Will CastleOS do this? 

Hi,

I currently have a home theater that has an HTPC as its HUB. I have Kodi installed, and an Insteon Serial PLM attached for controlling two in wall Insteon dimmers. Control is done via a Harmony One remote control that sends keyboard (Windows MCE keyboard) commands to the HTPC via a USB IR adapter. I capture these remote control "keypresses" in kodi and use them for remote controlled lighting changes, and I also have written a kodi plugin that will on video playback start/stop/pause - automatically adjust the lighting.

What I want to add to this mix is voice automation for certain tasks. I won't attempt full voice automation - during a movie with the full 9 sound channels pumping there is no way that it will be heard! Here are some of the use cases I want to cover - I'm considering installing a Kinect Windows unit for the Microphone array and the human presence detection and getting a Harmony Hub for controlling the Amplifier and projector:

• - On entering the room (detected by kinect), raise the lights (insteon)
• - "Computer, turn on the projector/home theater" (voice to kinect, Harmony Hub to control projector and amp)
• - Upon leaving the room and a set amount of time passes, shut off the projector (harmony) and turn off the lights (insteon)

I had been considering writing my own standalone app in c# that would use Microsoft Speech and the Kinect SDK for the voice and "presence" detection, and my existing code for controlling the Insteon PLM.


Is what I'm considering viable with CastleOS?

PS - this post on AVS Forum further describes my build: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/19-dedicated-theater-design-construction/1033681-brodie-home-theatre-build-thread-2.html#post47659593
edited by damonbrodie on 1/13/2017

Chris Cicchitelli wrote:

Hey Damon, sorry just realized this wasn't replied to. Based on your other comments, I'm guessing you are looking to have CastleOS take over control of INSTEON, and also control Harmony, and do both via voice. If so, great!

For your ideas:

"On entering the room (detected by kinect), raise the lights (insteon)"

Once that detection feature is released, you'll be able to use it as a trigger like any other motion detector.

""Computer, turn on the projector/home theater" (voice to kinect, Harmony Hub to control projector and amp)"

Right now this is done via harmony activities, a future update will give control of the individual devices as well.

"Upon leaving the room and a set amount of time passes, shut off the projector (harmony) and turn off the lights (insteon)"

You can do this as well, though I wonder if sitting on the couch watching a movie will give a false positive here.

"Is what I'm considering viable with CastleOS?"

In sum, yes! Especially if you can write C# scripts to customize as you'd like. Most of this can be done via the GUI, but the scripts allow very granular control.

Sounds good on all fronts. With respect to the leaving the room - I had thought of that as well. My thought there is all my playback is done via kodi. I would via some method pass the state of the Kodi VideoPlayer to Castle (via a custom Kodi plugin). Then I could have something like:

If room != occupied && KodiVideoPlayer == Stopped then Turn off Lights, amp and projector (After a suitable delay - say 60 seconds).