Home Brew Home Automation - Application ideas

• one wall switch controls one light
• one wall switch controls two lights
• two wall switches both control one light
• one dimmer switch controls one light
• one dimmer switch controls two lights
• two dimmer switches both control one light
• thermostat governs electric fire
• morning programme opens curtains
• dawn-dusk sensor triggers random lighting pattern around house
• approach of car opens garage door; timer, beam-break safety sensor and motor stall sensor close it safely
• synchronise time between devices
• display messages on panels scattered around the house
• know about ``at home'' and ``at work'' house modes
• use information from occupation and other sensors to trigger actions
• track people (so music, phone calls etc. can follow them)

Please contribute plenty of ideas, however complicated or basic, difficult or obvious. We might not manage to do the difficult or complicated ones, but until someone suggests them, we might not have thought of doing them at all! We are at an early stage, so few things can be ruled out. The more thoughts we have now, the more likely we are to accommodate new ideas and come up with a good, general scheme.

Please send your application ideas to the mailing list for discussion, or brief one- or two-line summaries to ha-owner.at.swan.ml.org with the word application in the subject for automatic inclusion here.

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