
Ask HN: Has anyone hacked their homes? - hardik988
So has anyone around here hacked their homes? I'm talking about any sort of thing like controlling all lights, air conditioners and other devices wirelessly from a central console ? Or just setting up your own custom anti-theft system. 
Any hacks would be awesome to hear about.
======
shrughes
I hacked my lights and some power outlets. I can turn them on by flipping a
simple switch. I also hacked a lock onto my door and hacked some layers of
paint on the ceiling. Then I paid some people to install a temperature control
hack so that air conditioning can be controlled based on a heat sensor. And
some other people came in and hacked some wires to different ports near the
floor. They put a box in the alcove where you can turn off power to entire
sections of the house. These people were all Mexicans, so I guess they must
have some leet hacking schools where they come from.

~~~
danielnicollet
love this joke (just like I loved your post at <http://shrughes.com/p/how-to-
vote-on-hacker-news/>) and I agree the word "hack" has become tarnished as of
late on HN. I think hardik988 was genuinely asking about how to hack together
some sort of smart local grid application to control all the equipments around
his home though. That's one of my fantasies too and I just haven't had time to
do it but one day...

In the meantime, here is a couple of great places for tips on that:
[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http://ieeex...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4408479/4408480/04408494.pdf%3Farnumber%3D4408494&authDecision=-203)
<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/toaster/>

if you want to control the utility down the road too ;-)
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=power-
hacke...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=power-
hackers&ref=nf)

~~~
hardik988
Thanks, yes I was genuinely seeking inspiration for my home in the future.
Thanks for the links, will be sure to check them out.

EDIT : Posted reply above to shrughes.

------
jawngee
My entire apartment is Z-Wave and I have a custom written iPad app that lets
me control most everything.

I've been considering putting some of those cheap 7" android tablets into my
walls, but I don't own the place, so I guess I'll have to wait.

X10 is a horrible joke, don't go there. Z-Wave is fantastic though.

Here are some zwave links:

<http://www.z-wave.com/modules/Products/>

<http://www.smarthomeusa.com/search.php?q=z-wave>

<https://www.zwaveproducts.com/>

~~~
jimmyjim
Can you remark on how much these things cost you, all said and done?

~~~
jawngee
I've probably spent ~1K usd for 5 rooms.

------
tobtoh
I haven't hacked my own, but this guy has: <http://www.bwired.nl/>

He's the most extreme example that I've come across and he even describes how
he did it/what tech he uses. If you are looking for inspiration on what to
hack, you can't go far wrong using his house as a start!

~~~
hardik988
You guessed it right. I was looking for inspiration when I started this
thread. Thanks for the pointer.

~~~
asfaltboy
someone said X10 "is horrible" but this guy uses it, anyone can give a (link
to) comparison with z-wave?

------
gduffy
My weekend hacking on IP cameras turned into a startup: Dropcam
(<http://www.dropcam.com>). Dropcams can push alert your iPhone on motion or
sound and they store up to 30 days of video.

When I was a kid, I had the Firecracker serial-to-wireless-to-X10 gadget
hooked up to a PC running Microsoft Agent/batch scripts. I could voice control
my ceiling fan, lights, etc like Star Trek (at least, if the Enterprise had
ceiling fans). It was a big hit with the ladies.

I like everything about renting except for how much of a hassle it is to
change wiring and put gadgets in the walls.

~~~
jsdalton
Wow, I'm so going to buy this. We've got another baby on the way and I was
looking for something like this to use as a baby monitor. Nothing out there
has really caught my fancy yet, but this looks pretty darn awesome.

BTW, I might not represent your potential customer base perfectly, but I would
ideally like to see a few more screenshots of the web interface on your
website.

~~~
gduffy
Congratulations! We hear a lot of fun stuff from our baby monitoring
customers. One of our users called it "Baby TiVo" ... you can export clips to
send to the family, so it's lots of fun.

As for screenshots, did you check out <http://www.dropcam.com/demo>? You get
there by clicking "See it live" on the homepage. We should probably add links
to it from the learn more/product pages.

------
brk
Yes. I've been involved in home automation for many many years. Our house has
pretty much all the primary lights and outlets controlled by Insteon devices.
A Mac Mini runs a software called Indigo that handles all the logic and
macros, the same Mini has our primary audio library on it, and some other
media.

