> I am looking for a way to turn on and off electrical appliance (220V) > from a computer program. > does anyone know where I can get a power switch with some interface to a > computer > (serial/parallel/usb/scsi/pci card/whatever) > of course, I need it work under linux.
There is a project at sourceforge that works with home automation, to do this sort of thing. it is called misterhouse (it runs on perl, in linux and windows). I have played around with it a little. http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ As for the hardware side of things, there is a standard protocol called X-10, which communicates through the power lines in your house. you can then plug in switches, lights sockets, etc. it is possible to buy x-10 interfaces to the computer (usually via the serial port) to send x-10 signals at the appropriate times. I know of two companies in europe that sell 230V equipment (but I haven't ordered from either of them so have no reccomendations): http://www.intellihome.be www.laser.com and one in israel (again no experience with them): www.plonter.co.il (look for x-10) A much simpler (and cheaper) do-it-yourself solution is to build a switch from your parallel port. details at in the Home-Electrical-Control HOWTO http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Home-Electrical-Control/index.html (again i haven't built one of these either but plan to) Jason ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
