Posts Tagged ‘myro’
-
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Video Preview: Introducing Myro:Air, The AirPlay Streamer for Home Integration & Audiophiles
If you have been wondering why the lack of posts here at Mavromatic, it’s because I have been heads down working on a new product for Myro Control. It’s now to the point that I can give you all a sneak peak of Myro:Air!
This will be the first certified Apple AirPlay hardware device that features audiophile sound quality using the highly respected WM8741 DAC by Wolfson Microelectronics. Myro:Air will also be a home integrators dream come true — yup — it will feature RS232 and “Myro:Link” which will provide full metadata and transport control (Play/Pause/Next/Previous) of the AirPlay stream. This means Crestron, Control4, Russound and any other system that can interface via RS232 or Russound RNET will be able to control and receive metadata from the AirPlay stream.
Myro:Air will also provide a USB port that will allow iOS device charging and control/playback as well. So you can either plug in your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch or any iPod and it will not only charge the device but will also stream digital audio processed through the quality DAC and provide metadata and transport control via the connected control system.
I’m very proud and excited about this new product and can’t wait to get it to market. Email preorderAIR@myrocontrol.com if you’d like to get on the early pre-order list. The first run will be VERY limited so get on the waiting list now!…
-
Saturday, February 5th, 2011
Myro:Bridge – Russound RNET HDMI Switcher Controller (firmware)
UPDATE: Now with Octava HDMI Switcher Support!
If you have been waiting for Russound to release a RNET based HDMI switcher to replace the VM1 series look no further! I’ve created a firmware to control Wyrestorm HDMI Matrix Switchers (4×2, 4×4 and 8×8) via Myro:Bridge. The onboard webpage allows you to configure/map the input and outputs of the matrix switcher to the sources and zones of your Russound controller. It’s an elegant system which is future proof and expandable. The Myro:Bridge plugs into the RNET ports and a RS232 cable is connected to the Wyrestorm switcher — it’s that easy! Watch the video for a quick demo on how it works.…
-
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Myro:Bridge – Russound RNET to Apple iTunes (Remote)
Lots has been going on over the past few weeks… final PCB designs have been sent out for production. A new product web site is reaching completion leaving final assembly and testing left before I can start shipping the Myro:Bridge (that is going to be the final name). As promised, I have a video of the newest firmware which offers Russound RNET to Apple iTunes control. This is like the Russound RNET to Sonos except that you can pair, control and get metadata two and from Russound Keypads via iTunes. Enjoy!…
-
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
Russound RNET to Sonos Bridge (Arduino MEGA) – Part 2
While it was possible to use an Arduino duemilanove (Atmel 328 chipset) for this project (See Part 1), I was really limited due to the 2K of RAM. It was fun trying to optimize code to get things to run in that amount of memory, however, it caused me to not be able to expand on functionality and features. I have upgraded the project to an Arduino MEGA (Atmel 1280 chipset). This platform gives me up to 8K of RAM — which should be more than enough memory (famous last words).
A lot of people have asked me to explain what exactly I’m doing with the Arduino. It’s pretty simple. First, I’m using a RS232 shield (not shown) to capture RS232 commands from the Russound Controller. When a key is pressed on the Russound keypads I read the RS232 data and either ignore or react to the events. Currently, I’m looking for +, -, Next, Previous, Play/Pause, Menu events. I plan on using the Menu button to offer deeper content browsing menus (need to sniff the RS232 or wait for Russound to publish protocol). The + & – buttons will allow to scroll playlists and the rest of the transport buttons are self explanatory.
1 2
// Example RNET Next Track Event: F0 0 7D 7 0 0 7F 5 2 1 0 2 1 0 E 0 0 1 7 0 1 2A F7
Since the Sonos is a uPnP based system there is no IR or way to traditionally control it. Everything needs to be done via HTTP calls. I’m using an Ethernet Shield to translate the RS232 events to uPnP messages. The biggest challenge has been parsing the huge amounts of VERY VERBOSE SOAP-based notification messages. I parse the data real time, looking for strings that I want to store (things like playstate and metadata).
To make matters worse, Sonos is URL encoding XML data inside of an XML structure. So writing a simple XML parser is not possible. You have to look for things like &lt; for a less-than bracket (<). There were times I wanted to scrap the whole project because of this due to the limited RAM and string utilities — it really makes things a lot harder to deal with.
// Example of nested URL encoded XML: <e:property><LastChange><Event xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1- 0/AVT/" xmlns:r="urn:schemas-rinconnetworks-com:metadata-10/
…
-
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
Apple iPad Review
I’ve had my iPad for a few days and compiled a Pro’s and Con’s list as part of my review. I’ll try to be subjective but keep in mind that this device has been hyped a lot and may come across more critical than normal.
PROS
- Sexy, slick device — Apple is great at that. They always have been. They, again, have nailed it!
- Fast! — the iPad is very fast and responsive. I would say it feels faster than my 3GS.
- Screen is crisp, bright and vibrant — while the screen is not great for reading books, it is excellent for watching videos and playing games! The pixel density of the screen is probably the best I have seen to date — as is the viewing angle.
- Bluetooth keyboard support — Apple is finally allowing you to pair a bluetooth keyboard with the iPad. This alone makes it easier to write emails and surf the web than the iPhone.
- Loud Speakers — the speaker on the iPad is LOUD!
- Multitouch Screen — the screen is very accurate and responds well to the touch.
- Amazing Battery Life — this is one of the most impressive aspects of the iPad. The battery life lives up to what’s advertised!
- Love Native Apps — I find myself using services (Twitter/ABC) more because they offer native iPad apps versus hitting their website via the Safari browser. I’ll take a nicely designed iPad app over a web page version any day. However, there are some services that lose functionality in their native app. This is bad, but not the fault of Apple.
CONS
- Device is too BIG — too big to take with you all the time. I would have liked a small notepad (7″) sized iPad.
- Device doesn’t feel right in the hands — while it’s solid and looks good, it’s slippery and weird to hold. The nook is the right size and the arched rubberized back feels soft and “warm” to the hand. The iPad feels cold and fragile. Which, I believe, if you drop, will do a lot of damage to the iPad, as well as mar it’s elegant aluminum finish. I should also mention, the Apple case does change the feel and makes it a lot better to hold. However, it does add $39 to the price of the unit.
- …
About the archives
Welcome to the archives here at MAVROMATIC.
These are a collection of our previous posts. If you'd like to read about the latest and greatest, click here.
Welcome to mavromatic! My goal is to bring to your attention the latest DIY projects, the greatest home automation and home theater products. As well as, the occasional offbeat entry, to spice things up a bit.
