But enough technical talk.  Lets get to serious business.  Here I have a little RoomieScript that I wrote, just as a proof of concept.

<RoomieScript>
  <ZWave.PowerOff DeviceName="Coffee Pot" />
  <Core.Loop>
    <ZWave.WaitForChange DeviceName="Coffee Pot" PollInterval="5 Seconds" />
    <ZWave.PowerOff DeviceName="Coffee Pot" />
    <RoomieBot.TextDavid Text="No coffee!" />
  </Core.Loop>
</RoomieScript>

Here Roomie waits until the coffee maker is turned on, then turns it off and sends me a terse text message. Yes, it works!  And yes, I do use Roomie for legitimate things, but ah… it’s so just that much fun to be dumb.

Interested in beta testing Roomie?  Send me a message.

As you can see above, I have the Roomie website’s main page displaying on an iPad.  The first two controls are an example of the new feature.  Before I go to bed I might want to click the “set alarm” button, which would run a RoomieScript that I wrote that wakes me up in the morning.  The same deal goes for coffee. (Of course, making coffee is also part of the alarm routine.)  It would be easy to imagine many other virtual devices.  Eventually I will likely make a “basement” device, which would have buttons like “Movie” for nice movie lighting, “all on”, “all off”, and of course, “PAAARRTAAYY!”

I mentioned that these controls were highly customizable in code.  In the C# code-behind I can set the size of these controls with pixel precision.  That came in really handy when I made an iPad-specific page, which resizes the controls to be just the right width to fill the screen horizontally and high enough for easy pressing with a finger.  A tweak of the sizes only takes a few seconds.

All of this has been a really good learning experience for me, and of course I am far from done.  I’ve applied so much of what I’ve learned writing Roomie, which is just for fun, to other projects at work and in school.  If you want to help test Roomie, send me an email.

(link)

<roomieScript>

  <!–  this sends a script to the Desktop Computer  –>

  <!–  it’s really just to confirm that both computers are turned on  –>

  <webScripts.sendScript targetComputerName="Desktop Computer">

    <speak>

       

         all set!

    </speak>

  </webScripts.sendScript>

  <!– wait until the morning  –>

  <waitUntil hour="6" minute="0" second="0" />

  <!–  send a script to Home Server to handle the lights –>

  <webScripts.sendScript targetComputerName="Home Server">

    <!–  dim the Door Lamp and Desk Light on slowly and simultaniously  –>

    <insertScript runInNewThread="yes">

      <!–  dim the Bed Lamp on faster than the Bed Lamp  –>

      <zWave.slowDimOn module="Bed Lamp" durration="280" />

    </insertScript>

    <insertScript runInNewThread="yes">

      <zWave.slowDimOn module="Door Lamp" durration="120" />

    </insertScript>

    <!–  wait an hour and a half, then turn off all the lights  –>

    <waitFor seconds="5400" />

    <zWave.powerOff module="Desk Light" />

    <zWave.powerOff module="Door Lamp" />

    <zWave.powerOff module="Bed Lamp" />

  </webScripts.sendScript>

  <webScripts.sendScript targetComputerName="Desktop Computer">

    <!–  wait three minutes after the light dimming has begun, then play music  –>

    <waitFor seconds="180" />

    <openFile path="F:/music/playlists/Wake Up.wpl" />

  </webScripts.sendScript>

</roomieScript>

Here’s a video:

YouTube link