy it below but first I will share the utility I am using:

Code:

sudo apt-get install weather-util

Now you will need a 4 digit code for your local area, such as an airport or a tv/radio station.  In my area that would be "KGRR"  That is communicated to weather-utils by entering:

Code:

weather --id=KGRR

To get current weather just repeat the above command in a terminal.  Now to put that into a shell command I opened a text editor (kwrite) and put in the following.

#!/bin/bash
clear
weather --id=KGRR >> readweather.txt

*Yeah I warned you it was my first.  All this does is clears the terminal, runs the weather --id=(local code) and writes it to a text file.  I still need to somehow set a path to this text file so it doesn't have to be run from its current directory but I haven't got that far yet into scripting.  Once I get that straightened out I will make the .sh executable and setup for lmce to run.

The last part, getting text-to-speech to read the txt file I am having issues with.  The events writer allows me to read 'quoted statements' and I can't figure out how to have it read from a path.  Perhaps I need to command festival to read the file and capture its audio output to .mp3 behind the scenes.  Then instead of using text-to-speech I would have my event play that mp3 via Xine.   Either way I have the absolute basics and progressing nicely!

Here is the link to the wiki article that started me thinking about these possibilities:

NOAA Weather

I tried following the author's instructions verbatim but wasn't able to get it working on my setup.  So with all thanks to the original author for the idea I have begun thinking of ways I would like to do something similar.  Below are some links for my area and my plans to use them.

Step 1>  Find a plain text forecast.  I need to write a small program to go to url and get local conditions.
Step 2>  Have text-to-speech read that page to me on request (a scene under climate on the orbiter would be awesome)
Step 2(alt)>  If text-to-speech can not read from a url, I will need to dump the URL info to a tmp file and have it read that.  One challenge with this will be having the dump overwrite the same file location and name, so that my command will always read the same location.

I have a handful of ideas I am going to be trying out today.  When I have functional templates I will update.  If anyone else is working on similar I would appreciate any information on things you had success with and avenues that met the "you shall not pass" wall.

My links:

Still Image, local view of the sky
Another local cam I can tap into
Detailed weather page for on-screen display
And the golden find of the morning!
Simple text local forecast

If nothing else, I at least have some quick bookmarks for weather to pull up in the computing menu and a few local cam feeds to hopefully add to climate area of my orbiters instead of security area (as they would if I set them up as standard cameras).

To find local cam feeds I just googled my city and "cam" and to get text weather report I went to weather.gov and selected text view after putting in my zip.  I am between major cities in Michigan so didn't have a lot of cams to choose from, in non-rural areas you should be able to find dozens of streetview cams!

I must always remember to start any topic containing X10 with, "X10 is horrible."  With that covered I would like to get some information on a specific part of X10, the wireless side.


I have committed to Zwave as my choice for anything critical because of its features such as poll state, verification of command received etc.  If I add any other lights, thermostats, etc I will be going with Z-wave.

For non-critical systems or systems that can stand alone and do their thing without lmce, such as stand alone motion lights for my entryway and light sensing lights to turn on walkway lights at dusk I have decided to use X10.

For the price once again I am back at the X10 debate over motion detectors.  These units are < $10 each and use RF instead of powerline communication.  I will not have all the error correcting and verification of signal but in the event of motion I would assume the message repeats as long as the PIP detects a presence. 

So, it is very likely that in the next week I will go ahead and buy a handful of these sensors to place around my house.  Their signal will trigger events and commands to my z-wave devices via dcerouter.  What I am still uncertain on is a good RF unit for my core to pick up these signals.  Below is what I have gleamed from forum/wiki and internet searches for X10 wireless.

- CM11 = wired pc interface, goes from pc to wall and does not talk wireless?
- CM15 = wireless interface, does not connect to power lines and only does RF?
- CM17 "firecracker" - serial interface that...  RF only?  there is no template for this although it appears a few people have tinkered with making one.  These units average $5-$10 new on eBay.

For someone determined to be a cheapskate and use these cheap PIP sensors, what controller is recommended?

I tossed this idea out in another thread and wanted input on it.

LMCE has browser favorites for things like weather & yahoo, I have played with the climate plugin to pull local airport weather (based on a wiki article, thank you to that author) and would like to attempt an all-in-one info screen for lmce.  I would like to have as much local information as I can streaming to my screen as possible so that I can leave it playing on a couple Media Directors while I move around the house getting ready in the morning.  Steal a peek while pouring coffee, pause to look at it while I am brushing my teeth.. things like that.

