Assistive Tech Dad

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8/2/2014 Topic: Forum Search Assistive Tech Dad	Maybe I am missing something, but as someone getting ready to make the dive into home automation with Castle OS it would be hugely useful to be able to search the forums here. There is a ton of great information here, it would be great to make it more accessible.
11/28/2014 Topic: Starting with a Blank Canvas Assistive Tech Dad	I am diving at home automation in the next six months and I'm looking for advice so that I can go big from the beginning. I am a child of happens to have a physical disability. We just bought a new home and are going through the design phase of a remodel to make it more accessible. I am looking to bring home automation into the picture as another piece of assistive technology to make the home more accessible. This puts an emphasis on whole home automation. This also is a great opportunity to include home automation requirements into the design of the remodel. For those of you who have successfully deployed Castle OS as your home automation solution: 1. Would you recommend that anything be included in the remodel plans to better prepare a home for upgrading to automation? I am thinking about things like whole house surge protectors or strategically placed power outlets in each room for many PCs running the connect service. 2. What automation features have had the biggest impact on your lives either positive or negative? Since time is a limiting resource I'm trying to get my head around prioritizing my efforts to make the largest impact early. 3. Any general device for someone getting ready to start down this path? Thank you in advance for any tidbits of knowledge you impart that help me in transforming our house into a piece of assistive technology.
12/19/2014 Topic: Starting with a Blank Canvas Assistive Tech Dad	Thanks for the reply Chris! Putting the PCs in the wall is something I will have to keep in mind. Running the Cat 5/6 sounds like something I can delay a bit until I figure out where I need outlets (e.g. It may make more sense to put outlets up high for some connected devices rather than near the floor). For #2, I was more curious about what to automate instead of features of Castle OS (lighting, media access, HVAC controls, sensors, etc). My daughter is actually non-verbal and uses a computer to generate synthesized speech (think Hawkins). I am not sure how accurate modern Speech-To-Text engines can decode Text-To-Speech generated output. I am hoping to take advantage of another Castle OS feature to open access for my daughter, the WCF service contracts. I am hoping to write a custom client to run on her computer she can access via eye gaze interaction. Without any other advice,I will probably start with lighting, media access, and HVAC controls. Thank you again for all your work on Castle OS in general and in answering my questions specifically.
1/7/2015 Topic: Starting with a Blank Canvas Assistive Tech Dad	Thanks Chris. I hope you had a great holidays too. You have actually hit on the larger issue than decoding of synthesized speech. It is very tiring to type long strings using eye gaze keyboards. Also, since my daughter's disabilities have been with her since birth her language development has taken a different path. She may prove me wrong, but I imagine a visual UI running on her computer would be more intuitive, quicker, and easier for her to use. For example, instead of even typing the shorthand string "ht+", imagine her opening a virtual thermostat and selecting the up arrow. I am excited to get started on this and will gladly take up your offer to help where you can. Now I just need to wait for the remodel to get far enough along that I can start installing mini PCs and INSTEON devices.
1/19/2015 Topic: Endless Pool Support Assistive Tech Dad	Has anyone connect an Endless Pool (or other pool / spa) to Castle OS? I am looking to install an Endless Pool and see they have an addon to include an in.touch automation system to control temp, jets, etc via smart phone apps. I am hoping to avoid the "multiple remote controls" problem for my wife and have one place to go to control the entire house. Any experience / insight here?
1/31/2015 Topic: VeriLock Support Assistive Tech Dad	Does CastleOS support Andersen Window's VetiLock system? (http://www.eaglewindow.com/verilock)
2/5/2015 Topic: We're Building a Plugin API - Any Requests? Assistive Tech Dad	Provide us an abstract object hierarchy that has some very low level base object types (e.g. BaseToggleSwitch object with a get/set property IsEnabled and single method Toggle(), or a BaseMotor object). There may be some devices we want to automate that do not fall into a more specific category, at least not one you can foresee (especially in the assistive tech world). Access to voice output. Event listener registration. To allow our added drivers to interact with the rest of the house and understand the current state of the house or special context of those commands it may be necessary for our drivers to receive notifications of various events that occur within CastleOS. I assume since you are pulling these drivers into you process (unless you are using a sandboxes AppDomian) you are not overly concerned with security issues. On security issues, maybe a way to certify plug-ins and a configuration in CastleOS to limit access to uncertified plug-ins or refuse to load them all together. Client side API to write custom clients for these new devices as well as CastleOS as a whole. How's that for a start?
2/5/2015 Topic: Protocol & Device Support Suggestions Assistive Tech Dad	This may be a bit out there, but how about something like Unique Automation's Bathomatic (http://www.bath-o-matic.com/html/EN/products/bathomatic/bathomatic.html). I know I can increase my HA budget if I can tell my wife that after a hard day at work she can come home, walk in the front door, say "computer, draw me a bath, 104 degrees", walk back to the bathroom, and have the bath ready and waiting.
4/8/2015 Topic: Motiion sense using Kinect's camera Assistive Tech Dad	Does anybody know the low-light / night-vision capability of the Kinect camera?
