Do I need a Media Director if I only want to control shades, door lock, lights?

[torontob]

Hi Everyone,

Can I use LinuxMCE as an appliance only and without a Media Director? I only need to control shades, lights, and door locks. If the answer is "Yes", how would the configuration happen? through a Web Orbitor?

Also, what is the best price recommended appliance PC now for the Core LinuxMCE server?

Thanks,

[acald]

I'm a noob here but from what I've read you will already have a "Media director" in place on the core to do the initial setup (AVWizard, etc) After that, the configuration is done through the web admin interface.

So technically no, but you will have one anyways on the core.

[SBCC]

Hi torontob

For my experience I have run a headless core (No MD) to just do automation. You can control this through the Web Admin portal if you are just having the automation respond to events (motion detectors, sensors tripped, sunrise, etc.) You can also install as many orbiters as you want to manually turn on or off devices or open close shades. I have done this with an old HP that ran for about $250 maybe 6 yrs ago. You could probably find a friend with one ready to go to the curb. The core just doing this does not require much computing power. For this setup I would spend very little on the PC, nothing if your crafty. You can always upgrade to make use of the other features of LinuxMCE.