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CastleOS home automation coming with MB support


wraslor

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wraslor

Just curious if anyone has any experience with Castle OS for home automation?  The creator posted that he has an interface for controlling MB through the software with Z-wave support coming soon.  For me that's very big since I'm implementing a z-wave setup for lights, locks, etc  The idea for the software is a central interface with the microsoft kinect used to turn your house into a "star trek" house.  Sounds neat and I'll report back as I know more, in the meantime anyone ever used it or know about the MB integration? https://www.castleos.com/

Edited by wraslor
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I know the founder very well, and yes, he does plan to integrate and it's going to be awesome :)

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wraslor

That's fantastic, if done right having a complete all in one home automation system centered around MB would be revolutionary!  I've seen so many people hack together this and that from xbmc and wmc with home automation systems and it always leaves something to be desired or some kind of downside of hoop jumping to get it done.

 

I picture walking into my basement say lights on and the lights turn on, watch MB and everything fires up, play movie and the lights go off and away we go!

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trooper11

I am not at the point yet to consider home automation options, but this one looks like a great option when I am ready.  I like that it makes use of Kinect, so I can reuse what I already have for that.

 

Being able to integrate with MB is a huge plus.

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MrWebsmith

this is excellent.. im in the middle of outfitting our house with smartthings and compatible zigbee/zwave products (the smartthigns hub supports both protocols).. so id love anything that could integrate some of these items with MB in some small way..

 

adding the op's link to read up on later.. THANKS

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Vicpa

This sounds interesting.  I will have to take a look when they have z-wave support. Integration with MB, that could open some possibilities.

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chef

I would be interested in how he plans on dealing with the high CPU percentage of using skeleton streams while watching High Definition Media. I am also interested in how he plans on utilizing the kinect microphone array to pinpoint users for voice commands while the environment is saturated in either DTS, or any type of HD audio being produced by media browser??

 

Finally, and most importantly I would be extremely interested in how much he will charge for his kinect media browser integration application? Will it be free because he will utilize the Microsoft SDK, or will he decide to utilize some of the other SDKs in the internet to build his app?

 

The bottom line is this, kinect is a process hog, it wants to use every single bit of memory and CPU percentage your PC has to offer up. In order to wield most its features you have to be smart about turning off and on certain features, building speech grammars for EXACTLY your position in media browser/ home automation commands.

 

The final thing I will say about kinect media browser and home automation is this:

 

If you use the kinect SDK they recommend that you use their "Microsoft.speech" namespace. The problem is that, although this particular set of speech recognition objects don't need any voice training, it only allows for a maximum of 300 possible grammar objects to be added to the recognizer. That my friends is an extremely small library of media, and forget about home automation commands on top of it.

 

So, how do you over come this obstacle? You use a completely different speech namespace with the ability to handle large sets of commands, and also means a whole bunch of extra work to get it working with kinect(two years worth of work to be exact).

 

This is not a venting session, not to be taken the wrong way, I will use his applications for sure. I have five kinects running in my home. All running media browser and some even communicating with Eventghost and a USBUIrT to turn off and on lights and TV by voice command.

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wraslor

I have no idea how he plans to implement it. I am curious though as well, one thing they concerns me and this isn't an insult to him or anything but I've seen numerous pays from the beginning of 2013 saying z wave and mb support being released "this week" hopefully we'll see something soon.

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Truthfully he's actually waiting on me right now. Once i get him what he needs, his team will get right on it.

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fantaxp7

So...any updates on this? :D

 

I'm envisioning myself hitting play on a movie and have my lights know to dim to 30% in my viewing area and my guests being like "holy crap that's cool".

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i know that he wants to. he also wants world domination in home automation so, there is always a lot on his plate :)

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wraslor

So...any updates on this? :D

 

I'm envisioning myself hitting play on a movie and have my lights know to dim to 30% in my viewing area and my guests being like "holy crap that's cool".

You can easily do this now, check http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/11175-android-and-media-browser-automation/&do=findComment&comment=136748 for a good place to start.

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