{"id":3208,"date":"2010-05-26T07:59:47","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T06:59:47","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-12-30T11:54:04","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T11:54:04","slug":"my-automated-home-richard-farthing-s-green-open-source-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/my-automated-home-richard-farthing-s-green-open-source-house.html","title":{"rendered":"My Automated Home : Richard Farthing&#8217;s Green Open Source House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source House\" alt=\"Green Open Source House\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_title.jpg\" width=\"544\" height=\"392\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the second of our new &#8220;My Automated Home&#8221; series, Richard Farthing takes us on a tour of his Green Open Source House.\u00a0 On a budget of less than \u00a3600 the Linux setup looks after property whilst keeping an eye on the carbon footprint too.\u00a0 Read on for the free software recommendations, the Joggler photos, tips, the what he&#8217;d do differently next time and the what&#8217;s coming next.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"sj-gblock\">\n<script language=\"javascript\">\n<!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5598479065369258\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300; \ngoogle_ad_height = 250; \ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\"; \ngoogle_ad_channel = \"7058025304\"; \ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\"; \ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\"; \ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\"; \ngoogle_color_link = \"52a79f\"; \ngoogle_color_url = \"CFFFDF\"; \ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\"; \n\/\/--> \n<\/script>\n<script language=\"javascript\"  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\"><\/script>\n<\/div><strong>The Green Open Source House<\/strong> &#8211; Submission By <a href=\"mailto:rfarthing@iee.org\" target=\"_blank\">Richard Farthing<\/a> CEng MIET.\u00a0 This is the story of how I built a functional, reliable, low cost, and reasonably low power, automated home solely with open source software.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s set the parameters. The house is quite small with just 2 bedrooms, the aim was to provide automation functions, music and reliable SD TV services, as HDTV is a fast-moving area, it was specified as a \u201cnice to have\u201d if straightforward solutions permitted.\u00a0 This puts it at the opposite end of the spectrum to those houses that need a 42U high full rack or two to hold the kit, with an air conditioned room to house it all.\u00a0 As an engineer running a small company by day, often working from home, my aim was to do what engineers do according to the Duke of Wellington\u00a0 \u2026the art of doing for 10 shillings what any fool can do for a pound.\u00a0 The total cost of everything described here is less than \u00a3600 \u2013 excluding the wiring and the valuable time of course!\u00a0 Keeping to the green\/recycling theme, some stuff like the dimmers, came from eBay.<\/p>\n<p>Doing a \u201cstart-again\u201d renovation of a very dilapidated house, I had a free range of options, so started by writing a spec for the functionality I wanted, which drove the need for a PC server based control system in node 0 and a large amount of CAT5e wiring \u2013 a minimum of 2 outlets per room, up to 8 in places like the living room and home office \u2013 total 32.\u00a0 By writing a spec that contained some future aspirations I haven\u2019t so far been significantly short of capacity in the building infrastructure.\u00a0 For example I started from the aspiration\/assumption that it would be possible to stream live TV over a LAN, which actually wasn\u2019t that easy when I started writing a spec in 2003.\u00a0 And just in case it didn\u2019t become cost-effective in a reasonable timeframe, aerial cables were installed to most rooms, as well as node 0.\u00a0 Today, I would only put the aerial\/satellite cables in node 0 and the living room.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\u00a0<a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_config.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home Configuration\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home Configuration\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_config_thumb.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"275\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>CLICK FOR BIG VERSION<\/strong> &#8211; Diagram showing the main system components and their configuration.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_n0.