CME

Submitted by Michael Easton, San Rafael, CA, USA (Graphics downloaded here) I've been working with Mr. House since 2002. I'm not a programmer by trade but I've been learning a lot about perl and the workings of the backend of Mr. House. Mostly I've been concentrating, however, on creating some of the graphics that simplify a few things for me and concentrate on a GUI for a few Audreys around the house.

Things that I'm using Mr. House for and GUI modifications:

-Water the lawn using the rain8 (Great product) based on what the temperature was the day before, so if it was 60, it waters for 5 minutes. If it was 90, then water for 10 minutes. I get this data from get_weather, saving me adding moisture sensors. It works well. If rain is detected, then it skips the water cycle for 1 day.

-Monitor all my doors, IM'n me at work if people come to the door. (Mr House use to close the garage door if left open after 8PM, but when my wife came home one night I was out and the garage was opening and closing, Mr. House was demoted to door monitor only.) We really should have a log of conceivably great ideas that have gone awry

-Simplified and redesigned the front page for only what I've found useful on a daily basis. The graphics (Below) are a second generation attempt for a Art Deco look to Mr. House. As an animator, I get all fussy about nice looking GUIs image:Easton_House.01.JPG width="611" height="458" I like to put the armed mode right on the front page for my wife. Not all that secure, but if you got this far into the house and figured out how to disable the alarm, you've already been logged, caught on camera and I've been notified. Simple graphics that you can understand at a glance: image:cme_unarmed.gifimage:cme_armed.gif

-Created the new clock, and recently added a simple Alarm mode using a Generic_Item. -I like the use of Generic_Item for creating new modes, and made modes.pl to add a few more. -Created a new GUI for the slimserver software from slimdevices.com. I don't use voice commands with Mr. H and I found the mp3.pl code too complex. I just control the music from the audrey or a laptop, and stream the music to work as well. -Made a simple search page for the top bar for Dictionary, google, maps, etc. No clutter, no ads. I hate ads -Updated some of the light graphics. I'm replacing some of my switches to Insteon as I've had a number of problems with X10 products. Only way I could solve most of them was to re-wire my electrical panel and put most of the troubled circuits on the same leg (Without overloading that side of that panel naturally. -Using get_weather and grabbing some online graphics, I've created a simple weather display that generates all the data I need. -Created a dynamically generated site for my camera security logs -Future projects: -Would like to get some peoples advice on video servers for controling cameras. Updating from IP cameras that are slow to a dedicated IP server controling analogue cameras is where I'm going. -Find some simple hardware for automatic curtains for regulating the heat within the house. Maybe run with some PIC controlers -Get my mail to download to Mr. House. Ya, should be easy, just never got it to work. -Figure out a way to run a simple voicemail system that's stable so I can convince my wife with don't need Bell anymore. -Retrieve and plot data from a La Crosse Technology WS-2315CH Professional Weather Station. -Most people use Gnplot, but has anyone used GDchart http://www.fred.net/brv/chart/ for better looking graphs?