Remote PC Start up Tools & Siri proxy

This is a little project that is kept me occupied for some time now, partly to do with a few difficulties in implementation. But the idea is to allow me to remotely start my computer without having to find my way to the basement to do so.

So why would someone want to remotely start the computer? Well I download quite a bit of media which is stored on the hard drive of my desktop and I use media streaming to send this content to one of my gaming consoles so I can watch it in the comfort of my family room which is on the ground floor. My desktop PC is in the basement separated by a flight of stairs with big nasty scary teeth and with mobility issues, I don't always feel like taking the chance. Especially when the lighting conditions are a little dark. For some reason this really messes with my balance, making stairs downright hazardous at times.


I tried a couple different apps, and hit a few speed bumps on the way that were not expected. Here's what I found.

First off, the speed bumps

Every motherboard on your computer nowadays will have a wired network connection. If you go through the BIOS is just about guaranteed that it will support some sort of wake on LAN functionality. Simply enable it, and you should be good to go right?

Well, not so much.

I have an older Asus motherboard that those sales for wake on LAN. I figured this should be enough. Enabled it, set the magic package and would only work immediately after shutdown. The motherboard power savings would shut down the network connection is well after a period of time. This caused quite a bit of annoyance.

So for about $10, about it PCI express network card. This solves the problems. Once the BIOS was set, the PCI express port maintained power, even after the PC shutdown.


Secondly, not all routers will support away, and set up. In particular Linksys routers (which is what I have) don't allow you to set the subnet mask 255.255.255.255 which is required to forward the magic packet the subnet mask needs to be set to 255.255.255.128. Contact Linksys cares technical support via twitter. They were very helpful with me for sorting this out.

How does it work?

Very simply, we will be using a computer or a smart phone to send what's called a magic packet over your local area network to the desired (powered down) computer. Once you BIOSes appropriately set up, your network card essentially never sleeps and monitors the network for the appropriate magic package.

There are a couple ways to send this.

iShutdown Is probably about the easiest way to go. Simply install the app on your smart phone and then from the link here, install the service on your desired desktop. Once everything is installed, with your PC running simply search for the server via the smart phone app. It should detect it right away. This will allow you to remotely start and stop your computer and has a very nice interface. It's also very easy to monitor several computers if you so choose.

This simplicity makes it well worth the $2

Your next the best option would be to try send a magic packets with depicus.com. This is also a very good app. Works flawlessly, but is a little bit more technical as it exposes you to more of the raw details. It however also has the scanning function to find computers on your network. But what is very interesting, is that also offer a free wake on LAN packet sniffer which will allow you to view magic packets that are being sent and received by your PC. Very useful when you're setting things up to make sure things are going to the right places

This is also $2 on the App Store.

Then there is the Siri proxy… My personal favorite!

If you've already figured out how to get Siri proxy running on raspberry pie, this edition is actually really quite easy, and it's free! If you are running Debian like me. Go here for information on the install

• open terminal and type
  aptitude install wakeonlan 
• test the install
• run that but that this is packet sniffer on your PC.
  By default it should be on port 7
• type this into terminal
  wakeonlan -p 7 YOUR_MAC_ADDRESS
• if everything ends working correctly you should see something like this
  http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-monitor.aspx

Once you are sending and receiving magic packets from your raspberry pie to your PC via terminal, is just a simple matter of adding the recognition block into your Siri proxy script, editing your Mac address, rebundling and restarting your Siri proxy.

#wake on LAN-------------------------------------------------    listen_for /wake up my (computer|PC|desktop)/i do           say "waking up your computer"     system 'wakeonlan -p 7 YOUR_MAC_ADDRESS'     request_completed #always complete your request! Otherwise the phone will "spin" at the user!   end

And this should be enough to get your serial proxy sending magic packet.

But having set this up, if I decide to watch a movie I simply voice activate my iPhone, tell her to wake up my computer and within a minute or so the media servers visible on the network.

Very convenient, very fun. :-)

If you're looking to set up a wake on LAN, I hope this helps you set one up.

Reading without thumbs

It's been a long time now since my hands have let me hold on to anything. Papers are particularly a problem, and I can forget books. However I do want to keep up on my literature from time to time. I particularly enjoyed reading on my iPad. I have an iPad three, with the retina display which makes the reading experience really quite enjoyable. Sure, I can't use all of the features that easily anymore, but I can still tell the reader to scroll and or turn the page.

For a while I used a folding cover for in this worked okay for a while. But where I'm at now, this is extremely awkward to get set up and sometimes a pain in the butt to keep his position.

A while back, a friend of mine posted a picture of himself using something from the Apple store called a hover bar. This is essentially a flexible bar that you clamped to your table with a flexible arm which is about 2 feet long. Your iPad snaps into this, you bend it into position and it holds itself up right.