Every plasma TV in the house also has a Mac Mini at a minimum, some also have
Tivos and Apple TVs.

Intelligent video cameras around the house can detect people or vehicles
approaching up the driveway or around other perimeter areas and send me email
alerts, video clips and/activate other things via the Indigo/Insteon system.

We have a dual-zone heating/cooling setup. The thermostats are Venstars with
an Insteon RF interface. Setpoints are selected based on time of day, outdoor
temps, and occupancy (sensed via motion detectors and/or our presence at our
other house (eg: if there is activity at house X, we can keep house Y from
initiating common events)).

I have a Redeye wifi to IR iPod base station thing for controlling the TV and
AV gear we spend most time around. This is mostly accessed through an I* app,
but can also be controlled via an http interface.

From a web interface, my iPhone or my iPad I can turn any light on or off,
change temperature setpoints, read status of various sensors, or control
iTunes, all through the Indigo app. Through a separate web interface I've
written, I can see recent events from the security cameras and access control
systems, see live video, lock/unlock certain doors and so forth.

There is a Russound multi-zone amp and zone selector in the basement ( though
we mostly just use the amp now). A combination of airport expresses and rogue
amoeba apps allows me to route audio from pretty much any device/point in the
house to any other device or room. There are in-ceiling speakers in the
bedroom and master bath, speakers in the garage, and on the back deck, all on
separate zones.

I've run about 2 miles of cable (cat5 and rg6) throughout the house to create
a communications backbone.

I'm probably missing a few things, but the summary of it is that the houses
mostly adapt around us for things like lights and hvac. We can listen to music
anyplace we happen to be ( there is almost always music playing at our house).

The current incarnation of the system is the result of hacking around with HA
for about a dozen years now trying different things to see what works. When I
first started doing this my wife was basically like 'NFW' and now she wouldn't
want to live without it.

------
abollaert
I used a combination of Arduino boards (Atmega controllers), Velleman dimmers
and a Velleman relay board to control all the lights in my home, with
pushbutton switches that have feedback LEDs. Then I wrote an application on
top of that (running off an AT91SAM9 dev board) that implements mood
combinations, also exposing a protocolbuffers/http based API (events are IP
multicast) that I use to control everything with my Android phone. I also use
it to configure the Arduino's (and upgrade them remotely using avrdude). It's
still not completely finished, but so far it's been working quite well for me.
The central application runs in an OSGi container, and exposes every light and
mood as a service, so I would like to plug some light sensors into it so I can
let it control some lights automatically (for example the one at the front
door). I was lucky enough that I knew what I was going to need so all the
wires were in place when I needed them. For future additions I think I'm going
to have a look at Z-Wave or Zigbee.

~~~
gabelerner
what brand of pushbutton switches with feedback LEDs did you use?

~~~
abollaert
I used switches from CJC systems (a small Belgian company, a friend of mine
designs prints for them, so I was able to get my hands on a few of them for
the sake of my "experiment").

[http://www.cjcsystems.com/index.php?page=Products&catid=...](http://www.cjcsystems.com/index.php?page=Products&catid=14&pl=1&id=133)

~~~
gabelerner
cool thanks!

------
nathan_f77
Haven't done my whole apartment (yet), but I built an RFID & HTTP lock for the
front door. I can use my Octopus card or iPhone app to unlock the door. See my
blog post here: <http://www.f-77.com/2010/11/05/octopus-card-door-lock/>

------
tomn
I live in a house with 4 other computer science students, which should answer
your question pretty well.

About a year ago we designed a system/protocol called 'SHET'
(<https://github.com/18sg/SHET>) which consists of a central server that links
many clients together. Each client can present many properties (get/set),
actions (like methods, that can be called), and events (that other clients can
listen for). This was implemented by me in python/twisted and makes
controlling/monitoring computers around the house really easy.

About a month ago, someone wrote a system called SHETSource
(<https://github.com/18sg/SHETSource>) which allows us to easily connect
arduinos onto SHET. Since we don't all leave our computers on all the time, we
have one arduino connected to the 'server' (old macbook) near the switch,
which arduinos in our rooms connect to via the spare wires in the ethernet (if
you only want 100Mbps, two of the wires are spare).

In my room at least, I have a pir, 3 hacked light controllers, a servo and two
switches connected via SHETSource, which allows me to write all the logic in
python.

Basically, we've written a hacking framework.

------
logic
I played around with X10 networking (device control using the in-house power
wiring as a message bus) years ago, for home automation. Fun stuff, and usable
even today.

Recently, I've started working on an Arduino-driven thermostat replacement
using XBees to get around the problem of running wiring in a house without any
conduits (and not wanting to run plenum-rated cabling in the heating ducts).
It's actually pretty simple stuff, with off-the-shelf ICs (and I'm no hardware
guy) and a little programming. The biggest challenge was figuring out the
existing thermostat and HVAC wiring; I knew practically nothing about this
stuff previously.

Some folks have gone quite far with this kind of thing: <http://diy-
zoning.sourceforge.net/Advanced/faq.html>

(I particularly like the idea of using R/C servos to provide rudimentary zone
control.)

