Another tweak for the Griffin Beacon

I've talked about Griffin Beacon before. It's a great way to control your to television and PVR from your iPhone or android device. But as we discussed it does have a few issues. We talked about a result the battery consumption issue but the one remaining pains in the butt is that the device will go to sleep if it is been without Bluetooth communication to your device for over an hour.

So if you come back from having left the house safer groceries and doctors appointment or something. The device is off and there's no way to wake it up without touching it. And sometimes, my helper leaves before I realized the place has been turned off. Needless to say, without the function of your arms or a stable ability to walk this is a problem.

So it occurred to me that after the move I had an extra controller for my Vera home automation which was no longer being used. So I thought, why not plug my hacked Griffin Beacon into the control switch? This way, using my iPhone I simply have to cycle the power to the beginning. When the power comes back on, the BK wakes up in searches for my phone. Automatically connecting.

BOOM! Problem solved.

The downside to this is that the typical Vera visual switch runs about $40-$50. So it might not be the best solution to run out and buy one. But in my case, it was no longer being used so this worked out perfectly :-)

Sadly however, it would seem the grifin beacon has been discontinued.