Hi Francis,

The software would appear to provide a reasonable graphics front end but have you had any thoughts on how you would interface to the sensors inputs and what sort of sensors you would use.

Steamy

lets us know how you get on - I already have linked up about 8 temprature sensors - and am looking to link up some switches soon

Francis

I tried to use Mango a couple of years back but couldn't get it to build on the arm machine I was using for monitoring (because it's java), but it does have some nice features and is certainly worth a look. Other apps to consider are DIYzoning, and FHEM for the monitoring/control. DIYzoning is also java and similarly had issues. Misterhouse did work and is interesting but is remarkably resource-intensive for an H-A app. I think it's a bit high level for 1-wire monitoring and control, as it tries to include your home cinema stuff too and that's a bad plan IMHO.

For the low-level part temploggerd and OWFS are very good, and flukso provides remote visualisation.

I have spend some time pondering the harder-than-it-looks problem of reliably monitoring and controlling diverse stuff (mostly over 1-wire but in principle the interface layer doesn't matter). Keeping the monitoring/control box simple, with the high-level interface/data-mining stuff elsewhere is a good plan, but you do need a local GUI of some sort, which for many people may preferably be on their phone. Data syncronisation is important and tricky - you have to allow for long periods of operation with no net access. The flukso software has a good implementation for monitoring that deals with this. I am currently looking at whether it actualy makes sense to couchDB for data as it's killer feature is automatic remote sync. I am currently using RRDtools for data storage and Munin for logging and visualisation, OWFS for 1-wire interfacing and some evil shell for control. These are good tools but by no means optimally arranged. People disagree about whether it's important to keep _all_ data or only reduced data after 1 week/month/year. I think the answer is that yes you shoud keep it if you have remote storage or removable storage (SD cards), but if not then you you need the fixed database size of RRDtools for long-term operation.

The java-on-arm situation has improved dramatically since I last tried a couple of years back, and if you're using x86 then things are easier.

I have started a repository to debian/ubuntu-ise these HA projects which currently aren't in the distros. OWFS is already there (for x86 and amd64, Ubuntu marverick and Debian Squeeze). More will follow: http://wookware.org/software/repo/
I just spent an hours or so trying to get Mango to build on Debian to see what current state is. I failed so far, but does look do-able eventually.

Posted By: SteamyTeaAs you know I use Windows

Oh well, we all have our crosses to bear