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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
