Blog Archives

MobiLinc adds Voice Control

MobiLinc, my current favorite iOS app for controlling Insteon systems, has recently added voice control. Until iOS allows access to Siri for easy application integration, the feature isn’t ideal since you need to start up the app and turn it

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 22

Insteon-enabled your garage doors

We’ve controlled lights, checked our mail, connected our doorbell, and wired our smoke detectors, so let’s take a look at another device to connect to our Insteon system: the Insteon garage door control and status kit. Really, this device is

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 16

Cao Gadgets wireless smart tags

About a year ago, as I was considering various ways to save energy, I thought about installing air duct dampers at various points of my A/C system to control temperature with more precision throughout the house (rather than just the

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 12

Build a tiny, cheap media center with a Raspberry Pi

XBMC is my favorite media center software. It’s open-source and runs on just about anything from old Apple TVs to full-blown computers. But the cheapest device available to run it on is probably the Raspberry Pi. They’re not the most

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 8

Blink house lights when your smoke alarm goes off

Smoke detectors are a great investment in protecting your home; the First Alert devices with ONELINK allow all detectors in your house to connect to each other, so when the one in the basement goes off all the others are

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 4

The true cost of 3D printing with the Makerbot

Earlier this week we walked through the design of a plastic replacement part for a snowblower, and someone asked the question: “Couldn’t you just buy a replacement part for much less cost and effort?”. First, in some cases this would

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 28

Designing 3D Parts with Autodesk 123D Design

The MakerBot 3D Printer is a pretty cool piece of technology that we’ve covered before. 3D printing technology continues to advance, as seen in this excellent infographic on ComputerScienceHub.org. While it still has a long way to go before we’re

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 24
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