My TED 5000 (more about the product here and here) whole house power monitor by The Energy Detective that I’ve been using for years stopped working properly. The date/time would no longer keep after a power outage causing the logging of the data to get all messed up. I thought I’d try to repair it — this is my first on camera repair video.
Come along with me and see if I am successful with my repair…
Front view of frame shown with a white iPad2
Vidabox has been in the digital entertainment and control business for a while now and offers media extenders to complete home automation control systems. They have a product and/or solution for almost every A/V need — even turning your iPad into a wall mountable picture frame.
The Vidabox iPad On-Wall Mount Frame is actually a pretty good idea allowing you to add an on-wall control interface pretty much anywhere at a very economical price.
USB to Cat5 power extension kit
When I first opened the box the first thing that popped into my head was, “why didn’t I think of this!”. A genius concept, put an iPad into a high-quality contemporary picture frame and hang it on the wall. The kits come complete with everything needed to power the iPad using only a single Cat5 cable. The installation takes literally minutes after you get the cat5 cable fished through your wall. The frame design is clean and simple and great for anyone that wants a semi-permanent wall installation of an iPad (I call it semi-permanent because you don’t need to cut a hole into the wall) — that’s great because it makes swapping out iPad versions in the future very easy! The kit is available for both the original iPad and the iPad2. The frame kit retails for $99 and comes in a variety of finishes.
iPad On-Wall Frame Kit
Back view of iPad frame
For more information and to order the frame kit visit VidaBox.
Just launched the Myro:Bridge website. Pre-orders begin now and if there aren’t any production issues, we should be shipping orders in a few weeks. The first batch of bridges will be a limited run to see how much interest there is so get your order in now to guarantee shipment!
The goal is to add more support (via firmware updates) as there are requests (via forum). I am also looking to expand support for Control4, Crestron and HAI controllers.
Find out more about Myro:Bridge here.
HAI recently announced native control for Somfy ILT motors with the 3.4 firmware. This means you no longer need to use RTS or Z-WAVE to control shades via the OmniPro II controller. Last night I connected up and tested my friends system (also using Myro) and I’m happy to announce that HAI has hit another home run! You get “real-time” feedback as well as the ability to set to a specific “light level”, like 50% (which is part way).
I have included a wiring diagram on connecting the HAI to the Somfy RS-485 ILT tap (also known as the Somfy SDN). Then you just need to get the Motor/Group code and enter that into PC Access. What I thought would be a difficult process of trial and error actually turned out to work on the first try!
Here is a sneak peak of the Myro:Home iPhone application. As you can see, progress has been coming along. I’ve been getting the design finalized and now I’m just tweaking the look and feel a bit. The mobile framework has also been set in the core Myro:Home application which acts as a server on your home network. The iPhone version connects into Myro and loads and controls the HAI panel via a secure channel.
The key focus has been getting control of your home via the iPhone in the quickest time possible. As it works now, I can load and control in less than 3 seconds (if on WIFI).
– MYRO CONTROL – Myro:Home