"Camera1" Generic_IP_Cam pointed to an internet streaming frame of local weather
"Camera2" Generic_IP_Cam pointed to a local weatherbug streaming video of skycam
"Camera3" Generic_IP_Cam find some embedded local newscast in a browser window and point to that
"Camera4" Generic_IP_Cam pointed to Yahoo.traffic view of my area

Using Quadview Cam screen have all these streams onscreen and be able to switch between them full-screen (or at least bigger)

I can set it up this way to see if it works, and if anyone else would like similar I could remake camera templates similar to IP_Camera called "Browser Stream" and using HADesigner re-deploy quad-view as something called Local_News_Screen.  Thoughts?


 

So I put the camera and web orbiter back into my device tree and I do not have streaming video to the iPhone. 

My apologies jamo I was certain that I had it working but I must be confused between it,  my cam feed bookmark and my webpad.  Based on sambuca and posde's comments it looks like to use the camera feeds on in-wall devices like you stated you were looking to do you will need to install something onto them.  Sorry for the confusion it wasn't malicious, I have a ton of orbiters so I get the screen views mixed up.


This could very well hijack a thread so I just want to put it out there to think about and if you want to discuss elsewhere I would be happy to.  Setting up the Advanced IP Camera to look for a image/video outside of the internal network has me thinking I can use ANY browser feed as a cam view.  Weather.com image frame for my area, Yahoo.com traffic frame, a local weatherbug.com cam view for skyview and maybe even a streaming morning news show ---> each going to a "camera" displayed on the quad camera screen.  Imagine re-deploying that screen under HADesigner for use as a morning info screen on an MD!

Thanks Thom,

Because I am writing this myself(ourselves technically, this project finally has the roommate looking at code) I assume that as long as the device can understand and get the libraries then I can send these packets with whichever protocol we choose, and can figure out.  UDP when I was researching methods for remote writes seemed the best alternative, I am not sold on it at all.

- Reading over wiki articles has shown me the benefit of doing this correctly, error correction and the ability to poll state back through the socket will be nice

- Reviewing a few more TCP using templates and wiki articles before I go back to the device and look at my options

- This all started with attempting to direct wire a contact switch to my core (par or ser), after study though I felt it was cleaner to have this 0.02w device sitting on the network and watching various circuits.  If it sees something it can tell DCE.

- We had simple logging of events going on a (precise) test machine where keystrokes where logged with time and "doorbell rung" on the local machine. This was done with modules though and not our own code. 

- To add features to this device down the road I hope to take advantage of its parallel, serial, and usb-to-http://numato.com/8-channel-usb-gpio-module

I appreciate your time.  I know you are not a fan of duck tape devices but it's what I have available to learn with and with each project I am learning a lot more about lmce and coding.  Another 2 dozen walking coffee pot w/ voicemail builds and I may be able to actually help with some of the (3 million?) lines of LMCE code.


 

I found some great information on the wiki about GSD creation and serialized class, I have stepped back to review my process for creating this device with that new information and will update once I have my module operational and attempting to talk to DCE.  I can't seem to get this hardware to boot anything other than windows ce 4.2 so will be spending some time in ancient dev environments for a while.   

Can LinuxMCE support multiple sound cards in one computer and pipe different music to each? 

Based on my reading yes, this is a viable option.  You will still need amplification.  It has been a while since I read updates on it but there was once some work on a switching device in a users rack setup to change outputs by dce commands.  This would have allowed orbiter control of where the audio was routed to.  Perhaps someone else has more information on that project or new hardware that is serial/usb/ethernet controllable. 

I have also spent quite a bit of time looking for low cost alternatives for audio-only areas.  While I believe I have the correct principles down, my available hardware is about 10-15 years too old to get working.  Here are two options you could find with a few days searching here and the wiki:

1. Add USB sound cards to the core.  These pipe to the various rooms and you can push audio to powered speakers.
2. Add PCI sound cards to any media director.
3. Use squeezeplayer software on inexpensive hardware.  (I believe Roku is fully supported now and may be configurable as a network media player?)
4. Emulate a squeezebox - This is my current project that is not getting proper attention sadly, boot a host device that contains a child VM which runs sqeezebox firmware and is shared to the network under a faux MAC address in the actual squeezebox pnp range.  If configured properly I do not see a reason that 5 VMs running similar firmware could not each call a different MAC address and all operate in a single physical machine on a rack...