I have written a number of little scripts for my home automation projects, mostly in C++, Perl or Lua, however to date I have avoided writing any projects in Python. It would seem that Python is currently the latest fashion for Raspberry Pi and home automation projects so I thought I had better have a […]
Zigbee 3.0 is the unification of the Alliance’s market-leading wireless standards into a single standard. This standard will provide seamless interoperability among the widest range of smart devices and give consumers and businesses access to innovative products and services that will work together seamlessly to enhance everyday life. Zigbee 3.0 is currently undergoing testing. Many […]
I have already written a post about my difficulty in 2013 persuading British Gas to install Smart Meters, followed by installation issues fraught with delays. I am sorry to say my experience with British Gas Smart Meters continues to be… well… broken. Last year, in July 2014, my ecoMeter (In Home Display) stopped being able […]
So far, I have not yet really delved into the area of security, my home setup was predominantly heating, lighting and a half finished garden irrigation project. I purchased the Philio PSM02 4-in-1 sensor because, for such a small and reasonably priced gizmo, it seemed to pack in quite a number of features. The PSM02 […]
In my previous blog post I wrote about the difficulties I experienced finding any Zigbee based home automation devices on eBay. It almost became an obsession for me to find a Zigbee device which was not either a Xbee, development kit or a book. When I came across a cheap 4-Noks ZC-GW-ETH-EM Ethernet to Zigbee […]
In this blog you will find a series of ramblings, product reviews, ideas and projects centered around the topic of Home Automation and Smart Energy. One of my initial aims is to find out the answer to the question… “Which wireless protocol is the future of home automation: Zigbee or Z-Wave (or other)?”. With ‘the […]
I have already written a post about my experience getting a water meter installed and my aim to electronically read the stats from the meter. I was fortunate to have been given the opportunity to test the Z-Wave SWM301 water meter RF module from Secure to see if it would suit this aim, as you […]
As well as Home Automation one of my other hobbies is graphic design, along with a secret joy in life of spotting when organisations change their logos and branding (sad I know!). When comparing the branding of Zigbee and Z-Wave I always thought of the Z-Wave branding as clunky and dated. The “Speaks Z-Wave” plain […]
As part of their regional roll-out Portsmouth Water recently installed a Water Meter outside my house. My head, of course, instantly filled with ideas of how I may be able to remotely read the readings from this new meter as I do with my Electricity and Gas meters. However this may be more difficult with […]
Following my mission to get smart meters installed I started to look into the possibility of using Zigbee to gather my energy usage statistics from my new state of the art meters. This, as it seems, would not be as easy as I at first thought. Tantalisingly, on the back of the ecoMeter In Home […]