I thought this was quite a neat idea worth trying. They were however asking C$80 for it, which seemed a little bit much. So I decided to try an exact copy of it I found on Amazon.com for about $50 called a GMYLE® Black 360º One-way Clamp Adjustable Arm Stand . The only difference that I could tell was in the clamping mechanism. As opposed to using an Allen key, it has a built in arm to turn a screw on clamp.

I'm reasonably pleased with the purchase, I am however trying to figure out how to make the best use of it. Not quite worked out all the kinks yet. Is what works and what doesn't:

awesomeness:

• hold the iPad in position as advertised
• makes it possible to read fairly comfortably.
• Will support nearly unlimited positions and orientations
• you can clamp it just about anywhere (even a hospital bed if need be)

not quite so awesome:

• as my arms and hands are extremely weak, it can be very difficult to reposition.
• The ball joint on the back can be a little loose, causing the iPad pitch down out of position.
• once my iPad is clipped, there's absolutely no way I can get it out myself

Little bit of both:

• depending on what I'm doing, it can make it easier to access certain features or parts of the screen or more difficult. For example reading iBooks or magazine once it's open is much easier. However maybe pushing the "library" button within ibooks might be more difficult to reach.

All in all, I'm reasonably pleased with it. I don't know if I would have been quite as happy if I had purchased the $80 version and had the same difficulties with it. But for $50 it feels like money well spent and does help me keep reading and very pleasant format. The iPad is great for reading a wide variety of formats… I'm particularly enjoying the walking dead graphic novels and popular science magazines from the newsstand. Unfortunately it's not helping me get back into playing even some of the simpler games I have to pass the time (Magic the gathering on iPad is great).

final verdict?

Not totally sure… Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Honestly, little bit of both.

I had however hoped it would worked with Griffin Beacon as my remote. While it communicates fine, it doesn't help me with the ease of access. I still prefer to go back to my iPhone that.

It will however be a great set up for videos and Netflix.

So all in all, I have to admit I'm not totally sure if it's a 100% thumbs-up or thumbs down. It solves some problems but incurs a few others. So I'll say this, if you have the spare cash it's worth a try. I do enjoy being able to comfortably read again, and not being tethered to my PC to do so… So I guess that's a little more of that thumbs-up.

Siri proxy & Home Automation

Well crap.
That was only a matter of time…

If you been following my blog for some time, will no doubt noticed that this is not my first attempt to create some voice control for my home automation system. However at the time of my previous attempts, I was not aware of the Siri proxy, which is pretty awesome once you get working.

I first became aware of Siri proxy being used to drive home automation system while reading one of my favorite websites, life hacker. The article talked about Elvis impersonator who it created a plug-in to open and close his garage door and set the thermostat. Needless to say I found this to be pretty amazing, and far superior to anything I've attempted so far. So I went about looking into how to get this set up.

I've been wrestling with this for some time. First off, I didn't know anything about Ubuntu nor what would be the best way to install it. Particularly because of my dexterity limitations. Anyway, check out the results!

I have to say, I'm really quite pleased with the results. It was well worth the effort.

So what was required to get this up and running?

As mentioned, I had to first figure out how to work with Ubuntu and what was the best way to install it. For the time being, I'm running a bootable partition on my desktop PC. I am going to try to get a old PC/laptop running it 24/7. I also tried running it through virtual box. While the installation went smoothly, I had some difficulties getting Siri proxy up and running.

The and to create the functions for turning the light on/off or locking/unlocking the door, I had to figure out a little bit of Ruby script. Fortunately, modifying the sample plug-in is pretty straightforward and it's very easy to insert console commands to it, and fortunately I had already figured these commands out from my previous attempts…

If you would like to give it a try, here's the links to all of the resources you will need:

• Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/download
  Ubuntu is free to download and install. It is also very easy to install as bootable partition on your Windows PC
  Installation instructions http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/install-ubuntu-with-windows
• alternatively, you can run it through virtual box inside your Windows operating system (if your PC has enough power) https://www.virtualbox.org/
• this tutorial will walk you through the process http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox
• Installing Siri proxy
  once you have Ubuntu up and running in either one of these two options you will need to install Siri proxy through the terminal inside Ubuntu.
  follow these instructions, pasting each one after the other into the terminal window. https://github.com/plamoni/SiriProxy#set-up-instructions
• if you need a visual walk-through first, this webpage has a now outdated demonstration of how to install it. The process is very similar, but the commands have changed. It does give you a good feel for how to get virtual box installed and the process required to get Siri proxy up and running.
  http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/12/09/how-to-install-siri-proxy-tutorial-video/
  be sure to use the set of instructions on GITHUB, not the ones in the video!
• Getting Siri proxy to do what you want
  the easiest way to get started, and what I've done so far is to modify the example plug-in. You can find those instructions here https://github.com/plamoni/SiriProxy/wiki/Plugin%20Developer%20Guide

