Tristan Phillips's Blog

It’s pretty much always been the case that if you want to schedule your home automation, you need to be running an always on PC or server in you house.  This costs money and is a pain.  Not anymore!  HomeAutom8 now allows you to configure your schedule on the site and will execute it for you from the cloud!

I often get asked how to install HomeAutom8 on a PC and use it for scheduling commands.  Although HomeAutom8 does not require the use of an always on pc, as you can use the iPhone client iAutom8, for more advanced usage, such as scheduling events or iteration with other pc based software, it can be useful.

I’m writing this tutorial assuming your always on PC is running a flavour of unix, I’m going to assume Ubuntu / Debian.  I personally use a SheevaPlug for my always on needs.

Firstly, as the HomeAutom8 PC client is cross-platform you will need to install the Mono runtime on your server.  

> sudo apt-get install mono-complete

Now you need to get homeautom8.exe onto the box

> wget http://www.homeautom8.com/iAutomate/downloads/HomeAutom8.exe

Check this works

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -?

You should see a help description.

HomeAutom8.exe needs to be run once in GUI mode so you can log in and it can retrieve information about your setup from the cloud.  So install and run HomeAutom8.exe on your favourite GUIfied OS and login.  We are going to be needing the HomeAutom8.data file that is generated and sits in the same dir as the exe.  We need to get that on to our always on server.

You should be using ssh to manage your server, so ON YOUR GUI machine:

> sftp theuser@youralwaysonhost

Login

> put HomeAutom8.data

> exit

Now, reading the help description we can see that a terminal HomeAutom8 command looks something like this:

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -p “My House” -r “Living room” -d Lamp -O

Thats an O for Octopus to turn a device on or a little o (for orange) to turn it off.  You can dim a device by providing -l with a % number (thats l for lion)

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -p “My House” -r “Living room” -d Lamp -l 50

Would dim the lamp to 50%

And thats it! You now have homeautom8.exe on your always on pc and can move on to fun with schedules.