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home Node 0\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home Node Zero\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_n0_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nCLICK FOR BIG VERSION<\/strong> &#8211; The modest node 0, AKA under the stairs \u2013 server, low power<br \/>\n24 port 10\/100 switch, patch panels for data and voice (VOIP\/POTS via Speedtouch 780 currently<br \/>\ncommoned to all house &amp; office phones. Also under floor heating manifold and controls. Wooden<br \/>\nwall panels removable, covering cable trays and plumbing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The spec also meant home-run cabling for all the lighting circuits, to allow for central control, as well as home-run switch wiring, simply so that a fairly conventional system could work by patching low voltage switches to dimmer inputs in node 0 as necessary, before the automation system was commissioned (I used grid switches to allow swapping momentary and conventional types easily). This hardwiring may be implemented again in future if I rent or sell the house, because I recognise that the system I have developed is quite custom, and as this segment of the housing market isn\u2019t used to this type of thing &#8211; a potential renter, buyer or estate agent might think it as \u201covercomplicated\u201d.\u00a0 Of course, lack of \u201cbig brand\u201d hardware isn\u2019t going to help either, so you might like to consider these factors when choosing your kit and how you implement it.\u00a0\u00a0 My thinking around potential sale is \u201cwith planning permission to automate\u201d \u2013 i.e. the difficult stuff like flood wiring is there \u2013 a future occupier can choose their own automation system, e.g. a Homevision box etc, or leave it (almost) conventional.<\/p>\n<p>The one thing I didn\u2019t complete is whole house audio, though the speaker wiring exists to support it in several places as it was an initial spec item.\u00a0 The reason is that with so many digital devices around today, there are a plethora of low cost boxes you can network with wire or wirelessly to access your server-based media, so there seems less incentive than there was when the spec was written, and wiring installed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home - Media Distribution\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home - Media Distribution\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_media.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"460\" \/><br \/>\nA MediaMVP on the back of a TV.\u00a0 IR receiver faces down<br \/>\ncontrol signals easily picked up by reflection from the floor.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What this system shows is that relatively low powered PC hardware can be made to run a plethora of applications with uptimes measured in months \u2013 or if you are prepared to forego the disk upgrade treadmill \u2013 years.\u00a0 OK, so running a server 24 x 7 isn\u2019t very green, but if you want a functional automated home, with a few bells and whistles, media server etc, you\u2019re going to need at least one box running 24 x 7, so my view if that you might as well pile as much functionality (and disks with your media) into one power-efficient box, make it as reliable as possible (e.g. by spending extra on a better PSU), and have an adequately robust backup strategy.\u00a0 As well as helping initially, electrically hardwired backup carries your essential systems through server downtime, and is easy to implement if considered from the start.\u00a0 Fortunately this thinking often ties in well with more cost-effective kit, like those old-fashioned analogue dimmers on eBay.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a list of the main applications running on the PC, based on a \u201cMobile on Desktop\u201d (MODT) motherboard from MSI that was a fashion in 2006-7. The server has 2G RAM, and uses a Seasonic 80%+ efficient power supply built into a recycled Elonex desktop case \u2013 see photo.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>Software component<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\"><strong>Function<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\"><strong>Hardware\/ Peripherals used<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">SuSe linuxV10.3<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">\n<ul>\n<li>Apache web server<\/li>\n<li>MySQL used by zoneminder and xxv for VDR<\/li>\n<li>PHP, Perl<\/li>\n<li>Samba windows file \/ media server and Primary Domain Controller for unified user management &amp; Windows client logins<\/li>\n<li>Laptop-mode to spin down media disks when not used, saving power<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">VDRV1.6.0.2<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Freeview digital TV recording, playback and live TV streaming over LAN.Can also receive satellite or cable DTV with appropriate tuner cards.Plugins:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Streamdev (HTTP streaming TV\/audio)<\/li>\n<li>vompserver \u2013 see below<\/li>\n<li>Epgsearch<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">2 x TV tuners: USB or DTV1000 PCI card, (or others)NB The machine was unreliable with 2 x DTV1000 for some reason.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">VOMPV0.3.0 serverV0.3.0.10 custom client<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">VDR client \/ server plugin to allow thick client access to VDR.Live and recorded Freeview TV streaming, media player and management of recordings and timers at each TV.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">3 x Hauppauge Media MVP\u2019s.\u00a0 High quality SD via RGB SCART.