Windsurfer WiFi Antenna Booster

I just made one of these in about 10 minutes with a piece of aluminum foil, some glue and a printout of the template. I did a quick test and the signal strength went from about 80% to 100%. Not bad. Here are some YouTube videos about the antenna.

This is a picture of it on one of our wireless routers:

xPL HALi 0.2 Released

Testing went faster than I thought so I'm releasing version 0.2 of xPL HALi. Read the sample config.txt file in the zip for instructions on how to add commands. Have at it.

New Version of xPL HALi Coming

I've been working on changes to xPL HALi to make it more than just an xPL-HALi bridge. It will now read in a configuration file that specifies VR phrases and associates a number of xPL commands with that phrase. This will give you have the ability to directly issue xPL commands from VR.

A sample line in the config file will be a comma separated list:

turn off bass amp,i have turned off the bass amp,xpl-cmnd,doghouse-scu.xyz,x10.basic,device=BassAmp,command=off

In response to the phrase "turn off bass amp", xPL HALi will issue an xpl-cmnd of schema x10.basic to app doghouse-scu.xyz tellin it turn off the BassAmp. HAL will confirm the phrase by saying "i have turned off the bass amp" via TTS.

Look for it to drop in the next few days after I've had some time to test it.

Cheap 350VA UPS at Staples $19.99 AR

Cheap APC UPS $19.99 AR with free shipping too. Use the Staples Easy Rebate to file it online so there's nothing to mail or photocopy. This is perfect for security cameras, etc.

Video of xPL Gmail in Action

Here's a video of the xPL Gmail script I hacked together the other day. On the right of the screen is an RDP session to the HA server showing xPL Gmail running in a command prompt and the DCM message viewer below that. To the left is our HA GUI. I just added the capability of displaying osd.basic messages to our GUI.

A test email is sent to the monitored Gmail account. xPL Gmail polls for new mail periodically and when it finds a new message, it issues an osd.basic xPL message which is captured by the DCM logger. xAP Floorplan grabs OSD messages and dumps them into the HA MySQL database which our GUI pulls data from. The message gets displayed in the GUI for a short time before disappearing.

xPL Gmail Notifier

I've taken the Python source for Gmail Notifier and modified it (with code from the Python xPL Toolkit) to issue an xPL osd.basic message when it encounters a new email message. Since it's Python, you can easily modify notifier.py to change the xPL message to whatever you want. I'll leave that as an exercise to you. A few things, before you grab the zip file (comments I left in the code):

# * changes to remove the tray icon as pytrayicon is not
#   supported in windows
# * removed the popup that notifies of a new email
# * added xPL support to generate osd.basic messages
#   containing sender of new email
# * since there's no tray icon, you cannot reconfigure from the gui
#   after you've configured once before.  therefore if you need to 
#   change your settings again, edit .notifier.conf located in
#   c:\documents and settings\your_login

You'll need to install a few things first besides Python - PyGTK and GTK. Go here and follow the directions for PyGTK for Microsoft Windows. Finally, here's my zip file.

AT&T DSL Pricing Going Up

We have Comcast at our main house and AT&T DSL at our other. The price of DSL is going up $5 per month starting this month! That's a 25% increase over what we're paying for 1.5Mbps service. The service is pretty bad as it is but we don't use it that much. No wonder the US has the worst/priciest Internet experience - pretty sad considering we invented the Internet. That's what happens when there's no competition and you allow all the regional bells to merge together. Funny that AT&T announced "free" hotspot access for many of their broadband customers a few weeks before they announced their raising broadband prices. Free my ass.

If you are staying with AT&T, like we are, because there's no cheaper alternative, then hit this link to lock in your current rate for 1 year before you start financing their "free" wifi hotspots.

More Details on xPL HALi App

You can edit the enclosed XML file (xpl_doghouse-hali.instance0.3.0) to change the name of your xPL HALi instance. In the file, the key newconf is set to "home", but you can change that to anything you want.

To install more than one xPL app on your PC, you'll need an xPL hub. Here's one.

A good thing to have around is the xPL command line sender or the GUI xPL sender.

Another helpful app is DCM. The message logger is a great utility for debugging.