~~~
byoung2
_I played around with X10 networking (device control using the in-house power
wiring as a message bus) years ago, for home automation_

I had lots of fun with X10 back in college, tricking out my apartment to have
voice control over the lights and drapes. The X10 computer interface combined
with Homeseer allowed me to create pretty complex "scenes" such as the always
popular "seduce" command which would close the drapes, gradually dim the
lights to 15% in 1% increments over a 1 hour interval, and start playing a
playlist of mp3s that sadly started with Sarah Mclachlan and ended with Barry
White.

------
waivej
I got a TED (www.theenergydetective.com) and took 3 years to get from a $250
electric bill to a $40. Later I did a similar thing for heat efficiency.
Though I suppose that's not what you were asking about.

~~~
savrajsingh
Awesome improvement! Wattvision began as a hack -- getting data from my
electric meter without altering or affecting it in any way, and making
consumer install super simple. You can get the TED -> wattvision uploader from
our site, too. :)

------
ethank
I just bought a house (chronicled it at <http://blackrimglasses.com>). My last
townhouse was also automated. Here's the general setup:

We use Insteon for the automation system, hooked into a MacMini running Indigo
from Perceptive Automation.

I have the system setup so it has "states" that the house is in, ie: home,
baby in bed, etc. The "actions" you can do are contingent on conditions. So if
my wife and I are closing up the house, but the baby is asleep, it will keep
the light near his room from going on.

For whole home audio we have a Sonos, with five zones, including our patio.
The Mac Mini system serves the audio. It also has AirVideo transcoding on it
for our iPads. We use iphones and ipads to control everything (two of each).

When we bought the house, we put Cat-6 in every room, so most everything runs
off hard line Ethernet. We have three dual band Airport Extreme's in the house
for wireless.

The thermostat and sprinklers run off the insteon device and are controlled by
the MacMini. Our stereo (Denon 3808CI) has a web and socket interface, so that
is controlled remotely fairly often.

Our DirectTV's have the "whole home DVR" thing, which uses a MOCA coax adapter
on each box to create its own network. We have two DVR's and two regular
recievers.

I haven't yet done cameras and such, or motion detectors but we plan on it.
Currently for occupancy sensing, I use a hack to get the locations of our
iPhones from MobileMe.

------
jbeluch
My first usage of twitter was for sending DM's to my window air conditioner.
At the time I didn't have a smart phone, so using twitter via SMS was my means
of communication.

Soldered the air conditioner remote to a relay connected to the parallel port
on my computer. Whenever the script pulled down new DM's from my username with
special commands, it would briefly flip the relay turning the ac on or off.
Also set up a scheduler to turn it on 30 minutes before i woke up.

------
yarek
I moved the kitchen and removed some walls.

------
iuguy
In a previous rented place I had a Misterhouse rig hooked up to some X10,
Ethernet throughout the house and several MythTV servers so people could watch
TV in different rooms. Then some people moved out, non-geeky people moved in
who would routinely break stuff and I ended up with just me and my flatmate
having hackery stuff going on in our rooms and some in the living room.

As the lock on my room was a bit crappy I had an SGI Indy with an Indycam
pointed at the door taking photos every few seconds, and a script on a FreeBSD
box that would check for differences, notify me of any changes (this was
before I knew about ZoneAlarm) and string the differing ones into a gif with a
timestamp. I caught a flatmate going into my room a few times to 'borrow' some
things without telling me.

In my current house we've had the mythtv setup going but have moved to a Mac
Mini downstairs with EyeTV. The house is a bit too small to justify X10
everywhere, and I have too many other DIY tasks I'm trying to avoid to be able
to get away with putting it in :)

I do have a wireless electricty usage meter though, haven't quite figured out
how to log the stats yet.

------
whyleyc
You should check out Andy Stanford Clark from IBM - afaik he uses MQ
technologies hooked up to various sensors to control and monitor much of his
16th century house on the Isle of Wight (UK)-
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/06/things_that_tw...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/06/things_that_tweet.html)