Even though Siri proxy is working super well for me, they do say that it is in an alpha state development now. Meaning it does have occasional issues and going through the proxy server, some of the voice commands or functions may not be quite the same/functional. For example the open app command still does work for any of the non-default applications. However it seems to not recognize programs like contacts or music. This also means that when asking to play a particular song or album e.g. "Siri, play album X" the proxy does not recognize this. Saying I do not have that album or artist. All in all, swapping one level of convenience for another. Not too big of a deal. Easily reverted by resetting your Wi-Fi IP. So what's next? Well I've ordered a few more light nodes and those of the most immediately useful to me. I would also like to add some thermostat control, however my house is kind of badly designed for that, making it cost prohibitive. (I have a number of baseboards on independent thermostats in the same room… Stupid)

Troubleshooting: If encounter a few issues about trying to get Siri proxy up and running, try the following: I found that the DNSMASQ may be interfering. You can try killing it with terminal command: killall dnsmasq If your server IP is showing 0.0.0.0 open .siriproxy/config.yml and set the IP which should be in the first or second line of the file to whatever the IP is for your machine Apparently there has been some issues with Siri proxy and Ruby DNSnot playing nice together… Edit line 56 in /home/<username>/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p0/gems/siriproxy-0.5.3/lib/siriproxy/dns.rb to look like the following: match(/guzzoni.apple.com/, Resolv::DNS::Resource::IN::A) do |transaction| Then perform siriproxy bundle iPhones are known to "leak" data over the cellular network even when connected to Wi-Fi. Try turning off cellular data. I performed these three steps, and Siri proxy consistently runs perfectly. Thanks to Elvis Impersonator for most of these tips!

Woo hoo!

It's apparently also possible to connect an IR blaster to my home automation system. This would then give me voice control over my TV, air conditioner and other IR devices (awesome!). This is up from more investigation…

Also in the process of trying to find a machine I can use for dedicated Siri proxy server. Raspberry_pi is an option, and you can find more about those on Elvis impersonator's page. I have to look into it a bit ourselves first to see if it's the best option for me.

One of my favorite things about the Siri proxy server is, as you see in the video I can unlock my door just by using my voice. As I walk up to my house, I reconnect to my Wi-Fi and the Siri proxy server, all I have to do is tell the door to unlock. Which is really great for me as I can no longer manage keys.

So all in all I found getting this up and running was challenging, but well worth the efforts.

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I would just like to take a second and give a shout out to Elvis Impersonator who contacted me out of the blue with a generous offer for help and advice. Be sure to check out his YouTube page and some of the other magic that can be done with Siri proxy and a Raspberry_pi!

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Additional Note (added 29th of July 2013)

be sure to check out the related blogs comparing the desktop installation to using a raspberry pi
http://pikespals.blogspot.ca/2013/06/raspberry-pie-versus-desktop.html

IPhone Jailbreak Fun

follow my attempts on twitter
#setmyiPhonefree

If you've been following my Twitter feed, you are no doubt aware that I've been playing with jail breaking my iPhone to see if I can find some additional functionality to make my life a little bit easier. I have found a few very good apps… And a lot of other things to sift through.

Here I will give a quick tour of some of the apps I've tried out. Specifically, I'm looking to find ways to improve my access to the phone and any improvements that can be made to Siri was an eye to trying to make it work with my home automation system. But first, for those of you who may not know… What does it mean to jailbreak your iPhone/iPad?

iOS jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations on Apple devices running the iOS operating system through the use of software and hardware exploits – such devices include the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and second generation Apple TV. Jailbreaking allowing the download of additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. (Source: Wikipedia)

If you would like to give it a try, the process of jail breaking is actually quite simple. Here's the information you'll need:

• life hacker: the always up to date jailbreak guide (these are the steps I followed)
• life hacker: why jail breaking is awesome!
• life hacker: before you do, things to consider… know the risks

Great! Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about some of the cool stuff we found.

Now if this is the beginning, there's an awful lot of stuff to sift through on the Cydia store. Most of it I don't find particularly useful, and a lot of it is out of date (particularly for the new iPhone 5). There is tons of fun stuff like applying seems to your iPhone. Not useful, but entertaining. For example, using the Winterboard app I now have an animated space invaders lock screen. Here's a list of apps I've tried and how useful I found them in coping with the disabilities provided by ALS.

