These days a lot of options exist if you want to control home electrical appliances. This book is not about X10, ZigBee, Z-wave or any other system that’s available commercially. Instead, it covers a do-it-your-self system made from recycled components. The main system described in this book reuses an old PC, a wireless mains outlet with three switches and one controller, and a USB webcam. All this is linked together by Linux – as it can be obtained free of charge.
This book will serve up the basics of setting up a Linux environment – including a software development environment – so it can be used as a control centre. The book will also guide you through the necessary setup and configuration of a webserver, which will be the interface to your very own home control centre.
All that’s required to use this book and set up a control centre is some experience within PC software and hardware, including being able to surf the Internet and burn a CD-ROM. Since some new additional hardware is needed, some experience with assembling printed circuit boards is also needed.
All software needed for the control centre is listed in the book and will be available for downloading from the Elektor website.
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