It’s not, arguably, as exciting in pure A/V terms as the company’s Procise PSPHD 7.3 previewed yesterday, but Crestron’s new Prodigy Home Control System is certainly more affordable. CEPro have been behind the scenes with the new wireless automation system, which uses modular ZigBee-compatible components to manage lighting, heating, distributed A/V and more.
NKK Switches have announced a new control that integrates a compact 96 x 64 OLED display. The OLED Rocker has a 0.92-inch monochrome OLED panel with broad 180-degree viewing angles, and offers both up/down navigation as well as push-enter functionality.
The control joins NKK Switches’ existing display-control range, which already features a color-OLED button. However that control is only a push-button, and requires a far deeper panel mount.
We like a good automaton here at SlashGear, and if it manages to reproduce an internet meme then all the better. Jon Haddock’s hand-cranked model is titled “Andrew Meyer (Don’t Tase Me Bro)” and reproduces the infamous 2007 University of Florida Taser incident.
Video demo after the cut
We’re told that water and electronics don’t mix, but word obviously hasn’t made it to iHouse. The company has been demonstrating their SmartFaucet, a touchscreen-enabled tap that also includes a camera for face-recognition. If you’ve ever wanted to check your email and calendar from your bathroom sink, here’s the faucet for you.
Video demo after the cut
Last month’s remote control power outlet piggybacked onto a Linksys NSLU2; this month, we’re still all about remotely triggering power from a web browser or cellphone with WAP browser, but the system is built from scratch. Josh Harle started with a PIC16F84, a cheap programmable chip, which links up to an always-on home server that has a custom Java app doling out commands to eight different AC switches.
Nokia’s Home Control Center was among the gadgets making an appearance at the company’s Barcelona expo today, and Electricpig caught a little in-person time with the setup. Ostensibly a WiFi draft-n router, the Home Control Center box itself is actually a Z-Wave transmitter too, with 6GB of internal storage and intelligence to monitor temperature and other sensors and control heating and lighting accordingly.
Nokia has unveiled a cellphone-controlled “smart home” platform that will use Z-Wave and ZigBee enabled devices and a specially adapted WiFi draft-n gateway. Nokia Home Control Center is being described as an “open platform” combining sensors, CCTV, wireless networks and mobile devices, usable both inside the home as well as remotely via any device with a web browser. The first products will concentrate on home heating management.
With a name like HomeTroller I half expected HomeSeer’s new gadget to leave attention-seeking and argumentative messages daubed on your interior walls, but in actual fact it’s their second-generation plug and play home automation and monitoring system. Basically HomeSeer’s software packed into a fanless box, it can hook up to multiple wired and wireless setups including lighting and security.
I love a bit of motorized home automation, and I know a lot of SlashGear readers feel the same way, so if your tastes lean to the traditional (and by traditional I’m talking reproduction tapestries) then Draper’s Fine Art for Flatscreens might suit. Part of the company’s ‘Conceal Reveal’ range of remote-control screen covers, Draper has got together with Fine Art Tapestries – who are apparently “the largest tapestry weaver in the world”, and who am I to argue – to offer forty different classic and not-so-classic reproductions to hide your flatscreen TV with.
Anyone who has ever tried to demonstrate a touchscreen likely knows the anxiety of seeing a novice user jab brutally at the display. Bad enough when it’s your precious Tablet PC; potentially even more expensive if it’s your home automation interface. So it’s good to see Stealth Computer’s new SV-2400 ruggedized touchscreen; intended, really, for industrial applications, the 24-inch widescreen would nonetheless make for a great combo control panel and display for any user with forceful fingers.
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