[l008com]

I have an idea, and here it is...
I need a way to monitor our family cottage in NH, so I won't have to drive up there every week or so. It's not in the middle of nowhere, so i can get some ISDN up there or something like that, anything that is permanant and has a static IP. Then I set up an old Mac, probably an '040 powerbook, running system 8.1 with web sharing on. Then I go to any old electronics catalogue and got a thermometer to create real time temperature graphs of the inside over the past week/month/year. Also I'd get a water sensor to create a real time graph of weatehr or not the water level has gone up past a certain pont over the last week/month/year. Also I'd need to hook up the smoke detectors and the red emergency light on the water pump, all relativley easy except for 2 things. The less harder thing would be getting a program, I could probably through one together using realbasic, or C if I had to, that would interprate this data and constantly update the index.html file in teh web folder, keeping the site up to date. That harder problem, the one I REALLY need help with, is somehow getting all these various electronic devices hooked up to my mac. For the most part all of them would basically only need to measure for a single current of electricity, i.e. if the red light came on, know it, if the water level alarm came on, know it. The thermometer would be a little different, cause I would want that actualy exact temperature inside. A few webcams would be nice too, but first things first!

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I see dead people.

[This message has been edited by l008com (edited 07-06-2000).]

[MacOS761]

I know there's stuff like what you need out there, but multiple devices at once could be tricky. Post your request in the Hack Your Mac forum, too - they might have some good ideas.

You might want to contact Smarthome.com to see what they have that might work. They sell a lot of the X-10 technology (also available from other sources such as Radio Shack) and computer software to run it for both Mac and PC. This may be more money than you want to spend but a system would only require a regular phone connection and your existing home computer. It's worth the catalog to see what kind of remote sensing and activating stuff is out there. At the very least, it might give you some ideas from which you could innovate with your proposed system on your own.

[tonymac]

Check this out, if you'll be using an ADB mac: http://www.bzzzzzz.com/BeeHive/ADB_IO/ADBIO_Intro.html
It has several inputs that can be monitored.

[l008com]

In reference the the previous post, "They are all sold and we cannot manufacture more". I hope I can find one on ebay or something...


I can't find them on ebay, but they do seem to be just what i'm looking for, are there any similar devices around?
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I see dead people.

[This message has been edited by l008com (edited 07-06-2000).]