A couple months back I came across IOBridge’s IO-204 and instantly knew I needed one. I went ahead and bought the device as well as several of their accessory boards. Once everything arrived I started tinkering and was amazed with how easy it was at connecting DIY projects to the web.
Now if only I had a project to use it with.
Lucky for me one of my graduate courses on computer communications requires a research paper on a “communications based” project. Well actually maybe I’m not so lucky, who likes to write research papers? The title of the paper is “Feasibility Study of Home Automation via Social Networks” and I hope to have it finished by August. Once it is done I will post it here.
System Diagram
The project was inspired by many of the current Twittering household devices.
The one thing lacking in most of these devices was 2-way communication between Twitter and the device. In all of the examples I could find the device is sending an update to Twitter but is never performing an action based on a Twitter message.
With http://twitter.com/MattsOffice you can send a command by placing a keyword in a @reply message. Valid keywords are “light”, “bright”, “dark”, “temp”, “hot”, “cold”, “lcd”, and “view”. For example, to retrieve the temperature of my office I just need to update my Twitter status with a simple question like “@MattsOffice What is the temperature?”. Here are some more examples:
“@MattsOffice How cold is it?” – replies with the current temperature
“@MattsOffice How bright is it?” – replies with the current ambient light reading
“@MattsOffice lcd test message” – outputs “test message” to my LCD sitting on my desk
“@MattsOffice What is the view from your office look like?” – uploads a picture taken from my office window to TwitPic.com
Multiple commands can be posted together:
“@MattsOffice temp bright view” – replies with the current temperature, brightness, and post a picture
I can also turn off or on my desk light by updating my status with “@MattsOffice light on” or “@MattsOffice light off”. To prevent my light from turning off when I don’t want it to be off I have disable this feature for everyone but myself (i.e. it only works if @xzolian ask to turn the light on or off).
Go try it out! Let me know if there are any bugs. Look for a follow up post on how I made all this work and some example code.
Update: 07/15/2009
The first part of the code can be found here.
Update: 07/17/09
Second post is up with more code. This post was updated with Youtube video.
[...] screen – “@MattsOffice lcd Awesome ioBridge Project”. For more details, check out matthewmorey.com. Tags:API, blog, Home Automation, iobridge, Projects, sensors, twitter, x10 [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice More: [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice [...]
What controllers are you using for the actual home automating?
Currently I’m controlling my office lights via a simple relay circuit and an output channel on the ioBridge. Obviously I can’t control all of my house lights with relays so I’m currently researching both X10 and INSTEON. Any suggestions?
I also want to try Homeplug AV to stream HD video across the house.
I was hoping you would have suggestions. I’ve been looking at everything (X10, Insteon, Z-Wave, Zigbee). Seems like everyone is split on what is the best. Also, the technology isn’t popular enough to have substantial articles or reviews.
Homeplug looks promising for AV needs. http://www.gigafast.com has some products using that specification.
I forgot to say this in my original post. I love what you have done so far with twitter and the ioBridge. I can’t wait to see the final product/project.
During my home automation research, I’ve come across voice recognition and speech commands/replies. I thought about having a whole house that you could talk to. Tell it to turn on lights and ask the temp and stuff. It kind of makes the house feel like an intelligent being. Your project makes the natural modernization. Why wouldn’t that intelligent being want to be on a social network? That house could post pictures of it’s day. Maybe in the future… if it saw an animal it could recognize, it would take a picture and post it… or maybe friends came over and it could talk about how they watched movies together. Eerie, but a cool thought.
Thanks for the ideas and the response.
Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice...
Thank you for submitting this cool story – Trackback from NewsPeeps…
Matt, very cool stuff! Hope you don’t mind my linking to your page. Huge potential for those of us with ALS etc.
[...] promised in my earlier post here is the code that I’m using to auto-update the MattsOffice Twitter account. With this [...]
[...] Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice (tags: cool home diy projects automation) [...]
Matt,
I’m not sure if you realized it, but ioBridge is in Gainesville, FL. I was a UF grad student as well until I left to work on ioBridge full-time.
Jason,
Yea I knew about their Gainesville roots, that added to my excitement. I’m currently finishing up my Masters via EDGE while working full time. It is always good to work with Gators.
We used X10 for a number of years, but have gradually stopped using it now. Its just too unreliable: we installed a phase coupler/amplifier to improve the signal strength throughout the house, but even so a noticeable fraction of the time X10 doesn’t work. If you resend the command multiple times you have a better chance, but still not 100% nor even 99%. Also, every time we add a new light or electrical device anywhere in the house we would have to check whether it was introducing enough noise onto the powerlines to break X10 again; fluorescent lights are particularly bad about this.
X10 is very, very old technology. It was originally developed in the 1970s, so its basic techniques are simple enough to implement using 1970s ICs. At this point I’d advise going with something more robust. I have never used INSTEON, but it sounds like the right idea: send the device a command, and then check whether it actually got it.
[...] promised in my earlier post and the follow up post, here is some sample code I’m using to respond to @MattsOffice [...]
[...] actually doing the opposite. He has rigged several items to an IoBridge module and he can control them by sending tweets to his account. In the video you can see him sound a buzzer and change a display on an LCD. Its [...]
[...] actually doing the opposite. He has rigged several items to an IoBridge module and he can control them by sending tweets to his account. In the video you can see him sound a buzzer and change a display on an LCD. Its [...]
[...] an incredibly fun way to devise up home automation using Twitter Status updates as commands for remote-control of your home appliances. This is a really cool project (as any other Twitter hacks) as it makes use of your actual @reply [...]
[...] this yourself, he says he hopes to publish that on his site soon. Right now, his website offers the code that he is using to auto-update the Twitter [...]
[...] this yourself, he says he hopes to publish that on his site soon. Right now, his website offers the code that he is using to auto-update the Twitter [...]
[...] this yourself, he says he hopes to publish that on his site soon. Right now, his website offers the code that he is using to auto-update the Twitter [...]
[...] this yourself, he says he hopes to publish that on his site soon. Right now, his website offers the code that he is using to auto-update the Twitter [...]
[...] this yourself, he says he hopes to publish that on his site soon. Right now, his website offers the code that he is using to auto-update the Twitter [...]
[...] innovative example of using Twitter in this way was carried out by Texas Instruments employee Matthew Morey, who took the concept one step further. His custom setup allows him not only to receive data from [...]
[...] Let’s say if you want to know the temperature of your home office, you only need to update the Twitter status with some simple question like “@MattsOffice What is the current temperature”. Then, the answer will be outputted on your desktop LCD display with the possible answer (It might say, “hot or cold”).[matthewmorey.com] [...]
[...] he’s actually doing the opposite. He has rigged several items to an IoBridge module and he can control them by sending tweets to his account. In the video you can see him sound a buzzer and change a display on an LCD. Its [...]
[...] article at ReadWriteWeb.com, read our original ioBridge Projects post, and interact with Matt’s Office on [...]
[...] actually doing the opposite. He has rigged several items to an IoBridge module and he can control them by sending tweets to his account. In the video you can see him sound a buzzer and change a display on an LCD. Its [...]
hi
Anyone can help to submit the UTF-8 chareter to twitter title .I am using
http://www.twitter.com/home?status=‘+Url.encode(str)+’http://www.searchlast.co.uk/blog/
I cannot pass the chinease character at the first time i login.
[...] Thermostats, Heaters: Thermostats can not only tweet the current temperature but also respond to questions and commands. For e.g., If you ask it “how cold is it?” – responds with temperature or “How bright is it?” – replies with the current ambient light reading. @mattsoffice [...]