Misterhouse

written by hek

Misterhouse is one of the longest running home automation platforms around. Started in 1998 it supports a wide range of hardware, protocols and capabilities. It is written in perl which means it is easy to run on a wide range of platforms, to see what is happening and also to make customizations. The flip side of this flexibility is that some perl scripting is required but fortunately there are many examples and a helpful group of people on mailing lists.

The MySensor plugin for Misterhouse was created by the community member jsiddall.

MySensors is supported through the Ethernet Gateway and Serial Gateway

Homepage Support Forum

Features

  • Executes actions based on voice input, time of day, file data, serial port data, and socket data. Serial and speech data can also be read or written to proxies on remote boxes.
  • It has a web interface to allow control and feedback from any browser, either on a local intranet or on the internet. Check the Winter's house at http://mh.misterhouse.net/
  • On Windows systems, it uses OLE calls to the free MS VR and TTS engines for voice recognition and text->speech. The high quality AT&T NaturalVoices TTS engine may also be used. If using IE, you can enable remote VR and TTS using an MS Agent.
  • On Unix systems, it uses the free Festival, flite, IBM ViaVoice and non-free AT&T NaturalVoices TTS speech engines for text->speech and on Linux IBM's ViaVoice engine for voice recognition. These engines can also be called from Windows version of mh.
  • Reads/writes any data from any serial attached device.
  • Speaks the speed, course, and position of vehicles, by interfacing to a ham radio modem (TNC). Brian Klier wrote has a nice article about it. You can see our car position logs here
  • Sends/receives X10 data from the X10 CM11 (ActiveHome) interface
  • Sends/receives UPB data.
  • Sends wireless X10 data using the X10 CM17 (Firecracker) interface
  • Send/receive data to the Ibutton family of devices, including the weather station.
  • Reads/writes data from the JDS interfaces (Stargate, Time Commandar, HomeBase) interface
  • Reads/writes data from the HomeVision interfaces
  • Reads/writes serial port data from the Weeder Technologies PIC kits that can process X10, digital, analog, callerID, and outgoing phone data.
  • Reads/writes to Applied Digital's CPU-XA and Ocelot interfaces via the cpuxad socket deamon.
  • Reads data from IRman infrared receiver serial interface and writes to X10 IR Commander wireless interface.
  • Code has been written for DSC Alarm pannels, Stargate LCD displays, Alpha BetaBrite LED displays, Slinke IR send/receive, Marrick X10, RCI X10 sprinklers, Xantech preamps, ISDN modems, voice modems, ComPool and Aqualink pool equipment.
  • Reads and writes from the lcdproc server which interfaces to inexpensive LCD modules and keypads.
  • Shares a modem for caller ID and paging.
  • Reads/writes internet mail, http, and ftp files unattended.
  • Sends/receive instant messages using AIM, MSN, or Jabber
  • Reads MS Outlook, Unix ical, or the built in Organizer calendar for event reminders and VCR programing.
  • Uses free internet TV web pages to allow for VCR programing and show reminders.
  • Has an entertaining 'chatbox' web page that will listen to all your problems.
  • Can monitor NetGear RT311 / RT314 or LinkSys syslog router traffic, so you can track stuff like incoming web hits and online game time.
  • Uses Voice XML to interface to tellme.com. To try it, dial 1-800-555-Tell, then after you ear 'tellme more', enter 1-46630 (1-HOME0). With a XML browser (e.g. IE), you can see a test vxml menu here
  • Use simple menu templates to generate menus for LCD, VXML, or WAP phones. If you have a WAP phone or WAP browser, you can see this test menu with this url: http://mh.misterhouse.net/sub?menu_wml. You can also walk the menus with an html browser with a frames version or a a simpler version . These menus can also be controled with a single switch (e.g. air sip switch for the disabled), using audible feedback to select items/states. You can also drive menus with an SSH client, like this
  • Logs weather data to the wunderground personal weather project. Here's weather logs from my house
  • Here is a list of some users written code files along with standard code files that demonstrate some other MisterHouse features.
  • You can use RSS readers to track various data, like phone or speak logs.
  • Control of RoboSapien, ESRA, and ER1 robots. Some pictures and videos are in misterhouse.net/public/robot/.
  • Uses the rrd program to generate weather graphs.
  • Support for xAP and xPL home automation protocols.

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