Octopus Keyboard This is a keyboard replacement for the standard iPhone keyboard. Essentially it's a straight up ripoff of the keyboard you'll find on blackberries Z-10. Essentially it is an auto complete function built into it, popping up the words over particular keys. To complete the word, simply swipe upwards towards you typing area. I like this keyboard very much. A substantial improvement over Apple's auto complete function and perhaps the primary reason why I chose to jailbreak my iPhone. That said, with my dexterity limitations the swiping action can be a little bit tricky for me at times. Also I found it seems to work better on the iPhone if I turn off apples AutoCorrect. Also, I'm not sure that I can attribute this to the octopus keyboard. But I have noticed when I'm creating a little bit of a larger e-mail on my iPhone (usually through a combination of typing and Siri dictation) there is does seem to be a slowdown in responsiveness. I have no problems running it with IOS6. There are also a whole bunch of dictionaries that you can add to the keyboard for free. Cost: $5 USD octopus keyboard
Hands Free Control Does exactly what the title implies. Give you hands-free control to activate Siri. When enabled, you simply have to say the keyword (default is Siri) and if hands-free control is enabled Siri wakes up and waits for your commands. You can change the activation keyword features a comes preinstalled with five options and a number of customized sounds which are played when it activates or receives a command. You can also add your own custom keyword. So far I found this works very well and quieter environments. If there is a bunch of background noise, Siri is of course going to have issues recognizing your command (this is also a problem if you're using hands free to play music from your iPhone). It operates in low power mode to minimize strain on your battery. Nonetheless it is no additional cost and you can expect to see a shortened battery life. He does however have an option to only enable when it's on AC power. This is how I use mine, when pluged-in beside the bed at night hands-free is activated. This is quite useful, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'm looking to be able to tie it into my home automation system. Unfortunately Siri cannot open bookmarks or web links so I cannot fire the command to my vera home automation system at this point in time. I am however looking at running a Siri proxy in my home. If I can figure out how to get this rolling, that will make hands-free jailbreak several levels of pure awesome. I would literally be able to say "Siri, turn on the basement light"… Cost: $3 USD hands-free control
Assistant Extensions Unfortunately this is not yet compatible with IOS6. I have installed it and it doesn't run and a few things work. For example it will search YouTube just fine through Siri. However using assistant extensions to activate any of the system settings (such as toggle Bluetooth) it crashes the iPhone and reboots in safe mode. It promises additional chat bots, translator, YouTube integration and a few other features. It is also the building block for a number of other Siri plug-ins. Unfortunately none of those will work either until this is patched. But like I said other than YouTube nothing seems to work at this point in time. Here's hoping that when is compatible with IOS6 they will have a whole bunch more features to it. It looks promising… Cost: free… But unstable. Don't bother until it's upgraded. assistant extensions
Assistant Love This is another Siri extension which looked extremely promising and unfortunately didn't turn out to be quite as useful as I had hoped. Assistant love adds music integration to spotify and grooveshark allowing you to play from any of these sources as though you would a regular music. Unfortunately, living in Canada these services are not available :-( However, it also allows you to override the default navigation service. You could replace the Apple maps searched and directions with a number of other services providing you have them installed on your iPhone. For example I've replaced by default navigation voice search with that of Google maps. This is actually pretty cool. can't use an alias for a bookmark But the real promise behind assistant love, and why I bought it was that it also offered an "alias" functionality to start an app. In other words you could specify your own custom keyword to open a specific App. For example you could say "open my drive" as a command to open your Google drive or dropbox account. I thought this was great criminal exactly what I needed, unfortunately it will not accept home screen bookmarks nor a URL. Only an app. Had it done so, this would've been exactly what I need to interface with my vera home automation system. Other than that it does provide a few additional commands to toggle some settings. For example you can use assistant love to toggle Bluetooth/flashlight/Wi-Fi and your audio mode. I have found that being able to toggle the flashlight using hands-free control kind useful in the middle of the night. No messing with the light the bedside table ;-) All in all, there are some useful functionality within assistant love even without groove shark and spotify and worth the price. Cost: $2 USD assistant love

So for me, the next step is to look at setting up a Siri proxy. This is far more complicated and if I can get it working it will answer my needs for tying it into my home automation system. I would very much have preferred to use the aliases in assistant love. But will give this a try instead. If I can get this working… Well, check out what can be done with it!

So all in all, there is some very good apps available if you jailbreak your iPhone to help make it more accessible to you. Communicate by phone Joe broken for the time being and continue to look for new apps/functionality. The is also a lot of fun apps to be had, for example check out barrel. A real fun way to turns pages on your home screen.

These also check out some other reviews and writeups on these links. If you're considering jailbreak in, this is a great place to start helping you decide if it's worthwhile or not.