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">VDRadmin-AMV3.6.7<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Perl based program providing web interface to VDR timers, recordings and live\/recorded streaming, using epgsearch to automate timer creation based on complex epg search criteria.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">XMLTV2VDR<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Extracts full epg data &amp; film reviews from XMLTV feeds and insert into VDR epg.\u00a0 Adds episode names (so you can weed out repeats and identify series) and allows films to be searched \/ recorded based on actor, director, review score etc.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">XXVV1.6<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Web interface to manage VDR, providing web preview of VDR recordings, search and timer management. Partial alternative to VDRadmin.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">Misterhouse (mh)V2.104<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Object Oriented Perl based home automation system.\u00a0 Interfaces to many different types of hardware.\u00a0 Provides:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Web interface<\/li>\n<li>Lighting scene \/ channel control via conventional switches, speech, time of day, random (security) and web interface<\/li>\n<li>Adaptive under floor heating control based on temperature &amp; weather forecasts (a separate article in itself\u2026)<\/li>\n<li>Security interface (interfaces to standard commercial alarm system I\/O via K8000)<\/li>\n<li>Music media playback on server<br \/>\n(poss. whole house audio)<\/li>\n<li>Aggregation of other occupancy related functions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">No specific hardwareSee software interfaces below<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">xPLk8000<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">In-house developed xPL I\/O daemon for 2 x Velleman K8000 interface cards and custom analogue output card for 24 dimmers.\u00a0 Samples\/debounces low voltage switches, partially implements xPL lighting schema, does smooth lighting fades, and samples temp sensors \/ converts to real temps, drives heating zone controls.Relies on native xPL support in mh.Uses xPL_Hub \u2013 based on xpllib.<\/p>\n<p>Uses libk8000 to interface to K8000 with additions to support custom hardware.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">K8000 on parallel port (I2C \u201cbit banged\u201d)- switches, alarm I\/O, 4 x Analogue temp sensors, drives heating zones &amp; UFH pump.In-house developed 24 ch. analogue output card to drive 0-5V dimmers.<\/p>\n<p>K8000 provides full opto-isolation of switches and PC<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">Festival<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Text to speech engine driven by mh.Uses mbrola voices &#8211; acceptable quality once you\u2019re used to it (i.e. a bit better than Stephen Hawking\u2019s voice).<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">Motherboard Sound<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">Zoneminder(zm)V1.24.2<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">CCTV application. Live video streaming, recording, motion detection, event database management, automatic offsite archiving via FTP and event notification via email and\/or SMS.\u00a0\u00a0 Interfaces to mh.In-house developed maintenance scripts.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">Retired WinTV PCI card used purely for analogue video capture. (many other suitable cards)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">WebminV1.510<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Web based management of linux serverSecure remote https web access to most server functions.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">ZimbraV5.0.23<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Open source edition.\u00a0 Enterprise mail server complete with secure https Ajax web interface for remote mail access.\u00a0 Also secure SSL IMAP remote access and local IMAP or POP3 for Outlook or Thunderbird clients etc.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">&#8211;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"132\">Ubuntu Netbook Remix V9.1<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"288\">Access to all of the above, including wireless TV streaming from VDR server using streamdev plugin<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"142\">O2 JogglerSee photos<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_inter1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home Interface\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home Interface\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_inter1_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>CLICK FOR BIG VERSION<\/strong> &#8211; Interface cabinet with 2 x K8000 and custom analogue output card to<br \/>\ndrive 24 dimmers, interfaces to low voltage switches via mains rated cables.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Performance<\/strong> &#8211; As far as server CPU load is concerned, key measured figures are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>10-12% Misterhouse (about half of this is due to complex lighting scene control and relating logic)<\/li>\n<li>5% xPLk8000 due to 25Hz sampling of all inputs and outputs via \u201cbit-banged\u201d I2C to provide switch debounce and smooth lighting fades.