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How Many of You Would Use Something Like This?

nickspohn

nickspohn

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 9, 2007
3,592
0
Basically, you can use it to turn on and off lights or anything you plug in, have a timer for electrical devices, thermostat control, sprinkler system, look doors or basically anything to do with your house that can be controlled at your house. It would work something like this: http://www.icontrol.com/ But slightly different, i also don't think that will follow through.

You don't have to have a monthly service. All you would have is basically a little adapter that plugs into each outlet you want controlled, or whatever you want controlled, and you can have them controlled via your iPhone on WiFi. The adapters would be cheap of course, and very small and unnoticeable.

List of things you could possibly control:
Outlet control - Turn things on and off
Garage door open / close - Can display if it is open or closed on your iPhone
Sprinkler control
Lock doors (this would be kind of hard)
Thermostat control
Timer, so stuff turns on and off ahead of time.
Turn all your electrical equipment off at night so you aren't wasting electricity.
Fish tank control :)D)

How many of you would like to have something like this? I know the people and supplies to create something like this with ease, and especially once the app store is out.

Thoughts? Different ideas?
 
I'd use that as long as the adapters weren't expensive. It would be great for a lot of things! Sounds like a great idea, if you can do it, you should! I'd probably buy it.
 
i want something that would make my garage door open. My stupid door opener is broken!!

Actually, we have a LOT of fish tanks that NEED to be on timers because of the plant life and such, so that would be pretty neat, not to mention making your house nice and cold BEFORE you get home from work with an automatic on and off that works from your office.

Another NEAT thing i read about for people with fish tanks is a program that automatically checks the temperature and the water conditions of your tank and send your an alert if anything gets off or parameters start to get dangerous. THAT would be cool to have..We had a heater in our tank short and litterally BOILED our fish alive which was really sad.. AND EXPENSIVE as they were atleast $75 a piece
 
Yep. It's harder said than done, but just imagine a little plug that goes into an outlet that has a little WiFi chip. If it's small enough and would only require a wireless b signal, maybe like $5 per outlet?

You could control 8 things for $40? Seems pretty good. No monthly or yearly fee either.
 
Lind, those are amazing ideas. The garage door opener is a good idea, but what's weird is that i had THE SAME thing happened with our fish tank. Damn heater...
 
My dad's company (Novus Edge) already does a ton of this stuff.. and like you said, it goes beyond that of iControl... in fact my dad and one of the CFOs of iControl are pretty good friends:p

I think the controlling of locks is usually done with electromagnets instead of bolt systems. You could even have your iPhone connect to your WiFi when it gets in range and you get close to your front door and it unlocks it automatically!

Cool stuff I think :)
 
I think products like this already exist. The trick here is using the iPhone and its incredible interface to connect with the system. If its done right, I would be all over it.
 
Some pretty good ideas..... now if people could actually pull this off that would be great!

Don't know about this idea but just brainstorming...... maybe it could also unlock your car doors too when walking to your car from the parking lot and stuff. Kinda like someone who mentioned locking and unlocking your doors to your house.... well the same thing except with your car. Actually I just remembered that most people already have a clicker thing that does this exact same thing......nvrmind lol
 
I know stuff like this exists, but it is mainly for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. The app will be available via the AppStore.
 
ipodtouchy333 said:
Some pretty good ideas..... now if people could actually pull this off that would be great!

Don't know about this idea but just brainstorming...... maybe it could also unlock your car doors too when walking to your car from the parking lot and stuff. Kinda like someone who mentioned locking and unlocking your doors to your house.... well the same thing except with your car. Actually I just remembered that most people already have a clicker thing that does this exact same thing......nvrmind lol
Click to expand...

Haha yeah, cars already have the clicker...
 
the only problem that i would forsee with this is how is a house sitter supposed to function in your house? I GUESS You can just entirely disarm the system, but i wouldnt want to give my iphone to the person who is staying at my house taking care of my animals because i want to KEEP it when i travel.

Also, just an overall temp. gauge for your house would be nice. We have a basic alarm system that, if it gets too cold inside the house, will signal a call to the dispatch center and they will then call me to tell me that there might be something wrong with my home heating system. This, to me, is NESSESARY because i have pets in the house that need a certain temperature, so if the heat fails, my animals could die, so i LOVE having that peace of mind.. Integrating that peace of mind to a cell rather than an alarm company is not a bad idea.

Also, another GREAT feature would be to apply the SAME technology to sump pumps. My company manufactures them, and there are some remote boxes, but there are not any chargers that would send out a signal outside of the home if a charger were to fail.. So basically if you are at work during a big rain storm and your sump pump turns on, you can get a message that the pump is on, then if power goes out and the back up charger has to kick in, then you will get another one telling you that back up battery has taken over. If that fails and the water hits the sensor and the alarm sounds inside the house, you will get another message saying sump pump failed and you can (hopefully) run home and fix it. I fyou want info on sump pumps, i can help!
 
oh yea, and i just LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of having the security camera integrated into that site so you can see what is going on inside the house. Not nessesarily for security (in my case) but more for that fact that i really would love to see what the hell my cats do while i am out of the house.. i come home a tornado every freaking DAY
 
There would more than likely be a website from where you can control it as well, that would look exactly like the iPhone's app does. (This would be limited to iPhone / iPod users at first) So in case something does happen to your phone and you need to access it.

You could also just disable all the things and have them do the manual option, which would be like not even having this whole system in your house.

I'm loving your ideas lind. I'm going to talk to a few people tonight and this week to see what comes up and what i can do. I like the pet idea, and the sump bump idea is great as well!
 
i would invest in this for sure if it all worked well, even if i just had one or two items, i would for sure go for it.

my main feature request would be for control outside of wifi, over network, which im sure is mor than feasable.
 
Would that be possible?

For your say 3G iPhone to connect to your router, and then have the router control the things inside the home? Would you need a computer that is on, connected to the router to tell the router what to do?
 
I love the idea, and to be honest, it's the first thing that came to mind when the SDK was announced. I think it would be great for people with disabilities to be able to have something like this.

That being said, from a hardware/firmware engineers point of view I doubt that you would be able to do this it at the costs that you're suggesting though.
 
Hmmm, $10-$15 an outlet? I of course don't know the costs, but if it's going to be costly just for one thing, then i don't really want to pursue in it.


We just need something with little housing, a wifi chip, and maybe a little chipset on it. Idk i'm a noob when it comes to that, that's why i hire people to make it.
 
Hmm... Just to expand on what I said earlier, I would like some of the following things. I think some of them are unrealistic though, so ignore the insane stuff :D:

Garage Door Opener,
Lights (and Fan) On / Off
Timer
Sprinkler
Thermostat
Water Hose (Don't know how you would do this one.)
Change Channel on Cable Box and Turn off TV (I wouldn't need a remote ever again! Don't know if this is possible.)
Function as an Apple Remote
 
do you have the capabilities to actually make this happen?

im not doubting you, im just wondering if you have the funds and time to make this happen or just a kid with an idea.
 
I would buy it...

I'd love a front door camera (and interior camera for when we were away). I'd love to look at my iPhone to see who's at the front door. Wouldn't it be neat to see and talk to your delivery man (speaker at the front door) while you were out-of-town from your iPhone.

Yep, we'd buy it.
 
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