• best apps on Cydia gizmag review
• best jailbreak apps and tweaks life hacker
• make your iPhone read your mind by life hacker.
• jailbreak tweaks for IOS6 Idownloadblog.com

Home Automation, the 3rd Attempt

Introducing the "Jarvis Mod"

Wow. The Christmas holiday season can really get in the way of any plans you have for personal projects. I actually had the autohotkey script done at in early December, but all the obligations for this season and having the family around really slowed me down. Not that I am about that quickly anyway ;-)

Now I'm back to it. Introducing, the Jarvis mod for your Vera home automation system. But first a little back story.

We've talked before about how I'm starting to rely more and more on voice control for my computer. But that doesn't really help me out for the rest of my environment, so I started wondering if there was a way I could use voice to have some control over my environment. Ideally with minimal cost and using tools that are ready have.

The particular problem I was hoping to address was to be able to run my home automation system through my iPhone using Siri. I mean really, who would not want to be able to walk into their house speak a few instructions and have your environment respond to you in a similar way to what you see on Star Trek the next generation, or Jarvis (hence the name) from the movie Ironman.

Well, it turns out that there is!

Obviously, it's not going to be anywhere near as powerful as what you see in Star Trek or Ironman. However I can use Siri's existing functionality to send a message to my Vera Zwave home automation system. This is by definition a hack as it does use some digital duct tape and bailing wire to get this to work. But for my needs, it works very well. Check it out…

So how did I get this to work? As you can see from the video, I use the Siri to send a message to my computer via (a secret) e-mail. Microsoft outlook receives the mail, recognizes it and fires a rule to create a text file in a specific directory containing the contents of the e-mail. There is an auto hotkey script running on my PC which waits for this text file, parses its contents and then sends the appropriate notifications to my Z wave system.

It's probably easiest to visualize in the following chart.

The Jarvis script is at its core very simple. It is a simple text parser which reads the text for key phrases such as: "turn on the family room light". It doesn't use any fancy heuristic to figure out the meaning of the sentence. It simply looks for keywords in a sentence. In this case those words would would be "light", "on" and "family room". It doesn't care about the order, just their presence. I can however send multiple instructions via one e-mail using Siri. Each sentence is interpreted as one instruction. So I can have several sentences to fire several different devices. The script looks for the "." As a separator between instructions.

It is very easy to add more commands. Commands presently are:

• turn on/off the basement/living room light
• lock/unlock the door
• run scene <scene name>

Now obviously this is going to reason some security questions. As I for sure do not want some stranger firing an e-mail to my house and operating my devices. So I do have some security protocols built in. Outlook requires the message to be from a certain e-mail which will remain secret ;-) it is also easy enough to integrate a password requirement into the autohotkey  Script. This will be a simple day password (not yet implemented) where if it is absent from the script, Jarvis will not operate. It is also very easy to detect multiple, repeated attempts.

Also, I only activate my Jarvis script when I expect to need it.

Some might also ask why I chose to use autohotkey  n this way as opposed to simply firing the instructions via Outlook. While this is possible to do via the integrated VBScript in Outlook I would have to duplicate the same code into the Microsoft speech macros to get the same functionality. I.e. doubling my maintenance requirements. Any change to one would have to be made to both. In This Way, Outlook and the speech macros simply messengers. Any changes, modifications or updates are simply done in the Jarvis script only. Also by using autohotkey  it is very easy to add additional functionality to interface with any other system running on my computer. For example it would be easy enough to add commands to start iTunes and play music over my airplay system.

Unfortunately however, this Jarvis mod has been written to operate with my z wave system and PC set up. This means that unfortunately it will not be immediately portable into your environment. My intention here was to share the methods and show that it can be done. That said I will be including the text file with some additional instructions on how to do so. You will however require a basic autohotkey knowledge to know where to make the appropriate changes to your script.

Okay, I'll admit it… I just
wanted to use this picture ;-)

You can grab the Jarvis files here: the Z wave Jarvis Mod however the Windows speech macros are not yet included. Functionally, they will be nearly identical to the VBScript for Outlook.

(Update: as of 14/1/2013 speech macros are included and functional)

I will be working on a tutorial on how to properly set this up in improving the provided instructions.

So I think it's safe to say that the myth you can't extend Siri functionality or improve on your voice control functionality is pretty much busted ;-)That being said, I really should point out will once again that this script is more of a first functional prototype or a proof of concept rather than a final product. And by definition, is not really modifying the function of Siri or any of the other systems, but extending the functionality by tying them together through another script… By definition to me, this is a hack ;-) I will be periodically updating or reworking the script.

Hacking the Griffin Beacon

I've talked about the Griffin Beacon in a previous post and how the use of batteries really limited its function.So with these limitations in mind, and my desire to use the thing… Because it is far easier for me than a regular remote control… I contacted the tech department of my rehabilitation facility with the request to convert it to run off main power.

