Storage solutions for your small electronics projects

I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff for my home automation projects and drone hobby, and throwing all the parts into boxes just wasn’t working. So I found two great solutions to keep everything nice and tidy. The first is this Akro-Mils Hardware and Craft Cabinet, which offers a couple of different drawer configuration options and dividers to optimize your space:

Not only is everything nice and organized (and readily visible through the translucent drawers), I went one step further by printing labels with a label maker for parts that tend to look alike, which avoids a bit of the “open drawer shuffle” trying to find the right parts.

While these are great storage options, my drone parts require a storage solution that’s a little more portable for bringing out to the field. For that, I use a slightly unconventional approach: a fishing tackle box. It’s portable, a great size, and offers a ton of little compartments for all your small electronic parts (and the big bin at the bottom for larger tools):

One last storage trick that’s probably pretty well-known by now: Altoids Tins make excellent containers for small, loose parts like screws or washers. In fact, Altoids Tins have an incredible number of uses, as described in this post by The Art of Manliness, 22 Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin.

Posted by Matt Chiste

June 16

Tagged with: electronics, storage, tackle box
Posted in Concept

Apple’s new Home Automation feature in iOS 8

As you probably know, yesterday Apple announced the new features of iOS 8 due in the fall. There were some interesting features, but of course the one I found most interesting is HomeKit. Details are still wildly vague, but the promise is an integrated protocol for all Home Automation devices to communicate with each other via your iPhone, accessible via Siri. This news comes on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement about supporting Insteon, so things are definitely developing in this space.

C|Net has a clip of the announcement, and stay tuned here for more information on HomeKit as the details of the protocol come out and I’ve had a chance to check it out.

Posted by Matt Chiste

June 3

Tagged with: app, home automation, iphone
Posted in App

Turn off air conditioning when doors are open

Spring is here, which means great weather and open doors or windows. In the past, the routine has been “Open door, close screen door, turn off air conditioning”. But with an Insteon-controlled thermostat and door/window sensors, the third part of the routine can now be automated.

The thing is, we don’t want to turn off the A/C every time a door is opened, so we use a timer to only take action if any door is left open for more than 1 minute. And, in case we didn’t mean to leave that door open, we’ll also get a Pushover notification when the A/C goes off (and again when it’s back on). Read more ›

Posted by Matt Chiste

May 26

Tagged with: control device, green energy, sensing device, thermostat
Posted in Green Energy, ISY-994i, Programming

The Google Smart Home Infographic

Back in January in covering some neat home automation technology at CES, I talked briefly about Nest and Google’s recent acquisition of the company.

Flash forward a couple of months, and I get a message from Brandy at forrent.com asking me to take a look at and share an infographic they produced. This being a home automation blog, and that being a really interesting infographic, I’m happy to oblige:

forrent.com-infographic-preview

The full infographic, with a great accompanying article describing various other technologies Google has acquired or is working on, can be found at forrent.com with some of the key points provided by Brandy summarized below. Read more ›

Posted by Matt Chiste

May 22

Tagged with: home automation, infographic
Posted in Concept

Replacing Insteon devices in the ISY994i

Occasionally Insteon devices go bad. It’s not an often occurrence, but when it does happen there’s more to the replacement than just swapping out physical gear: you also need to update the links table of associated devices and scenes, and update programs in your ISY994i to reference the new device address.

Physically, Insteon devices are part of a mesh network; each device maintains a link table to keep track of other devices (and scenes). So when you’re adding a replacement device to the network not only do those links need to be updated, but your programs as well.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to do this in the ISY-994i: using the “replace device” feature that handles all of this for you. You just have to add the new device first. Once it’s added, you just right-click the old (presumably dead) device, select the “replace” option from the menu, and pick the new device you just added:
Read more ›

Posted by Matt Chiste

May 18

Tagged with: appliancelinc, isy-994i
Posted in Insteon, ISY-994i

Put your house to sleep at day’s end

After a long day, who can be bothered to remember to turn off lights or lock the doors? Fortunately it’s easy to automate this with Insteon and some simple programs in the ISY-994i.

The concept behind this is pretty simple: at a specific time each night, the system dims all the lights that are currently on. A couple minutes later if the lights haven’t been brought back to full brightness, they’re turned off. The idea is that if someone is actually awake at that unholy hour, they aren’t plunged into darkness and can just hit the switch to turn the light back on.

Additionally, while the MorningLinc locks don’t have a mechanism to indicate their state, I’ve got a lock sensor that allows me to lock the front door if it’s not already locked (you could always just send a “lock” signal without checking if the door is locked, but you may hear the lock beeping when the signal is sent).

The programs use state variables to trigger other events; this way I can use a main program to set a flag at the prescribed time, and easily change the time in one place if I find the lights are going off too early or too late.

Ideaspace from a drones-eye view

I’m starting to hit the limit of what I can build into my Insteon home automation system with off-the-shelf parts, and have started some more aggressive builds with the 3D printer and Spark Core – but even then there’s a limit to what I can fabricate at home. That’s why I’m so excited to get a sneak peek at the newest tech shop (although don’t tell them I called it that!) being built out: Ideaspace DC. The concept is better summed up on on their site as: “Not a co-working space. Not a maker lab. Not a classroom. ideaspace brings the best of these (and more) together under the same roof.” Or more succinctly: “16,000 square feet of pure awesome“. It will have equipment available for building out future home automation projects and pretty much anything else you can imagine, with tools generally not accessible to individuals – to enable anything from metal/plastic/woodworking to circuit board fabrication.

I recently got a sneak peek at the space and took the drone up for a spin – check it out; it’s definitely not hard to imagine how this place will indeed soon become “pure awesome”:

Interested in the concept but not in the DC area, or not sure where to get started? Check out this LifeHacker post for a comprehensive run-down. Read more ›

Posted by Matt Chiste

May 10

Tagged with: drone, ideaspace
Posted in Concept