LinuxMCE Demo @ Maker Faire

[RDAC]

Hey guys, I'm working on putting together a LinuxMCE demo for Maker Faire in Austin, TX on October 20 & 21.

I've got some volunteers, and even a sponsorship! So, hopefully we'll see some good (and some more users) come out of it.

Right now, Intermatic (Home Settings) is donating the needed Z-Wave modules, and I put in a message to Fiire if they'd like to lend anything to the cause.

I'll keep a worklog of progress as I go, and if you see me falling into any traps, let me know. I'm about a month out from this point, so plenty of time to catch and make changes.

Thanks all!

[PeteK]

Does the intermatic USB adapter work with LMCE?  I was under the impression that it did not.

[RDAC]

Here's the list of equipment (modifications made):

Abit AN-M2 motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 45w Processor
2 Gig DDR2-800 Ram
Sony Vaio VGP-XL1B3 200 Disc Jukebox & Recorder
Nvidia 7050 Onboard Graphics
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
Nokia 6255i Cell Phone (Show Applet Push)
500 GB Media Drive
80 GB System Drive
Snapstream Firefly Remote
MicroFly Case w/ 400w Power Supply
Intermatics Sensor Package

Total cost to build - $1060 (includes retail cost of all parts, phone, controllers and sensors)

Let me know if I need to improve anywhere. Intermatics is donating all of the Z-Wave controllers and components that I'll need.
I still need to find a source for the IP phone. I also need to find a cheap IP camera, so please let me know if a standard webcam would work in this case (got plenty of those).

Speaking of controllers, they're sending me out one of the stick-type USB interface modules. Has anyone had a good experience with this type of controller? Please let me know, because if I need to be hunting on eBay for the older module, I need to start hunting. Overall, though, I want to avoid this because I want everything to be pretty much off-the-shelf, which rules that older USB dongle out (no longer manufactured, difficult to find online).

Finally, I contacted Fiire about possibly showing off some of their goods, but from some of the responses I've seen on the boards (and my experience with their tech support, which was just weird), I'm willing to consider other integrators who would be willing to help us out.

I've got a WindowsMCE remote laying around that I could use, but I think that if I can't get hold of Fiire, I'll just use the Gyration mouse. Either way, should be fine.

I also emailed the main contact on LinuxMCE's main page, but got no response, which is why I decided to put the worklog here.

Am I screwing up on anything, or does it look all good?

[RDAC]

Does the intermatic USB adapter work with LMCE?  I was under the impression that it did not.

They've offered me some Linux reference drivers, but that was one of my big concerns. They've made an offer of possibly some more refined drivers, but I'll have to go through a NDA for those. It may just be simpler to try to find one of the older modules, but that's why I posted here.

Thanks for the great feedback, keep it coming!

[PeteK]

Hmm, support for intermatic z-wave devices would be nice, but I think you may have a tough time getting that up and running easily.  I'm looking at the Zwave implementation in detail as I work on the Insteon module.  If Insteon has drivers, it would be a good idea to try to work that back into the zwave implementation in the near future.

I got my ZCU000 here: http://www.ocautomation.com/

They were the lat ones I found that had it in stock.  You should probably give them a call.

[tschak909]

I do recommend getting some sort of tablet to show off the tablet orbiter functionality. (I use these a lot alongside my remote as a good way to trigger lights, security panels etc.).. I am currently evaluating the Nokia 770 as a tablet (nice, small, inexpensive ($150)), and the orbiter works pretty well here, if a bit crash-prone currently due to its alpha-state....

I know the Cisco 7970 is very expensive, but it does make a good demonstration piece as well especially in reference to the telecom portions of the software.

[RDAC]

Shot them a call, got a fax machine. They do list it on their website, and there's a couple of them on eBay, so one way or another it should work.

The Intermatic products look like standard Z-Wave faire (possibly just rebranded, but not sure), so hopefully it'll be easy as pie. I'll know better once I get my hands on them.

Wouldn't it be great to just go down to Home Depot, buy the Intermatic products, and be able to have it all up and running in LinuxMCE? Talk about a great weekend project, I sure hope this works.

I'll try to get hold of Cisco, see if they can lend me a demo unit. That's going to be one part that I would like to feature, as per I don't know of another home automation solution that incorporates telephony as well.

[marrandy]

Intermatic zwave is available in myocal lowes in st. petersburg, FL

I had no positive response to my query if their stuff was supported though.

[tschak909]

also, don't worry about Paul (the main LinuxMCE contact), he's very swamped at the moment with at LEAST 10 different things immediately on his plate (ranging from dealing with the pilot pressing of the official LinuxMCE DVDs, to the fixing of bugs that have cropped up during the update from Zap2it Labs to SchedulesDirect), with that said, it would have probably taken a while for him to reply back to you,

so yeah, it's probably best you post here.

-Thom

[RDAC]

On the phone with Cisco now, wish me luck.

[RDAC]

Well, no luck for now. Individual kept pushing me off to establish an account or find a certified voice provider in my area.

###

Got a little bit of progress. The local AT&T rep is making a call to Cisco on my behalf, and I also contacted Voipdw.com to see if they'd be willing to help out. If anybody else has a resource for this phone and they'd be willing to let us borrow it for the demo, let me know.

[totallymaxed]

Does the intermatic USB adapter work with LMCE?  I was under the impression that it did not.

The intermatic USB SUC is not supported currently by lmce's Zwave driver I'm afraid.

[PeteK]

Does the intermatic USB adapter work with LMCE?  I was under the impression that it did not.

The intermatic USB SUC is not supported currently by lmce's Zwave driver I'm afraid.

If Intermatic is offering drivers as he said, maybe we can develop something from those.  Not having a workable/available Zwave adapter sucks.

[RDAC]

Agreed. I signed the NDA, so it's hush-hush from here. We'll see where this goes...

BTW, who on the forum has experience with the lmce zwave driver dev?

[PeteK]

I PM'd you the contact at Pluto.  the Zwave source is also in the distributed source tarball.  I'm getting pretty intimate with it as I work on Insteon development.