Now, this conversation has been going on for several months, and understandably the department is really quite busy. So I have no problems with the delay in terms of getting answers in part because my needs would quite as immediate. But finally I got an answer about two weeks ago explaining what could be done, here is some of what they suggested in the mail:

• I would have to send in the Griffin Beacon for modification
• this modification would void the warranty
• the modifications would cost around $90
• they recommended as an alternative to use rechargeable batteries or Ni-MH rechargeables 

Now after a couple months of playing e-mail ping-pong, this frustrated me a little bit so I decided to look into it myself.

First of all, looking at the bottom of the Griffin it runs on four AA batteries, which from my high school physics class tells me a maximum of 6 V when mounted in series. So it should be a very trivial thing to bypass the battery box and hook it up to in AC adapter.

My first idea was to find an adapter of matching power, spliced the lines and attach it to the relevant ports in the battery compartment. Oh right! My hands don't work… Dammit! Can't do it myself. So for some ideas I applied some Google-fu and very quickly found the following… How to modify your Griffin Beacon to use an optional AC adapter

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, this is almost exactly what I was thinking of. So I contacted my brother back in Vancouver as I know he has access to some of the resources. We talked about it briefly and he had pretty much the same idea as shown in the Griffin hack.

He went to work on it, finished it inside of 20 min. and put it in the mail. Two days later I had it here in Montréal, plugged in and working reporting a constant 60% power (we used a 5 V adapter instead of the 6 V) it's been plugged in and running for four days now…

The other reason I looked into this is because I really had some issues with the proposed solutions from the "experts"…

• estimated cost of $90
• the Griffin Beacon itself only costs about $70, I find it hard to justify an adaptation that exceeds the cost of the unit.
• My cost so far is about $15 for shipping, and $10 for the adapter. If you have someone can do it for you but you probably do it for a $1.50 as shown in the link…
• voiding the warranty
• the Griffin Beacon hack does not void the warranty as no internal components are modified
• there is no risk of fire or other hazard as we are using exactly the same power as provided by the batteries.
• use of rechargeable batteries
• yes there is a cost issue with changing the batteries, but in my case this was not so much the concern. Our batteries are purchased from Costco in bulk and therefore the individual unit is quite cheap. The greater issue for me, and while wanted this adaptation was so that we would not have to change batteries. I am unable to do so did my dexterity limitations.
  The Griffin Beacon hack completely removes the requirements for changing batteries.
• Ni-MH rechargeables suffer from the same replacement issues we are trying to resolve

we taped the Dowells as we cut them a touch short…

So once again being proactive pays off. I'm very much learning that you can go see the experts for advice, but it is not always in your best interest to treat their solutions as the only one. With a little bit of ingenuity and time, very often you will come up with solutions that are best for you. After all you are the one living the situation, they are not and at times they may not see the simplest of solutions for whatever reason… These can often be the best and most effective.

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that's right! This guy! Thanks!

I would also just like to take a second to give a shout out to Huy Le for his generous contribution to this blog! Thank you so much, it is greatly appreciated.

Pop me a note if there's something you'd like me to review specifically :-)

Home Automation, the second attempt…

Well, it's that time year again. Winter is coming… For me, as with most people with ALS dealing with the cold and snow can be quite a problem.Aside from the obvious problems of actually dealing with the snow, tripping, falling and of course cabin fever from being stuck in the house, I still actually do have to get out from time to time for various appointments and occasionally reasons of sanity.

I'm to the point now where I cannot get a coat on or off by myself and there are times during the day where I still need to go out. This usually means a quick run from the house to my Jeep. Spending as little time outside as possible. The Jeep fortunately has a remote starter so it'll be nice and warm by the time I get there. Fortunately, handicap parking also means I'm usually quite close to the entrance of wherever I'm going. So usually I'm only outside for about a minute, before I'm back inside again. Not enough time to really affect me.

Hey dude! Found your keys!

However, when I get home I do need to get back into the house rather quickly. Because if my hands get cold, I lose all the remaining function I have in my hands…and this can be a problem, as it usually means fumbling for my keys to unlock the door. Keys being small items, this is usually a problem and last year I was almost locked out of my house on more than one occasion.

This winter, I've lost significant dexterity in my hands since then…

So I set out on a quest trying to figure out if there were remote options to get into my house. The first item that came to mind was using an RFID card which I would simply need to hold near the lock. We had these for security reasons at work, and they work quite well. With the help of the social worker we contacted a local locksmith, he looked into it and came back with a quote of over $3000!

You said how much!?

Needless to say this quote was insane.

I figured my next bet would be to look into home automation options. I did some research around the Internet, but got little bit concerned about the set up. So I contacted a local installer. I explained to him my needs and he suggested a zigbee set up which would've cost upwards of $1000 for just a controller (the controller alone is over $500) and the door lock. This zigbee system also required licensing fees…

Needless to say, this book was also insanely over budget.