<\/li>\n<li>4% Zoneminder (1 camera)<\/li>\n<li>2% VDR + 1 &#8211; 2% per recording or playback channel<\/li>\n<li>1-2% for Zimbra<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The total is around 25% doing everything required, peaking up to 75% during housekeeping tasks.\u00a0 The CPU mostly stays in LFM (800MHz idling) except during these peaks with all applications running, so minimising CPU power. You can however log in remotely and securely with a couple of NoMachine NX clients and the server is very usable with a large HD screen (1920 x 1200 res) graphical interface \u2013 there isn\u2019t a noticeable detriment caused by the server load.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Power<\/strong> &#8211; The CPU is a mobile Pentium M 740 (1.7GHz) giving a total measured idle PC consumption of about 39W with a 500G disk spinning. Add a further 3 disks in an \u201cicy dock\u201d (total 2TB), and a couple of TV tuners and an old WinTV capture card re-cycled for CCTV use, and the idle power rises to around 55W with the 3 media disks spun down.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be wanting to keep power down due to the cost\/CO2 and heat produced in node 0 &#8211; as has been discussed recently on the ukha list.\u00a0 Disk life is greatly increased with low temps \u2013 at an ambient 20C, these are reported by smartd\u00a0 as between 33C and 37C on the server described.\u00a0 Putting my commercial hat on,\u00a0 I use an approx rule of thumb: \u00a31\/W\/year with 3yr payback as the benchmark to decide if it\u2019s better to invest in lower power hardware. (that explains the recycled WinTV card for CCTV).\u00a0 Today one can no doubt improve a bit on server power by breaking this rule, as I discuss later.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home - Server\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home - Server\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_server.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p align=\"center\">\u00a0Server internals \u2013 off-the shelf parts &#8211; nothing special.<br \/>\nAt the top an \u201cIcydock\u201d for 3 x SATA media disks &#8211; replaces CD-ROM + spare bay<\/p>\n<p>While discussing power, it\u2019s worth reviewing other system components from a green perspective.\u00a0 I found that D-link had a range of very power efficient and small Ethernet switches which use remarkably little power (measured just 4W for a 24 port basic switch), but ADSL routers remain a problem, typically consuming, as mine does, 10W.\u00a0 Scope for the future there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Availability<\/strong> &#8211; To date, downtime has been about 2 half-days per year, equating to 99.9% availability.\u00a0 The downtime has been caused by me messing around with server config to try one thing or another out, or moving disks around.\u00a0 The longest uptime so far has been 6 months over last summer.\u00a0 There was an infant mortality disk failure of a 500G server grade disk, sadly a media disk with limited backup.\u00a0 Hence the aspiration to at least move the OS to SSD.\u00a0\u00a0 Be careful how you configure laptop-mode so as to limit the spin ups of the media disks \u2013 3.5in disks are typ. rated for just 50k spin ups, I\u2019ve done less than 5k on my 3yr (oldest) disk according to smartd, so even half the spin up count won\u2019t be reached before obsolescence.\u00a0 Exclude your OS disk of course!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Application choice<\/strong>s &#8211; It\u2019s clearly possible to build a system with these functions out of many different components. Did I use the first ones I tried \u2013 hell no!\u00a0 Each of these applications was chosen out of a large range of possibilities based on the following criteria:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Open source. Simple, in my experience this is almost always a better choice \u2013 more flexible, often more functional, and authors\/maintainers are quicker to improve and fix bugs \u2013 yes, even the ones I report.\u00a0 Sometimes the same day (e.g. VDRadmin), sometimes the next week (e.g. Zimbra).\u00a0 If it takes more than a month, you might be barking up the wrong tree.\u00a0 Is it cheaper?\u00a0 Not if you value your time, but equally I\u2019ve had to invest time helping debug several commercial applications over the years, so I\u2019m under no illusion that parting with a pile of cash is a guarantee of quality and support.<\/li>\n<li>Software should show good promise of working well, meeting the specified needs within a few hours of installation, and must be reliable in testing in the target environment over a week or two.\u00a0 An example of some apps I ruled out were open source mail applications that start by asking you to install and configure several complicated components \u2013 like Cyrus, Courier, Postfix, Spamassassin etc. Huge learning curve, how will you maintain it once you\u2019ve been through the pain of getting it working? Life is too short!