So that's what I'm going to do. But first, what am I creating?

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For a very long time I've wanted to make my house smart. I've only ever really tried LinuxMCE, after which I got sidetracked for years trying to get MythTV to work properly. Which never happened, so I finally switched to tvheadend & XBMC. And suddenly I got all this free time on my hands.

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Yes, I'm creating an open source home automation system built using Node.js called "elric"

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There are already a few similar projects out there, but they didn't appeal to me. Because of what language they were written in (Ew, java), or how specific the code was, ...

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So, here's a simple explanation of the system. There are a few screenshots down below, btw.

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Elric: what can you do with it?

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Here are some features that are implemented, or are on my to-do list:

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Control devices through the web interface
Monitor your house through security camera's
Get audio (text-to-speech) response from Elric
Use speech recognition
Detect where people are (using camera's, motion detectors, bluetooth, ...)
Create extensive scenarios by acting upon emitted events (movement, voice commands, time of day, ...)

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Server-client architecture

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Elric is composed of a single server, and many "clients", which can perform many capabilities.

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You can run everything on only 1 computer, but you can also easily add a client in every room of the house in order to install audio input & output, bluetooth beacons (for positioning), Motion instances, Home Automation interfaces (I'll be using about 3 RFXCOM interfaces spread around the house), ...

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Screenshots

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The Motion Plugin

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