Thomas Bock wrote:
[Thomas asks about my home control application]
> It seems a couple of people are interested how you did that?
First of all, for some better screen shots, look at these:
http://jinihouse.los-gatos.net
This was running on my jacket at Dan's place the other night
with output to the 6.4" NEC TFT LCD display shown in the photo,
and we did switch on my TV 60 miles away from Dan's place in
San Francisco via wireless ricochet connection.
Here's how it was done:
The appliances are controlled with X10 modules (www.x10.com).
An appliance modules plugs into the standard building power
outlets, and the appliance plugs into that. Each module has
a unique code consisting of a letter and number. These are
the "receivers" of X10 signals moving throught the power
lines that switch things on and off (can also dim lights).
There are different types of "transmitters" including
switches, remote controls, and RS232 computer interfaces.
In this case we have a Java driver written that uses the
Java comm API. I have it running on both a SPARC machine
and a linux box for redundancy (if one fails the other
will take over). The appliances are set up as Jini
services, registered with Jini "lookup services" on both
the SPARC and linux box.
The application is a Java app. It draws a layout map of
the home, and you can drill down on rooms, and even drill
down on appliances. If you click on the TV or lamps, they
switch on and off. The Java application runs locally on
the wearable currently. It could be dynamically delivered
across the net, but I have some authentication and
encryption issues to implement before I am willing to
do that.
When you click on the lamp, the application does an RMI
(remote method invocation) call across the net to a
small server process at home. This process does a
query on the Jini lookup services, finds the service,
and sends it a command. The service generates an X10
command and sends it out the serial port via the Java
communications API. On the receiving end is the X10
RS232 interface (we are using the ones in the Active
Home kit) which sends the X10 signal along the power
lines. The target appliance module recognizes its
unique code and switches the appliance on or off.
The application also has camera control. I have an
axis 240 camera server. This can support up to five
cameras. One of them can be pan/tilt/zoom controlled
via a VISCA/RS232 port on the server. I have a Sony
EVI-D30 camera plugged into this port via a VISCA
cable. The Axis 240 is a true internet appliance,
it has an RJ45 ethernet port and plugs into my hub.
The camera server can accept URLs which may include
parameters for which camera, and also pan, tilt,
and zoom amounts. The java application takes the
position of GUI widgets like sliders, and parses
a URL with the pan/tilt/zoom info, then uses the
java net (http) classes to sent commands to the
camera server over the net. The camera server in
turn sends the commands out the VISCA cable to
the camera which reacts and moves. The camera
server also creates a jpeg image and the java
app grabs the image (again via http classes)
and renders them in the app. Here's a live image
from the Sony Cam now, using a URL in the same
way that the Java app builds it dynamically:
http://cateyes.los-gatos.net/hugesize.jpg?camera=5&pan=-21&tilt=2&zoom=999
This is a closeup of a hammer coral in the reef
aquarium, which is also controlled by Jini and
Javaspaces. Here are a couple of other camera
images server by the Axis 240 server (using
some fancy DNS and virtual hosting tricks to
make the URLs simpler):
http://underwater.los-gatos.net
htpp://television.los-gatos.net
This stuff is becoming a media magnet. Yesterday
I was on CNET radio (910 on the AM dial in SF).
On monday film crews from KRON TV (local SF
station channel 4) will be appearing at my front
door, and they will be filming me roaming SF
with my wearable later in the evening. Later
next week CNN will be filming me and wearable.
Two articles are about to appear on the Sun
web site java.sun.com, one written about me
and one written by me. And an article in done
for Wired mag, I believe it will be in the
August issue in the "must read" section.
-- Doug
PS. Thomas, if you give me a mercedes I will
set up one of these systems for you <VBG>
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