Application:HomeControl

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Home control - beta

Overview

Home Control is an app that aims to provide means to control everything remotely controlled at your home.

Installation

Client

The client app can be installed from Preware, you need to have beta apps feed enabled.

Server

You can get the server app from the following url: http://wee.e-lnx.org/homecontrol/

This server software can be run on Linux / OS X / Window, see the supported features below. To run the server you only need to have node.js installed on your system and for Linux mouse/keyboard control you need to have xdotool installed as well for now (later on it wont be needed once I switch to node.js solution).

Features

General

Boxee and XBMC control

Enables control of Boxee and XBMC (both devices and application running on a desktop machine).

Cisco IP surveillance

Allows viewing of the cameras video feed from Home Control.

VLC video player control

Allows basic controlling of VLC video player, more advanced controls are coming. Requires the LUA interface to be enabled in the VLC.

Linux Only

The features listed below are currently Linux only, for now. These feature requires the Home Control server software to be running on the machine.

Status information

Shows temperature information from 1-wire temperature sensors connected to the computer.

Mouse and keyboard control

Allows full mouse and keyboard control.

Rhythmbox and MPD music player control

Allows basic controlling of these music player applications, more advanced controls are coming.

Totem video player control

Allows basic controlling of Totem video player, more advanced controls are coming.

Mac OS X Only

The features listed below are currently Mac OS X only, for now. These feature requires the Home Control server software to be running on the machine.

iTunes music player

Enables control of iTunes application.

Configuration

All currently supported controllers need the server address of the device/HC server. The form of the address is <address>:<port>, if username/password is needed then: <user>:<password>@<address>:<port>

For the controllers that need the Home Control server, the address is the IP address of the computer running the server application and the port is 3000. For the other controllers that control the devices/applications directly you need to see the device/application configuration for the username/password and address/port configuration. Below you can find some additional information and default settings for some of the devices/applications.

Boxee / XBMC

See the Boxee/XBMC configuration for the address/port setup. The default port is 8080.

VLC

To enable the controlling in VLC select 'Add Interface' from the menus and select 'Web Interface'. Then you can configure the controller in Home Control by using the IP address of the computer running the VLC and default port 8080.

Or you can just start VLC from command line with following parameters: vlc --extraintf=luaintf --lua-intf=http

Resources

Supporting Development

Official Developer Project Page

• Current and Legacy Projects

Official Forum

Home Control

• Official PreCentral Forum Thread

Official Twitter Account

• Follow Home Control on Twitter: @therealsconix

Status

Changelog

Future features

- Extend the already supported modules with full playlist control / search etc.
- Winamp module for Music Player extension (will be the first test module for Windows)
- IP / Web Camera support for Status Info extension
- WebCAM/Motion support to alert you when webcam detects movement
- Support for IR controlled devices
- Support for Quicktime on OS X
- Volume/Speaker control for Linux
- UPNP module for controlling UPNP devices
- Somethin else on mind, then please let me know :)