Smart Home Blog

Recently Aeon Labs introduced its new Z-Wave device – Home Energy Meter. It doesn’t need Electrician for installation and gives you a full picture of your home energy consumption. Traditionally the meter contains two parts – clip to connect to the main wire and transmitter which sends wattage and kilowatt-hours to the central controller using wireless Z-Wave protocol.

Additionally to the Home Energy Meter Aeon Labs announced another two new products – Minimote remote control to manage all Z-Wave devices in your house and Z-Stick – USB Z-Wave adaptor to use PC or some other device (ASUS WiFi router 500g, for example) as Z-Wave controller.

[via AutomatedHome]

Apple hit the media community releasing the next generation of its Apple TV. It’s incredibly small and stylish as all Apple’s products. And it supports HD video and costs just $99! But many of us would like to compare it with a few others devices available on the market. At least briefly. Thanks to Engadget, we can do it. Competitors of Apple TV in that comparison are Roku HD-XR, Popbox, LG Blu-ray player BD550, PS3, Xbox 360 and WDTV Live. As you may see at there are at least two big disadvantages of new Apple TV – lack of 1080p support and impossibility to watch media from local non-Mac storage. Sure if you’re living in US and happy with online services such Netflix or iTunes the Apple TV might be a perfect choice for you. But even though think about Roku which offers for the same money FullHD support and more online services.

Sometimes we want to show photos stored on the laptop directly to TV or watch some Youtube video on the big screen together with friends. Sure it’s possible to connect the laptop and TV using either HDMI ot VGA cable but you have to be near it and again that wires. But there is a much more elegant way to stream media from your laptop to the TV. To do that you can use HP Wireless TV Connect or ASUS WiCast EW2000. Both sets include two parts – USB-powered transmitter connected to the laptop or PC via HDMI and receiver, connected to TV via HDMI and allow to transmit even FullHD video without lags!

At the first glance ASUS WiCast EW2000 seems more attractive. It’s more compact and looks better. But its price is not known while HP Wireless TV Connect is tagged at $199. So, will see how much will be ASUS product.

There is a more compact wireless solutions to stream media from PC to TV. For example, Imation Link Wireless A/V Extender. But it supports resolution only 720p for video and 1080p for photos. And if you choose it you’ll save $50.

Yesterday the first beta of the next XBMC version Dharma was released. The biggest new feature there is the Add-ons system. Now all functionality that doesn’t belong the core of XBMC will be an addon. As result, it’ll be much easier extend base functionality.

Dharma Beta1 builds are available now for all OS. Just visit the download page to get desire one. But be very careful with upgrade existing system. Backup everything you need and be ready to submit new bugs.

[via XBMC]

TiVo Slide Remote control with QWERTY keyboard is available on TiVo website at $89.99. The keyboard doesn’t use RF as I expected. Except that it uses Bluetooth. The Slide Remote is compatible with TiVo Premier / Premier XL DVRs as well as with TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL units.

It’d be really nice to use such remote not only with TiVo products. But I’m afraid we have to wait QWERTY remote from Boxee Box.

UPDATE: according to Engadget review of the TiVo Slide Remote it works fine with any PC as ordinary Bluetooth keyboard.