So what can you do with all this? Let's just start with something simple. Send an xPL message to xPL HALi to change a flag using the command line sender. From the command shell type (all on one line with a space after 'home' and before 'control'):

xplsend xpl-cmnd doghouse-hali.home control.basic device=testflag\ntype=flag\ncurrent=1

This issues an xPL command to application doghouse-hali.home (where home is the default name in the XML file mentioned above). The command is a control.basic type that sets the flag named 'testflag' to 1 or TRUE. You can try out the other commands that xPL HALi supports by following the command guide in the previous post. Have fun.

xPL HALi App Available for Download

So I've decided to release my xPL HALi application that I mentioned here. You can get it here. I only implemented portions of HAL I use (no X10, no DMC, no alarm panels, etc.) Just the basics. Don't know what xPL is? Read this and visit the xPL Forums. You'll need to install .NET 2 and .NET 3.5

It issues xpl-trig sensor.basic commands in response to the following events:

Listening state changed
sensor.basic
{
  device=listen
  type=mic
  current=1
}
This message is sent when HAL is listening via microphone. Type will change if VR is via handset.

Macro Executed
sensor.basic
{
  device=macro
  current=macroname
}
Execute 'macroname' macro.

New Voice Mail
sensor.basic
{
  device=newvmail
  current=1
}

Phone Hook Changed
cid.meteor
{
  CallType=outgoing
  CCS=initiated
}
Outgoing call started.

Phone Ringing
cid.meteor
{
  CallType=incoming
  CCS=ring
}
Incoming call.

Sensor State Changed
sensor.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=flag
  current=1
}
Flag 'sensorname' set to 1. Type can be flag, counter, variable or timer.

Speech Notify
sensor.basic
{
  device=VR
  current="phrase recognized"
}
Recognize the listed phrase via VR.


The app responds to control.basic xpl-cmnd messages allowing some control of HAL devices:

Setting a Flag
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=flag
  current=1
}
Set a flag to 1.

Setting a Variable
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=variable
  current=1
}
Set a variable to 1

Setting a Timer
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=timer
  current=60
}
Set timer to 60 seconds.

Increment a Counter
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=counter
  current=+1
}

Decrement a Counter
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=counter
  current=-1
}

Set a Counter
control.basic
{
  device=sensorname
  type=counter
  current=20
}

VOIP VR Video

Here's another video I made. It shows how we use TeamSpeak voice chat software from remote PCs to talk to HAL.

The video shows an RDP session to the HA server on the left of the screen and on the right is the TS client running on a laptop. In the RDP client, you'll see the HAL monitor, the xPL HALi app I wrote, starCOMUltra and our web based GUI. HAL, named Sara since the wife likes the show Eureka, responds to her name spoken into the laptop microphone. The TS client blinks as it hears me. The HAL monitor shows the name was recognized and enters listening mode. xPL HALi sends an xPL control.basic message with the listening status. xAP Floorplan (via its xPL bridge) sees the message and sends message.display to all OSD devices (in this case xAP Intranet Launcher) informing them that the system is listening. This is necessary since HAL's audio is not routed back through TS to the laptop and we may not be within earshot of HAL. A couple commands are spoken to turn on & off the kitchen light. You can hear the click of the switch as it toggles, see the commands being issued by starCOMUltra and see the kitchen light go on & off in the GUI.

Home Automation GUI Video

Here's a video of the HA interface I've been building. It's a few months old now and has been posted on a few HA forums here & there. Since Comcast bumped web page capacity, I decided to leave the video up and link to it from here

This pretty much represents all systems interacting together - starCOMUltra, xPL, xAP, HAL - and tied together with AJAX, MySQL, PHP and DHTML running on Apache.

Farewell kJ :(

Our beloved kJ passed away yesterday at the age of 13 years, 8 months. kJ has been with me since my interest in home automation began. He witnessed the mad wiring, connecting, soldering and programming, and was also the reason for a few automation tasks (ie: the computer yelling at him in his doghouse when he howled at night). He was always there to tilt his head when asked if he thought this was a safe spot to drill in the wall. When he didn't like something I did, like leave the landscape lighting wires exposed, he would promptly chew them up and make me do it better. Of course, his expert assistance was the reason behind how kJ's Doghouse came to be :) We miss you so much kJ.

http://www.doghouselabs.com