Hi folks. If you haven't heard, my passion over the past few years has been to integrate all the various home subsystems into a common integrated system. At this point, i've got lighting, security, whole house audio, video distribution, irrigation, hvac, security cameras, and a few more areas all working and playing nicely together. This helps in situations like:
From any PC or PDA in my network, or my $160 touchscreen that I wallmounted:
- Move all equipment to a central location, but still be able to control anything from anywhere (ie, any audio or video in any room at any time)
- Use a common, custom built user interface to interact with the various subsystems. I don't have to decipher that dang irrigation controller or HVAC thermostat anymore! Man, I hated reprogramming that.
- Cross-system integration, such as: Automatically turn off all lights, stereos, turn down heat when I ArmAway the security system; Automatically turn on the closet light if I open the door.
From my Cingular PDA cellphone, over the cingular network:
- Turn on/off lights if I forgot
- Turn up the heat (or fan) en route home
- Pull up security cameras around the house
- Check on security system (very useful for those inevitable false alarms that happen 1x/year)
- Start a CD or DVD for the technologically challenged inlaws so they'll volunteer to babysit
- Any other HA function I want.
Anyhow, i've decided to lead some periodic webinars walking folks through how I did this. I alternate the timeslots between Friday night 6:30ish PM PST and 8:30am PST weekend mornings as folks desire. To keep things simple, I stick with the hardware & software that i've chosen. It's not the only way to accomplish these tasks, but it's what I know.
If you're interested in attending one, see below for the agenda.
Here's the signup form for the next one (4/8, 8:30am PST->10:30pm PST):
. (Pre-registration is required.)
See the website in my sig for screenshots.
Thanks for reading, see you around the cyber-block.
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Welcome to the "Intro to HA using CQC & the Elk Automation Panel" course.
This online gotomeeting & teleconference is designed to be a 120 minute overview as to how to perform HA & HT using CQC and the Elk automation panel. It is targeted to the newbie who wants to know how to do HA.
There is a dialin phone # and listening is critical as that's where the information is disseminated.
Requested but not mandatory prep
1) Read chapter 1 of this doc - i'll be referencing that during the intro.
2) As many of the tutorial videos as you can stand. There's 24 of them now, ideally watch all 4 of the installation ones and the first 2 of the action, event, and graphical interface sections. That's 10 total.
Agenda
This online gotomeeting & teleconference is designed to be a 120 minute overview as to how to perform HA & HT using CQC and the Elk automation panel. It is targeted to the newbie who wants to know how to do HA.
There is a dialin phone # and listening is critical as that's where the information is disseminated. We're also setting up a PC connection capability so our overseas brethren can join us without the exhorbitant callin fees.
The draft agenda is as follows:
1) Overview of what I did, why I did it, and how it helped. 5mins
2) CQC Overview & Architecture 5min
2) How to physically hook devices up to an HTPC for control - 5mins
3) How to tell CQC you have devices connected, and use it to easily create and render a screen to control them in realtime - 45mins 4) How to setup ElkRP to monitor your devices 15mins
5) How to use CQC's event manager and the Elk together to perform the following: 15mins
5a) scheduled tasks (i.e., irrigation, turn off all devices at midnight)
5b) triggered tasks (i.e., turn off all devices when you ArmAway the Elk. turn on the light when you open the closet door)
That's 90 minutes of content. The remaining 30 minutes is intentionally unallocated as questions in various places take up the rest of the time.
See you there!
