Room-O-Matic
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:45 amI got a bit tired of using "web images" for my stuff and decided to create an entirely new look and feel for my control pages, something where I could really tweak the shadows and depth of the images rather than having pictures just sitting on pictures with no depth. So this is Room-O-Matic, a totally graphic design driven control system for my house. There's still some tweaks I am doing (yea, like THAT will ever end), but I have the whole system in both portrait and landscape and works nicely on the iPads on my walls.
Once of the nice things about this design is that it's entirely modular so I can add totally new designs easily or change what's there in a snap. Heck, if you guys are interested in it I could pack up the entire system and post it for download (although I'm still working on my plugin for this system as well as a specialized IOS app as well).
My great room - The motion sensor VU's move back and forth with motion, the dials under the switches move with each level of brightness, the curtain controllers move dynamically depending on where the drapes are at that moment, security goes red if any door is unlocked or open, sprinklers go red if any zone is on and the rest is pretty self explanatory:
I have a series of "house states" that change the automation depending on the state (i.e., if we are sleeping and we get up for water, the motion sensor won't turn the lights in the bedroom on but will turn the kitchen on to 25% instead, etc):
In the basement I have a couple of extra rooms to control, so they get their own buttons on the right:
Pressing the security button will take you to a custom video monitor. I wanted to keep in the theme of this "retro tech" control system so I created a vintage style TV set to show my cameras (notice how I got the video feeds to conform to the roundness of the screen):
Also have my zone controls as well as the ETO for each zone (another plugin that I wrote):
And of course I have to be able to control the thermostat:
I approached this as "everything is controlled via Indigo", so I also have all my A/V stuff incorporated. Because I mostly use my A/V in portrait mode I created a "blade server" version of the controls:
I still have some tweaks to do but I'm pretty happy with the result. I also have iPhone portrait and landscape versions of the system. I'm writing an IOS app to handle some features not present in the Indigo app that I really want to incorporate into my total solution, I'll be sure to let you guys know when that's done
. The plugin for the system does all sorts of stuff, like creating the LCD digits for the pages as well as eliminating the need for a bunch of Indigo variables to support the overall control of my house, opting for plugin states instead.
Once of the nice things about this design is that it's entirely modular so I can add totally new designs easily or change what's there in a snap. Heck, if you guys are interested in it I could pack up the entire system and post it for download (although I'm still working on my plugin for this system as well as a specialized IOS app as well).
My great room - The motion sensor VU's move back and forth with motion, the dials under the switches move with each level of brightness, the curtain controllers move dynamically depending on where the drapes are at that moment, security goes red if any door is unlocked or open, sprinklers go red if any zone is on and the rest is pretty self explanatory:
- thumb_IMG_0015_1024.jpg (166.21 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
I have a series of "house states" that change the automation depending on the state (i.e., if we are sleeping and we get up for water, the motion sensor won't turn the lights in the bedroom on but will turn the kitchen on to 25% instead, etc):
- thumb_IMG_0013_1024.jpg (148.41 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
In the basement I have a couple of extra rooms to control, so they get their own buttons on the right:
- thumb_IMG_0009_1024.jpg (140.24 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
Pressing the security button will take you to a custom video monitor. I wanted to keep in the theme of this "retro tech" control system so I created a vintage style TV set to show my cameras (notice how I got the video feeds to conform to the roundness of the screen):
- thumb_IMG_0010_1024.jpg (197.55 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
Also have my zone controls as well as the ETO for each zone (another plugin that I wrote):
- thumb_IMG_0011_1024.jpg (161.57 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
And of course I have to be able to control the thermostat:
- thumb_IMG_0012_1024.jpg (137.64 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
I approached this as "everything is controlled via Indigo", so I also have all my A/V stuff incorporated. Because I mostly use my A/V in portrait mode I created a "blade server" version of the controls:
- thumb_IMG_0017_1024.jpg (178.32 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
- thumb_IMG_0018_1024.jpg (142.99 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
- thumb_IMG_0016_1024.jpg (175.94 KiB) Viewed 15015 times
I still have some tweaks to do but I'm pretty happy with the result. I also have iPhone portrait and landscape versions of the system. I'm writing an IOS app to handle some features not present in the Indigo app that I really want to incorporate into my total solution, I'll be sure to let you guys know when that's done
. The plugin for the system does all sorts of stuff, like creating the LCD digits for the pages as well as eliminating the need for a bunch of Indigo variables to support the overall control of my house, opting for plugin states instead.
. The LED's were a little tricky, took a lot of work. Actually, in all, the graphical design of this project is easily over 200 hours, including writing plugins to do some of the cool stuff I'm trying to do. My wife is VERY happy that I'm mostly done with it now, a lot of late nights and weekends went into it all. This is actually the 4th start-over, I found so much during the first 3 that I would say "I can do that better", but in this kind of design that means starting over because the graphics are too tightly nit together to just patch things up.
