suggestions for a doorbell switch?

[tschak909]

I'm not entirely sure what the best way to do it would be..but.. I'd like to wire up a doorbell to Pluto..what are my options for both the switch and the interface? GC100?

-Thom

[darrenmason]

Thom,

Maybe an IO board that hooks up to parallel/serial/usb or something.
Assuming that you can get access to the board they should be easy to support. I am guessing that one that works with serial is probably eastest to get working.

This is another one of thos things that I would like to have a play with but still sits too low on the priority list

Take a look at http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/GSD_to_drive_a_Weeder_I/O_WTDIO-M for an example of interfacing with one.

One you have one running as an interface device then the doorbell (switch) should be able to easily generate an Event. What you then do with that Event is up to you.

HTH
Darren

[jondecker76]

I haven't used LinuxMCE yet (though I have used Pluto Home)..  Pluto had excellent support for X10 devices (www.x10.com)

X10 has a device called "The Big Red Button" which should work great for firing off a pluto event. They are cheap too - the button, a tranceiver unit and chime come to under $20.

I have had excellent results with X10 products with Pluto - they aren't as great as ZWave (there is a 2 second delay in the tranmitting with X10 products) but they do work great.