\u00a0 By comparison, Misterhouse did something meaningful right away, with good diagnostics, and despite being effectively a huge Perl script, has proven very hard to break.<\/li>\n<li>3rd party applications of any complexity should have a significant and ideally growing user base, with an active forum or email list. This is one of the best guarantees of longevity and support.\u00a0 Open source versions of commercial applications provide an interesting choice too \u2013 piggy back on enterprise development, such as Zimbra &#8211; in testing found to be the easiest to install and configure, and a dozen (semi-automatic) upgrades later, never a problem.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_5.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong>CLICK FOR BIG VERSION &#8211; <\/strong>Misterhouse \u2013Lighting controls on Joggler<br \/>\n(Firefox).\u00a0 Individual logs per item assist debug<\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_6.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_6.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">\u00a0<strong>CLICK FOR BIG VERSION &#8211;<\/strong> VDRadmin-AM on Joggler (Google Chrome)<br \/>\nExtended EPG with subtitle etc via xmltv2vdr<\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_7.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Green Open Source Home\" alt=\"Green Open Source Home\" src=\"\/images\/news\/gosh_7.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>CLICK FOR BIG VERSION &#8211; <\/strong>Streaming live TV full screen off VDR wirelessly using<br \/>\nVLC player on Joggler. Apple fans: prepare to weep at the price\/performance<br \/>\n&#8211; you get 8 or 9 of these for 1 iPad, and it can even multi-task &#8211; Firefox \/ other applications<br \/>\nare all still running in the background while streaming smooth live full screen TV.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Would I do it the same way again?<\/strong> &#8211; Mostly yes, the functionality available far exceeds my initial expectations, and closely matches spec.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the easiest to create, as there was all the testing and learning, and writing of C and OO-Perl in a few places to interface my quirky hardware orm provide unavailable features, so it\u2019s not for everyone, but perhaps the list I provide above is a shortcut to some of the first applications out there that you should consider. You can of course substitute off-the-shelf hardware interfaces in most places.\u00a0 Bear in mind that things may have moved on, since the list was developed between 2005 and 2008.<\/p>\n<p>If starting today, I would consider using a dual-core Atom CPU based server, but even today, it\u2019s not a clear cut choice in terms of MIPS\/W\/\u00a3 compared with the setup described.\u00a0\u00a0 For TV, I would expect to see some HD support, but HD media client and server solutions in the open source arena are still a bit immature today. As a fan of content over presentation, I would rather have a solid, quick SD system than an HD one in beta \u2013 that\u2019s the engineer in me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been pleasantly surprised by the perceived quality of SD from the MVP\u2019s.\u00a0 Friends have commented how good the HD pictures are, then I tell them that while they\u2019re looking at a full HD screen, the content is not only ordinary SD upscaled by the TV, but worse, connected via analogue RGB!\u00a0 Purists, cringe now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Operating system?<\/strong> &#8211; Choose a linux distro that \u201chas legs\u201d and is big enough so you don\u2019t have to go searching for all the dependencies each time you install a package, or worse are forced to keep building from source (open source is great &#8211; for the things you want to tweak, customise and extend &#8211; but that really doesn\u2019t include the OS unless you have time to burn).\u00a0 Unfortunately fashions change.\u00a0 For example Ubuntu is clearly in the ascendancy while my initial choice from 8 years ago, SuSe, may be fading after the Novell takeover.\u00a0 You want something with long term support as the last thing you\u2019re going to want to do is swap OS once you have that beatifically crafted, reliable, mission-critical system containing several terabytes of media, running just the way you want.\u00a0 Centos tracks Enterprise Redhat, and might be the most sober, if not bleeding edge choice today.<\/p>\n<p>Virtualisation may be worth considering, but the overheads to support it in this (modest) environment seem be disproportionate to the benefits at the moment. In the long term, it\u2019s likely to be the way to go for some applications.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What else did I consider and then discount, and why?<\/strong> &#8211; Here\u2019s a list of major items tested. Many others fell by the wayside.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The great TV debate \u2013 MythTV or VDR?\u00a0 VDR can run as a stripped-down daemon, but has a rich set of plugins and support programs if you want them, some a bit long in the tooth. It often hides its gems, and trades footprint for a much less glitzy user interface.