Customer Reviews

Smart Home Automation with Linux (Expert's Voice in Linux)

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You can easily invest a lot of time and money into Home Automation (HA) projects only to find they don't work as anticipated. This book records the extensive experience of the author in HA and a hence could be a good investment to help you avoid or at least reduce frustration and improve your chances of successfully and enjoyably harnessing hardware and software to improve your quality of life. To gain the maximum benefit from this book, you need to be competent at installing hardware and wiring it up as well as doing web page development and scripting. Linux/Open Source Software is the main HA vehicle covered for a number of reasons- the inheritance from Unix of applications doing one thing and doing it well, the ability to use scripts to integrate key applications, and finally the ability to customise applications to your needs due to the ready availablity of source code. While there are plenty of illustrative snippets of code throughout the book, there are no complete examples provided, nor are copies of the source code provided from the publisher's site. You may find this acceptable given everyone's home automation solutions are unique, but I'm sure many would appreciate seeing how a HA solution is integrated. Then again, perhaps the author was concerned about the security risk to his HA implementation! To the author's credit, security concerns are regularly addressed throughout the book. Comprising just 7 chapters, with no appendices and an adequate index, this book still does a commendable job of covering the many aspects anyone planning HA needs to consider before investing in any hardware.

The first chapter jumps straight into how to use X10 hardware to control electrical appliances and lighting with plenty of practical information for those interested in setting up their home using this protocol. Other competing or complementary techniques, i.e. C-Bus, Ethernet and InfraRed are also briefly covered.

Chapter 2 looks at how to hack appliances such as game consoles, Linux powered WiFi Routers and NAS devices (with particular attention given to the Slug aka NSLU2, laptops, Arduino, Lego Mindstorms) and includes links to relevant hacking sites.

Media has chapter 3 dedicated to it; how to source your media, extract, store, distribute and control it.

Considerations on the best way to wire your home and locate servers and access points are covered in chapter 4, based on the more difficult two storey dwelling scenario. Irrespective of your dwelling construction, there are plenty of points raised in this chapter for consideration to help you implement a reliable, non-intrusive and reasonably secure HA solution.

Chapter 5 covers the various communications technologies that can be used to good effect for your HA implementation, with IP Telephony (Skype and Asterisk), email, voice, web access, and SMS all included. Techiques on how to process email, web and SMS based communications are covered, including suggestions on how to reduce the risk of security breaches.

I found chapter 6 on Data Sources particularly interesting, with the author covering ownership and the associated legal issues with personal use and how these become even more restrictive with family use and wider distribution. The chapter then goes on to look at how you can collect useful public data to assist your daily life, such as access to public transport time tables, traffic, weather, TV and Radio content and how you can use these with private data from calendars, webmail, Twitter and Facebook for personal automation.

Of particular interest for those skilled in coding, the final chapter covers how to integrate HA technologies with Minerva, showing in detail how to configure Minerva and its components to provide a secure HA solution that requires minimal maintenance by using device and application abstractions.

While there are no appendices, the book has an adequate index, but the real gems can best be found by reading through the book. Thanks to a reference in chapter 6, I finally found some Linux logging software for my weather station!

Smart Home Automation with Linux by Steven Goodwin had exactly what I hoped for when I ordered it. This book takes you through the basic process of automating various aspects of your home from scratch. They focus primarily on the X10 protocol for device control while giving a bit of attention to some other alternatives like C-bus. The author then goes on to cover a wide range of topics such as specific devices to buy for an X10 setup, how to architect your installation, appliance hacking, focusing on the software that glues the system together, and systems such as Minerva which can be used to manage a lot of the aspects of home automation.

I found this book to be a great read for filling in my knowledge of what is available and what sort of expertise will be needed for making a good home automation system and I feel like I will get even more out of it when I have the opportunity (and money) to begin automating my home.

Smart Home Automation with Linux: Learn How to Connect Your Home from Your PC is written for Linux professionals who would automate a home using Linux. Automatic includes reading TV schedules digitally and using them to program a video remotely through email or the Web, and streaming music between different machines. The fine links between computer and home systems make for a real winner, here!

I have been using linux for years now and always wanted to do some "smart home" type of projects over the years.
Having done all kinds of work over the years and being the proverbial "jack of all trades" type I have to say this book has blown me away. You can tell right off the bat that Steven really knows this subject. So much so that after reading the first chapter I had to go back and re-read his bio again just to understand where he is coming from and what he has done to know so much. He makes it all so easy and completely answers all the questions you might have before you have even realized you might have one.

This is incredibly well written and totally accessible to even those without the tech background one might assume would be required for a subject of this nature. I have to say he made it fun to read even before you realized you were learning new things. You can see his humor when he thanks his parents for his first automated home, the one that always cleaned itself and cooked his meals. I can easily recommend this to anyone wanting to find out about this subject matter, you cant go wrong and would be hard pressed to find someone more knowledgeable on the subject matter.

I can already tell I will be referring back to this book again and again over the next few years as I attempt to automate every last darn thing I can afford to. Lord knows this book alone has probably already saved me a few hundred bucks and helped me figure out whats the best way to get started on this path as cheaply as possible.

If your interested in Automating or building your own smart home and not scared to learn a bit along the way, this is your bible. If your seeking to learn and really want to get as much knowledge on the subject as possible and looking to do it with linux everywhere possible. This is the ultimate book on the subject I would even go so far as to say you only need this book in your library to be able to do truly amazing things.

Home Automation also known as "Domotics" is one of the great unifying themes, and one of the most useful applications of Information Technology and Smart Electronics in the early 21st Century. Combining elements of Embedded Computing, Control Systems, Digital Electronics, Ubiquitous/Pervasive Computing & Entertainment/Communications Technology there is much to be learned and applied in all of these fields through consulting this handbook. While one can, at tremendous expense purchase a ready-made answer to Automating their Home Communications, Security, Entertainment, Lighting and HVAC consulting this
"Toolkit" will enable the Do-It-Yourself or Computing Enthusiast to design the custom solution directed at their needs at reasonable cost and while learning a great deal of engaging technology. The approach of the author, an expert in Linux-based home automation and principal author of the Open-Source Home Automation Scripting Environment "Minerva" gives you the tools to customize whichever parts of your Lighting, HVAC, Communications or Security Environment you wish to place under Automated Control. In doing so he provides the tools to understand many pieces of leading edge Information Technology; in particular the "User" employing this handbook will gain an in-depth knowledge of Embedded Computing Solutions, Linux and Arduino-based control systems; they will also learn the combination of Intelligent Controllers, Sensors and Actuators that will create tomorrow's Smart Buildings and Ubiquitous Computing Environment. The Scripting Languages, Shell-based Commands, and Web Scraping Software Technologies that are described and exemplified in this book are accessible, can be easily customized to individual needs and widely useful in a number of computing applications.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to automate particular aspects of their "Home and Castle". It also will serve as an education in Home Automation and many practical applications of Information Technology beyond the Home or Office Desktop.

--Ira Laefsky MSE/MBA
IT & HCI Consutant/Researcher and Former Senior Staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc. and Digital Equipment Corporation