~~~
anonymousDan
+1, I went to to a talk by him a few years ago and from memory some of the
quirkier things he had hooked up were automated mousetrap notifcations and an
ambient orb that lets you know how much energy your house is using.

------
crocowhile
I had X10 all over the place when I was living in the US. It's quite cheap and
not too bad of an investment, especially if you are just renting the place.

Now I am back in Europe and I left all that equipment behind in Wisconsin? Is
anybody interested? I was planning to sell it on craigslist but maybe a fellow
HNer will have a better use.

~~~
Vivtek
Totally interested, yes. My email is in my profile.

~~~
crocowhile
email sent.

~~~
jimmyjim
Would it be possible to half and half? :D

I actually happen to live in Wisconsin (Milwaukee)

------
nathan_f77
Haven't done my whole apartment (yet), but I built an RFID & HTTP lock for the
front door. I can use my Octopus card or iPhone app to unlock. See my blog
post here: <http://www.f-77.com/2010/11/05/octopus-card-door-lock/>

------
RoyG
I did our home lighting, using Insteon w. a few random x10s still around,
using Indigo on a Mini, which is connected to our home ent. system. Hacking is
at another level when you need to make sure you don't electrocute yourself or
burn the house down!

The best hack, imo, is a simple one - running a HD projector and 72" screen.
It's only for movies and sporting events, b/c it's too weird to watch anything
non-cinematic on a big screen.

Finally, it's not a hack, but i'll throw in a plug for the Logitech Harmony
remote - it's the best we've found for set up and control of our HT system. I
can't really comment on it directly, though, because my wife is in charge of
setting it up;)

------
kingsidharth
Does managing to keep your mum outta your room for a month counts? It's a big
deal, I tell you. Especially if you are a messy teens. Tricks like make it
smell with your shoes work well.

~~~
lotharbot
As a teen, I did quite a bit of work to keep my family out of my room. I come
from a very large family, and I'd managed to turn my room into the cleanest
and quietest place in the house, which meant everyone else wanted to spend a
lot of time there (defeating the purpose of my clean, quiet space.)

I arranged the furniture such that anyone entering the room would have to walk
through a narrow space between a dresser and wall, then walk all the way
around my bed through another narrow space, before they could get to the open
part of my room. I furthermore made sure there were no good places to sit
except for my computer chair (by raising the bed to an uncomfortable height,
and leaving piles of school papers stacked on my other chair, which I could
easily move if I wanted company but nobody else would've moved.)

The best part was, I didn't have to make my room messy, smelly, or
uncomfortable for me. I just made it uncomfortable for other people to spend
time in the room without my intentionally creating space for them.

~~~
qjz
"I'd managed to turn my room into the cleanest and quietest place in the
house, which meant everyone else wanted to spend a lot of time there"

How true! My home office was also my workshop/server room. I got tired of the
heat, noise and technorubble, so I gave away the desk, moved the servers to
the (much cooler) basement, and stripped the whole room down to just a sofa
and mostly empty bookshelf. Now it's in high demand, and I only use it when
I'm home alone. But at the same time, I got rid of all our towers and switched
everyone to wireless laptops, so it's not too hard to find a quiet corner
anywhere else in the house to work.

------
follower
Jon Oxer (<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonoxer>) has and was working
on a TV show about it (<http://www.superhouse.tv/>).

He's documented some of it on his blog:
<http://jon.oxer.com.au/blog/category/DIY>

(I thought he had documented more but I can't find it. :) )

------
barrydahlberg
Where are the <http://www.gridspy.co.nz/> guys, this is right up their
alley...

------
sokoloff
How much time do you have? :)

Great resources:

<http://www.cocoontech.com> (forum dedicated to exactly your question)

<http://www.charmedquark.com> (the software package I chose to buy, though
there are many others)

There's also some coverage on AVScience, but cocoontech has largely taken
over, IMO.