So I settled on building my own Zwave set up which I purchased from http://www.aartech.ca/. I called up the staff and spoke to a fellow by the name of Michael. He was extremely helpful and actually help you modify a little bit of my order. So, with his help I went about purchasing a controller lock combo for $400 and just for kicks I added a couple light controllers. I don't really need the light controllers yet, but I have one in the basement by my computer and it sure is handy to be able to turn the light on from upstairs so I don't have to navigate the stairs in the dark. The switch at this top of the stairs is starting to become a little bit difficult for me to reach, and I have concern for falling…okay, I guess this does qualify is a need ;-)

Set up of the controller was a little bit trickier than I thought it would be. Mostly because it we made the mistake of getting a little over excited and plugging in one of the light modules first. So what happened was, the instant we powered up the controller it immediately tried to connect to flight module. Blocking us from configuring it.

You can also can read more about the controller here: http://micasaverde.com/

So word of advice if you buy one of these, plug-in and set up the controller before you do anything else ;-)

Installation of the lock unfortunately cost me an additional hundred an additional $150 because the hole for my old deadbolt was a bit too small and we didn't have the tools to do it ourselves. So had to hire a locksmith. Kind of annoying, because if my hands were working this is something I could've done myself… But then again I wouldn't need the remote control if I could… I guess, the good old catch 22.

Once the lock was installed configuring it was really quite easy, once I got the master code in (my hands weren't cooperating). And now that everything is set up it works really quite well. I'm very happy with it.

On nice days, I can simply use the keypad. Or if I so choose, I can unlock the door or turn on any of the lights through any web browser, or smart phone. This means I can actually be sitting in the warmth and comfort of my Jeep or taxi  pull out my iPhone/iPad, unlocked the door and run into the house. And once in the house I can remotely lock both the Jeep (from its remote starter) and the door via iPhone or iPad using one of the mobile apps or the web interface.

One of the really fun things about the controller is I can set up to provide me with notifications. Meaning that it will either send me a text message or an e-mail, whichever I choose on certain events. For example, it can send me a message if the door is unlocked or if a certain key code is entered. I think this is pretty handy if you have kids who are due home at a certain time… This system can also be integrated to many of the others the waste product's.

At the moment I'm using the Vera mobile app. It's free and works quite well. There are several on the iTunes store, and some of them are ridiculously expensive for what they are, especially considering that there are free alternatives. Such as this one…

So, all told I got my house set up with the home automation system for a little less than $700. It would have been less if I didn't have to hire a locksmith. It really didn't take long to set up but I did need the help of somebody with functioning hands for simply plugging in the devices and the controller.

Pro:

• relatively easy to set up
• much cheaper than many of the alternatives
• very easily accessible through the web, smart phones and tablets (I have both an iPad and iPhone)
• can relatively easily be tied together with other automation through your PC…I'm working on something, more on that later ;-)
• shipping from http://www.aartech.ca/ was blindingly fast

Con:

• $400 is still a pretty hefty hit in the pocketbook.
• I've had a few synchronization issues over the Internet with the door lock. it works fine but does not always report the correct state. This does not seem to be an issue when I'm on Wi-Fi

Cost breakdown:

• $400 for the Vera 2 controller and they Yale lock
• $80 for two light control units
• $150 for the locksmith to modify the door and installed the lock.

Recommendation:
if you're looking for some environmental controls and need a less expensive set up, this is a great way to do it and the guys at http://www.aartech.ca/ were really helpful.

Environmental Controls, The First Attempt

As my hands lose dexterity, one of the things I've been thinking about for a long time is to have various options to control my environment.I've been looking into all sorts of remote control options but the first one I decided to try was a little bit of an impulse buy called the Beacon by Griffin technologies. It's a device that allows you to turn your iPhone (there's also an android version) or iPad into a very powerful remote control for your home entertainment.

It's an IR repeater that you controlled via Bluetooth from your iPhone or iPad. It is very easy to control and set up and have managed to get it working for my sharp TV, my PVR and my Xbox 360 with nearly no difficulties. And by signing in all of my settings are synced across my IOS devices… Which is really cool as I have an iPhone and a iPad.

As I mentioned it was a bit of an impulse buy one day wandering to the Apple Store. The also had another device that turns the iPhone into an IR controller called the VOOMOTE. This was interesting but a plugged into the bottom of the iPhone and seemed rather small and fidgety. So for this reason I opted to try the Beacon instead. I felt that I would spend too much time looking for the remote and of course with failing dexterity, trying to plug it in would no doubt frustrate me and this is exactly the problem I was trying to solve. I'm finding the regular remote control is becoming rather fidgety and difficult to hold onto and the buttons are not that easy to press most of the time. My iPhone however is still nice and easy to hold on to and is usually never too far from me. Being a touch sensitive screen requires no force to press down and even though my hands right now are starting to curl up, I could still hold a stylus.

