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| Hippy's Happy Wired Home | |
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When I decided to take advantage of everything modern technology offered,I
soon found myself in a nightmare of twisty little cables, all alike.
The premise for wiring up my house was to have an automated music delivery
system for my bathroom ( the
Ambient Music System ), computer processed
TV listings on my TV and web camera images on my web site.
All very simple in theory, but the amount of wiring is incredible, and the
quantity of equipment required is quite amazing
Although the core of the system which handles all this is a humble PC acting
as a central server, and much of the rest are off-the-shelf items, just
wiring it up and interfacing is quite involved.
When one stands back and looks at the system as a whole, it looks deceptively
simple. The message being that even the most basic of systems require a
great deal of implementation, which in my case wasn't helped by the fact that
I live in an old victorian terrace. Victorians had obviously never thought that anyone might want to flood-wire
their houses, and finding paths to get cables around was a challenge
to say the least, with floor cavities blocked by support walls and flooring
replaced by 6' x 8' sheets of 1" high density chipboard which is
impossible to remove without taking up all the carpets.
The infrastructure cabling and equipment has been installed, and everything
is working as well as it is meant to be. The following diagram shows what's been put in, and how it's wired up. This
information is primarily here as personal documentation for the project, but I
thought you might like to see what there is in Hippy's Happy Wired Home ... 
Place mouse over the coloured components to discover what they are. In addition to the wiring and equipment shown above, there are other pieces of entertainment equipment, power connections, power supplies, alarm system and sensors, telephone and audio-visual connections and cables that are not shown. ServerThe server is at the heart of Hippy's Happy Wired Home. It supports a number of operational tasks ...
The Server is located in the study to reduce the noise from the power supply and cooling fans, and to reduce the amount of wiring used which makes up the Ambient Music System. Desktop PCThe Desktop PC is the only PC connected directly to the internet ( using a standard dial-up modem connection, which is not shown ).The Desktop PC is used to download TV listings, process them and pass them on to the server for delivery, and takes web camera images from the server and publishes them on the internet along with other content. The Desktop PC is connected to the server using a Cat-5 ethernet connection running at 10MHz through an Ethernet Hub. MS-DOS ServerThe MS-DOS Server is an old 80286 PC, running MS-DOS and the EZ-NOS Network Operating System. It is connected to the Local Area Network using a Cat-5 ethernet connection running at 10MHz through an Ethernet Hub.EZ-NOS allows web, FTP and TIME servers to run on MS-DOS machines using processors as limited as the 8088 with as little as 1MB of memory, and the PC is used as a test platform for EZ-NOS development. Interface UnitThe Interface Unit is connected to the Server, and is used to route audio and power to selected loudspeakers, as required. The routing is controlled by a serial connection to the Server.It is also used to interface the Bathroom Door Reed Relay and Pressure Mat sensor, plus the Front Room Infra-Red PIR to the games port of the Server. Bathroom Door Reed Relay SwitchThe Bathroom Door Reed Relay is used to determine when the bathroom door is open and closed.The closing of the door is used when determining if the bathroom has been occupied and the Ambient Music System should activate. Bathroom Door Pressure MatThe Bathroom Door Pressure Mat is used to determine if the bathroom door is being closed from the inside or outside, and is used to detect egress from the bathroom. It is used by itself, and in conjunction with the Bathroom Door Reed Relay to determine whether the Ambient Music System should be activated or de-activated.Activation of the pressure mat is also used as a trigger to temporarily mute any wake-up alarm calls that are being produced by the Front Bedroom Loudspeaker. Bathroom LoudspeakersThe Bathroom Loudspeakers are used for the delivery of ambient music when the bathroom is occupied.Bush Internet Set-Top BoxThe Bush Internet Set-Top-Box is a standalone web browser which can be controlled by an infra-red remote control, and is designed to allow internet browsing on a television.The set-top box is connected locally to the Server to display television listings and other useful information on the television. Telephone ExchangeThe Bush Set-Top Box can only communicate with the outside world through a standard telephone dial-up connection, so it must be connected to a Telephone Exchange ( or line simulator ) to route its outgoing calls to another modem ( not shown ) connected to the Server, which acts as a dial-up remote access server.Satellite ReceiverAn old analogue Satellite Receiver is used to convert the composite video output from the Bush Set-Top Box into RF, which is mixed with the RF from a Sky digital satellite receiver and NTL cable TV box ( neither shown ).This allows the television to receive the display from the television listings as another television channel, so they can be selected at the push of a button on the remote control. Front Room SpeakerThe Front Room Loudspeaker is used to announce details of what programmes are on television when the house is initially entered, and to provide alerts for programmes which are starting when the room is occupied.The loudspeaker will also be used to announce the presence of emails and other useful information when the house is entered. Front Room Passive Infra-Red PIRThe Infra-Red PIR is used to detect when the front room has been entered and when it is occupied. The information is used to determine when, and what, information should be output using the front room loudspeaker.Occupation of the front room is also used as a trigger to terminate any wake-up alarm calls that are being produced by the Front Bedroom Loudspeaker. Front Bedroom LoudspeakerThe Front Bedroom Loudspeaker is used to provide wake-up call alarms and for the delivery of other useful information to encourage the Happy Hippy to get out of bed.The loudspeaker is fitted with a switch to allow temporary muting of alarm calls, and alarm calls will also be temporarily muted when the Bathroom Door Pressure Mat or Reed Relay is activated. The alarm calls are only terminated when occupancy of the front room is detected by the Front Room Infra-Red PIR. The current mechanism for muting and terminating the wake-up alarms is only suitable for a house with single-person occupancy. Web CamerasThere are a number of Web Cameras around and inside the house which are all connected to a Web Camera Multiplexer to select a single camera which will have its image captured. The wiring between the Web Cameras and the Multiplexer is not shown.Images captured from the Web Cameras are stored on the Server, transferred to the Desktop PC, and are subsequently uploaded to the internet, where they can be viewed online. Web Camera MultiplexerThe Web Camera Multiplexer selects one of a number of composite video sources and routes the selected channel to a single output. The selection is controlled by a serial connection to the Server.The wiring between the Web Cameras and the Multiplexer is not shown. The composite video output from the Multiplexer is fed to an Image Capture Unit connected to the Server. Image Capture UnitThe Image Capture Unit grabs an image from the Web Camera which has been selected by the Web Camera Multiplexer and stores these on the Server.Images are then transferred to the Desktop PC, and are subsequently uploaded to the internet, where they can be viewed online. SMS Base StationThe SMS Base Station is an old Nokia 2140 GSM mobile phone connected via a purpose-built serial interface to the Server.The SMS Base Station is controlled by SMS Messaging Server software, and is used to transmit TV listing information, and other messages to GSM mobile phones. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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First published on Tuesday the 18th of June, 2002 at 02:53:08
Last upload was on Tuesday the 23rd of September, 2003 at 18:20:24 |
