Home Automation

If you’ve got the money to have a dedicated room as your home cinema, and you want to make the cinema experience complete (and then some), you need these, Oscar Home Cinema Seating.

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Here at CG, we’re always on the look out for gadgets that not only make your pool experience more high tech, but easier. First there was the remote control pool skimmer, then the wireless pool monitor. Both were designed to make it easier to keep the pool clean and balanced. But let’s face it, you still have to hassle with chlorine, pool shock and conditioners. And although these gadgets make it easier, they certainly don’t take the place of pool maintenance.

Well now there may be something from Smart Home that completely does away with the hassle of balancing your pool chemicals altogether. The Solar Powered Pool Purifier floats in your pool as it treats it with mineral ions that condition the pool and keep it green free by halting the growth of algae and other microorganisms by 80%. In fact, the Pool Purifier makes the pool water so safe, it meets the EPA established drinking water standards!

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It looks like it belongs in a Motel 6, but the Shower Timer can easily fit in your shower and not only monitor how much time you spend in the show, but control it. This can be a great benefit for a dad with several kids fighting over shower time in the morning.

Able to be programmed from 1 – 12 minutes, the Shower Timer also has a visual time which counts down in minutes and then seconds to let you know how much water you have left to rinse your hair before it shuts off. Just before it does, an audible beeper even chimes to let you know the end is nigh. Then, if you decide you want more time under the water, you’ll be discouraged from doing so as the Shower Timer has a pre-determined waiting period before you can turn it on again.

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For the past year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has tested photovoltaic roofing products on roofs in Maryland. And the results are rather encouraging – with solar power efficiency varying from 6 to about 16 percent.

Based on various kinds of roofing products – ranging from tile, slate, and the single most popular shingle, all have photo-voltaic cells and surrounding inactive areas where roofers can secure them the old fashioned way – with a hammer and nail.

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When I visited Epcot Center at Disney World for my honeymoon in 1994, one of memorable products I saw showcased was a prototype robotic lawnmower. Well, in 2007 K.A. Home Robotics has introduced the LawnBot for those of us who don’t live in the “experimental prototype community of tomorrow.”

The LawnBot isn’t related to iRobot’s successful and innovative Roomba, but it does share similar features. Working autonomously by means of its preprogrammed computer and a perimeter cable, the LawnBot can mow up to three separate sectors totaling 33,000 square feet and then return itself to its recharging dock.
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Sure, you want to make an affordable robotic/networked/embedded linux/mechatronix platform.

But, then you say to yourself,, “Self,, where would I find such a thing?”

Charmed Labs is where, and QWERK is what you’re looking for.

Their friends at the Carnegie-Mellon Robotics Institute have developed the TeRK Telepresence Robot Kit it uses theQwerk base units to operate.

They’ve got a great page that has robots you can make, tells you what tools and parts you need exactly, and even where to get them! It’s great!!

Finally people have a shot at making useful, powerful robotic applications at a small scale, and learning how to go about it for a “reasonable” price (let’s face it, sometimes 349.00$ is a tad harder to come by than we want to admit, especially for you brainiac younglings). Read the rest of this entry »

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Everyone knows how the Japanese love their toilets, complete with butt washers, heated seats, and all. I suppose that’s the culture there, since even public toilets come with high tech bidets that wash your butt the moment you finish laying a log or two. Japanese toilet manufacturer Inax has recently lifted the curtain on its 2007 Satis Asteo Washlet toilet, offering a glimpse to the rest of the world on just how important the Japanese place the toilet in their lives. What makes the Satis Asteo Washlet different from the rest of our toilets are fourfold in nature which we’ll explore after the jump.

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IRobot’s patented intelligent cleaning technology now has olympic size dreams with it’s new Verro Poolbot. Promising to automatically clean and entire pool from floor to waterline, the Verro uses the same artificial intelligence as their popular Rooma and Scooba models, plus the standard tools used by manual pool vacs. The result is a clean and filtered pool in a little over an hour.
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