One feature I really like about the Beacon is that once you installed the free DIJITE app which you need to operate it, you specify your television service provider and your iPhone will actually update with the TV Guide for what's on. This is a great way to browse without actually flipping the channels.

For me the biggest downside about the Beacon is the fact that is battery powered only, requiring four AA's. On the surface this is really sound like that much of the big deal until you realize that as long as your Bluetooth is on on the iPhone the Beacon will try and stay connected. It will only shut itself off after his been out of contact with your Bluetooth device for one hour. What this means is that even if you are not actively using it, there is a "keep alive" heartbeat going on between the Beacon and your iPhone gradually diminishing the battery. Not to mention if you happen to forget to shut off your Bluetooth connection after you shut off your TV, or have them for bait you go to bed.

Consequently the beacon in my experience tends to eat batteries and because of this I tend not to use it as much as I would otherwise like to. With my hands the way they are, changing batteries by myself is a pain in the butt. It's sad that this is the unfortunate reality because I really do like the device. It's very easy to set up and use and can be used across a wide variety of IR devices. the Beacon can even learn IR signals so it can operate devices that wasn't originally intended for, like your air conditioner for example.

Cost: C$70
Pro:

• relatively inexpensive way to use your smart phone or tablet to control your devices
• very easy to set up and use
• I love having the TV Guide on my iPhone or iPad

Con:

• the Beacon eats batteries

Recommendation: although the Beacon works extremely well and a very much like it, however I cannot recommend it because of the ridiculous battery consumption and what I consider to be a rather large design flaw with the keep alive between the iPhone and the beacon.

Loose Change and Sanity

Occasionally getting out of the house to maintain contact with the rest of the world is often a good thing. Even if it is just to be around other people. One of my preferred destinations is to go to Starbucks just to grab a cup of coffee.

Now as you may have noticed from previous posts, I like my coffee.
I do have to admit that I have a certain bias to Starbucks. My first serious girlfriend worked as a barista their, so let's just say I  have a certain Pavlovian conditioning to the smell and the green aprons ;-)

One of the problems I tend to have is that for small transactions, you have a tendency to paying cash. It just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to bust out the credit card for $1.50. This then of course means that you are getting a handful of change back, and with the state of my hands this is very difficult to manage. I usually end up dropping it and if nothing else trying to figure out what to do with it later on… And I can pretty much forget about trying to use it to pay for my coffee the next time around…

Because of this, I decided to start using the Starbucks prepaid card thinking that fumbling with the card from my wallet would be much easier to manage than a whole bunch of coins. For the most part this proved to be pretty much the case.

Shortly after I discovered the Starbucks iPhone app which is really pretty cool. Not only does it have a whole bunch of extra features for things like finding the nearest Starbucks, but you can actually link to your prepaid card/account and then use your phone to pay for your purchase.

For me this is great, it eliminates with all the dexterity issues associated with dealing with cash and coins. Not to mention to a lesser degree, the prepaid card itself. On top of that, my phone is usually in the side pouch of my grab it pack and being much larger it is much easier for me to manipulate. The only pain in the but I would give it is a from time to time I have to re-login and enter my password… Which is now become a bit fidgety to do.

There are a few things about this that I find a particularly cool:

1. the iPhone app will show you the running balance on your card.
2. There are several options to reload dollars onto your card either via the Internet or via the app itself.
3. Starbucks offers a pretty good reward program starting with free refills and syrup, and ending with some free coffee :-)
   of course you can see how many rewards points it accumulated via the app as well.

Now some of you might be thinking "well duh! I've been using prepaid cards for ages". But sometimes we just don't see the obvious solutions that are staring us right in the face, and dealing with ALS a friendly little nudge can be really helpful… More stories on that one later ;-)

It's official! Siri is coming to iPad

Siri Learns some new tricks and is coming to iPad

some general news about iOS 6 and some more details about the new siri update
http://lifehacker.com/5917484/the-new-features-coming-to-ios-6?tag=updates

Siri personal assistant coming to iPad?

It looks like the Siri personal assistant for the iPhone 4s is going to be coming to the iPad on iOS6! you can read about it here on 9to5 Mac.

Now, if your hands are like mine this is a pretty big deal as it will make a whole bunch of the iPad's functionality much more accessible.

So far I've been very impressed with the iPad threes voice to text functionality, but it's limited in its accessibility. Basically the way it works right now is anywhere you have access to the keyboard, you have access to the voice dictation function. Siri however will allow you to all sorts of things simply by pressing the home button such as create e-mail, reminder, search for something on the web, etc.

Is a video of what Siri can doon the iPhone 4S… Hopefully all this functionality will be available to the iPad. This is some great news! I can't wait!