Brilliant Living and Brilliant Lighting

Mac OSXBMC Becomes Plex

The open source media player for the Mac formerly know as OSXBMC has a new name - Plex. In the words of developer Elan - Think Mediaplex, Movieplex, but more than movies and media, obviously.....The suffic -plex actually means comprising a number of parts ...
Pronto TSU9600 Wall Docking Station

AV Custom Design company Polar Bear Solutions has announced a new in-wall docking station for the Philips Pronto TSU9600. As well as holding/charging the remote the dock also has four hard buttons of its own which are available even if the Pronto is not docked. These can be interfaced to a 3rd party lighting system for scene control for example. The dock is currently in the final stages of testing and should be available by September '08....
M3Pod Smart Home System
M3Pod is a new home automation product. Here's a quick video showing how adding the £4,000 system it's helping US builders to sell new homes to customers working in high tech companys looking for an integrated system... _hf9d92v-38
Drobo SDK Means uPnP, BitTorrent & More

Data Robotics have just released an SDK for their Drobo Storage Robot. What does this mean? Well additional functionality that you may be running a PC 24/7 to obtain will now be available on Drobo. The sorts of features expected are UPnP, iTunes and FTP servers, plus BitTorrent clients. ...
AH0014 - Perceptive Automation

Show AH0014 features an interview with Matt Bendiksen from Perceptive Automation. We talk about their home automation software solution for the Mac - Indigo. Even if you're not a OS X user there's plenty of interesting chat including the differences between X10 and Insteon hardware, what it's like being a developer of a home automation system and the potential of the iPhone and iPod touch as a smart home controller... http://blip.tv/file/get/Markmccall-AH0014PerceptiveAutomation395.mp3iTunes (http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p(2554)a(1029496)g(32244)url(http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=278604675)) | Miro (http://subscribe.getmiro.com/?url1=http://automatedhome.blip.tv/rss) | Zune (zune://subscribe/?Automated%20Home%20=http://automatedhome.blip.tv/rss) | RSS (http://automatedhome.blip.tv/rss) | Right Click to Download (http://blip.tv/file/get/Markmccall-AH0014PerceptiveAutomation395.mp3) (36 Minutes - 16.6MB) Check out the show notes after the jump for all the links to the subjects covered...
Cytech Launch new Comfort Door Stations & Keypads

Cytech Europe Limited announces the launch of new door stations and keypads for their Comfort Intelligent Home System. Comfort links voice prompted home security with all aspects of smart home technology in one system...
Some Forums Really Sadden Me

I made my way to a well known Audio Visual forums site to post a question on my AV Receiver dilemma. While I was there I noticed a thread on the AlertMe system where potential purchasers were looking for information on the alarm. As we have pretty much the only proper in-depth review of the system plus a podcast with the company itself I posted those links.This morning my posts have been deleted off the forum in question. This has happened to me before at the same site and is apparently because I'm posting links to my site without paying them to advertise!! Posting links on forums is normal practice, and with around 5 posts in my three year membership I can hardly be classed as any sort of spammer. It's a hugely successful site and it's hard to believe they feel threatened by our little corner of the interweb. They can of course live without links to our site (no matter how highly relevant they are). And of course we can live with out them, but this sort of pathetic draconian censorship only does their members a disservice.
Plug&Play GSM Access Control

Here's a great little device that promises a 10 minute plug play DIY installation to your existing access control system. You can authorise up to 2,000 users and restrict them by day, date and time. The system also holds a log of access details and you can use your own SIM card or buy a low cost plan with the unit. Use it to replace your existing keyfobs or even as a backup to them, it's available now for £195+vat...
Threshold Readying Launch of new Home Automation System

Threshold Corp have been developing their new smart home system for around 4 years now and they're due to launch to market in the next few weeks. The system uses a central controller to talk to a range of Wi-Fi based wireless modules all of which can be added to the secure network in seconds using their new ConfigSpot technology. Check out the video after the jump...
TVIX M-6500A 1080P Media Player

TVIX describe their HD M-6500A V2 as the Most Advanced Jukebox on the Planet . It's a media player with support for a mulitude of codecs including H.264 MKV, AVCHD and FLAC. Files right up to 1080p are supported through its HiDef HDMI (v1.3) port. Available with or without a SATA hard drive, prices start at £299...