4/12/2015 Topic: Lutron vs INSTEON Assistive Tech Dad	I am planning a remodel and contacted a low-voltage / home automation subcontractor to bid the house wiring. When I talked to him about the lighting and asked him about his thoughts on INSTEON PLN switches, he was not a fan. He claimed that on at least two projects (one being his personal residence), he did a full INSTEON install only to eventually pull it all out and switch to Lutron because of reliability issues. So he is pushing Lutron in his proposal. Now Lutron does have a radio frequency switch, do my requirement of expanding my lighting control by simply swapping out a wall switch is met. However, if I understand it correctly, Lutron would also require a centralized Lutron hub for Cadtle OS to communicate control signals. INSTEON on the other hand only requires a bridge and CastleOS can speak directly to the devices. Fist, am I understanding the network topography correctly? Second, how well does CadtleOS support Lutron today? Finally, is there a significant reliability difference between INSTEON and Lutron? It might be worth noting that I already plan on having some Z-Wave devices (e.g. Yale deadbolts), and some other INSTEON devices (e.g. water leak sensors, motion detectors, etc). I am hoping to settle on a single communication protocol / brand for all lighting / wall switch devices. (Well, with exception of adding the Phillips HUE in the kids' rooms. 😉) Thank you in advance.
4/12/2015 Topic: Third-party script library/store Assistive Tech Dad	If I can add my $0.02; as someone who is trying to push Home Automation into the realm of Assistive Technology, your point that every home is different is only magnified. The ability to extend CastleOS through a plugin or app model would be fantastic. I already have dreams of trying to do this myself for some critical care management in our house. Without letting out too many details, imagine my house in the middle of the night and my daughter has a seizure. The house wakes me up and alerts me to what is going on. I then have a back and forth conversation with house; answering the house's questions, my answers being captured into a digital seizure log. After a set period of time the house asks if it is time to administer rescue medication or if I want the house to call 911 on speaker. Definitely not a feature for every house, but a potential life saver in some.
4/12/2015 Topic: Lutron vs INSTEON Assistive Tech Dad	Thanks Chris. Any rough schedule on Lutron support?
4/12/2015 Topic: Lutron vs INSTEON Assistive Tech Dad	Awesome. So it sounds like you are fairly confident when my new CastleOS hub arrives, it will include Lutron support. That helps with my planning.
4/14/2015 Topic: Couple of Quick Scripting Questions Assistive Tech Dad	I am looking to play around with scripting while waiting for my Hub to arrive. I have run into two quick questions in my dive into scripting: 1. Where is the scripting object model stored? I would love to look at that in an object browser (call me crazy, but this is far more useful to me than actual documentation in regards to understanding the capability of something like this). I see the demo script calls a Speak method on a ScriptingAPI object inside the CastleOSKinectService namespace. Before I start doing some raw hex searches of the binary files included in CastleOS I thought I would ask here. 2. Where do the custom scripts actually get executed in the network topography of CastleOS? Are they executed on the machine running the Core Services (i.e. the hub), or are they executed on the machine running the Kinect Service that detected the command? Right now in my demo environment those are the same machine, but when I eventually deploy to my house they may not be the same.
4/14/2015 Topic: Sonos support Assistive Tech Dad	Am I understanding correctly that for CastleOS to control my Sonos speakers, all the speakers need to be connected to Ethernet (thus diminishing their appeal as wireless speakers?). Sorry if that sounds harsh, but ever since the Bose Jewel Cube days of my brand new Bose Lifestyle 35 system I was longing for a wireless speaker solution so I wouldn't have to run wire everywhere I wanted audio. I finally had that dream realized with the Sonos system and now I have to wire them so they can be controlled by automation. I do have a Boost plugged into my router, but I cannot seem to auto detect the Sonos devices to control them. Does the demo version (with Kinext Service installed too) support Sonos control?
4/14/2015 Topic: Couple of Quick Scripting Questions Assistive Tech Dad	I answered my first question. It appears the CastleOS ScriptingAPI class only support the Speak() method (which is async for any interested). It looks like the intent for the scripting extensibility is to run C# code that performs actions external to CastleOS. I am still curious about the second question though.
4/14/2015 Topic: Couple of Quick Scripting Questions Assistive Tech Dad	I believe you mean the core services. Making it run in the GUI would mean that an arbitrary client would have to be connected to the service at the time a custom script was requested to run and then you really would have no idea where that thing would run. ;-)
4/14/2015 Topic: Couple of Quick Scripting Questions Assistive Tech Dad	Btw, I don't know if there is a single right architecture here. I can see reasons to run everything centralized at the hub (e.g. solutions that want to avoid synchronizing data across multiple locations). Since I am hoping to work out a way to gain access to the local Kinect audio stream to allow for additional voice interaction with the spawned process, it would be beneficial for my purposes to execute the scripts locally on the machine running the Kinect service. Maybe that could be an advanced option per custom script? Default to run at the hub, but allow setting to run local.
4/14/2015 Topic: Sonos woes.. Assistive Tech Dad	Any reconsidering of support for Sonos speakers without requiring Ethernet connections at each speaker? It is possible to control Sonos speakers wirelessly. I am using the PHONOS app on my WinPhone, and it does just that (http://www.phonos.org). It is not a fully featured Sonos controller, but it is feature rich enough (play/pause/next/previous, choose music from collection, Sonos favorites, internet radio, control volume, etc). I believe they are using uPnP under the hood and have seen some example code out there doing just that.
10/26/2015 Topic: Support for FortrezZ Z-Wave Water Valve Assistive Tech Dad	Does CastleOS support the FortrezZ Z-Wave Water Valve: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006KU9ECE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1D5PHLBY85A4E&coliid=I2OB3EQWS3XKMA&psc=1 If not is there an automatic water valve that is supported?