\u00a0 For me, a killer feature is support for multiple low power, functional, reliable &amp; integrated clients based on hardware like the MediaMVP, meaning the server is \u201cheadless\u201d running in daemon mode, and a (silent) client can be strapped to back of the TV (see photo).\u00a0 Both support this now, but at decision time, MythTV needed a tuner per recording channel, whereas VDR could extract all (up to about 8 channels) out of 1 transport stream (multiplex) on a tuner. MythTV has overcome this now AFAIK.\u00a0 A 2 tuner-setup is then all you need (I have recorded 4 programs simultaneously using only about 10-15% CPU) .\u00a0 People on the web sometimes complain Myth is a heavyweight to install\/configure and slow, so it\u2019s a close call today.\u00a0 VDR basic setup is easy, plugins can be messy and often involve building from source.<\/li>\n<li>Mail \u2013 OpenXchange, for reasons given above, Scalix very limited choice of OS, won\u2019t let you install on other versions of OS.<\/li>\n<li>LinuxMCE. It was V1.0 when I looked at it.\u00a0 It was a bit difficult to fathom how the automation stuff worked (and had limited interfaces at the time), it also used Myth for TV which I had ruled out, and at the time came as a monolithic OS install, I was some of the way with other apps on SuSe.\u00a0 Today, it may be a runner.\u00a0 As flexible as mh?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tips<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Put wires in the walls if you can. Wires are always easier to get working,\u00a0 more reliable in use, and higher performance until we get multi gigabit wifi. Install appropriate wires for every conceivable location.<\/li>\n<li>Think of the future \u2013 what\u2019s not quite possible now (in your budget) is likely to be within a year or two of starting the project.<\/li>\n<li>The project won\u2019t get done overnight, unless you are using a specialised installer and off-the-shelf systems, in which case you\u2019re reading the wrong article!\u00a0 Allow for phased introduction of features and refinements.<\/li>\n<li>Provide backup for essential controls like heating, core lighting, so you can live through disasters, esp. in the early days, and can occupy the place while getting the automated controls working right.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Todo list<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I have yet to publish some of scripts and custom applications, but plan to when I have the time.<\/li>\n<li>Voice control \u2013 not sure it\u2019s that useful, but it\u2019s possible with mh.<\/li>\n<li>Interface to the alarm\u2019s movement sensors to trigger lighting in some rooms\u00a0 automatically after dark.<\/li>\n<li>Move the OS to a solid state disk.\u00a0 RAID has it\u2019s issues and I wanted to keep it simple as I knew I\u2019d be adding and swapping disks regularly.\u00a0 SSD now offers the possibility of effectively turning the core part of the automation system into an embedded system.<\/li>\n<li>When DVB-T2 cards \/ USB receivers become available, implement latest VDR version with HD.\u00a0 Possibly add Freesat antenna instead with server DVB-S2 card.\u00a0 This will require suitable HD clients at the TV\u2019s, and a lot more disk space.<\/li>\n<li>Implement a reverse proxy to provide access to all house applications via a common portal.\u00a0 Not because it&#8217;s absolutely necessary, but because when working away on client sites, corporate firewalls usually block all outgoing connections to ports other than 80 and 443. Many of the applications described currently occupy separate non-standard high-numbered ports (5 in total already), so are blocked and need aggregating onto either port 80, or preferably 443 using https.\u00a0 Squid to the rescue&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Fix a small recycled LCD monitor to the wall panels in node 0 to ease the\u00a0 occasional server maintenance that can\u2019t be done by remote NX client.<\/li>\n<li>Automatic plant watering.\u00a0 Just need relevant valves &amp; plumbing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Related Articles &#8211; <a href=\"Security\/My-Automated-Home-Soitjes-Soit-s-Digital-Home-Server.html\">My Automated Home : Soitjes Soit&#8217;s Digital Home Server <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:tips@automatedhome.co.uk\">Send us Your &#8216;My Automated Home&#8217; Story\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Want More?<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ottomate\">Follow us<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AutomatedHomeUK\" target=\"_blank\">Like us<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook, or subscribe to our\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds2.feedburner.com\/automatedhome\">RSS feed<\/a>. You can even get these news stories\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=AutomatedHome&amp;loc=en_US\">delivered via email<\/a>, straight to your inbox every day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the second of our new &#8220;My Automated Home&#8221; series, Richard Farthing takes us on a tour of his Green Open Source House.\u00a0 On a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5993,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/5993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}