Category Archives: Connected Home

Web Controlled Mobile Home Surveillance

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This project is very close to my heart as since I was a child, I used to play with electronics. I used to open them up and desired that one day I would be able to understand it and make things like those. I remember making a torch light when I was a little child but since I didn’t know much about switches, my mother remembers that the torch remained on throughout the night until the battery drained away. I was born to be an engineer but when I graduated from engineering, I learnt nothing. Now 10 years after completing my engineering, I got inspired Aragon style “Become whom you are born to be” and I started to reignite my passion for electronics. I put all my expertise of electronics and robotics which I DIDN’T learn in college and came up with this Arduino and Rapberry Pi powered Web Controlled Home surveillance rover. I have burnt a lot of cash on procuring the components as many were not locally available and little less than equivalent amount on the shipping.10498567_699067163464425_3428803516225232023_o Continue reading →

Multiple Time Machine Backups on Buffalo NAS

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Since the time NAS drives became cheaper, it has found its way in homes and small offices. Manufacturers have come up with ingenious uses for it which was not possible before. NAS drives have become computers on their own with their own OS and can replace a PC in many cases. NAS drives can be used for File sharing thus eliminating the need for a PC to be on 24×7. NAS drives can be used for downloading via Torrents thus eliminating a PC to be ON throughout night. NAS drives can be used for hosting simple Web servers. NAS drives can be used as a Media Server hosting and sharing Media throughout the home via DLNA. There are some NAS drives which can host a USB Printer thus eliminating the need for a PC to be ON for sharing printers. You can make your private cloud with NAS drives. Since NAS Drives are generally of larger capacities, they are used for backup of important data. Thanks to Time Machine support, NAS drive can backup data from all Mac computers at home without the need of a USB hard drive. Also, since you are already part of the network, there is no need to do any physical connecting and disconnecting of peripherals.BUFFALO-LinkStation-Live-2-TB-Network-Attached-Storage-NAS-LS-X2-0TL

Many people are aware of NAS drive as a Network backup device but they are not aware that one NAS drive can take backup from multiple Macs. Since Apple fans stick with Apple products, it is quite common for one home to have multiple Mac computers. Continue reading →

Fast Transfer from Android to Macbook wirelessly

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We are living in a world where everything is becoming wireless with Megabit and Gigabit speeds. These days even Power is transferred to a Smartphone wirelessly via Qi charging. There are some things which are wireless but their speed is pathetically slow to be of much use these days. The technology in particular is Bluetooth. Bluetooth has a theoretical bandwidth of 3 Mbps which is insufficient for our Media Transfer requirements. These days the image files being generated by the 10+ Megapixel camera is easily above an MB and the recording of a 1 minute HD/Full HD video easily goes above 100 MB. In order to transfer these large files to a laptop would take an hour over Bluetooth. The question here is “Can we not transfer these files via the USB cable?”. Yes we can but it kills me to do that because when everything has become so seamless, so why can’t we transfer files seamlessly? Continue reading →

Raspberry Pi as Smart TV upgrader

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This is a continuation to my previous Blog “Media Centre for Your Connected Home”. In that Blog, I covered the concept of a Connected Home. In this Blog, I will cover the setting up of the Media Centre. TV forms an integral part of our home entertainment and we desire to have the best TV. Over the years, TVs have gone smarter with support for online streaming like Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, Dailymotion, etc. It also supports playing Media files stored on your computer, Smart Phone or Network hard drive. There are even some TVs which have applications for Skype, facebook, Web browser, etc. Many people these days have TVs which have large screen with good display but they do not have the above mentioned features and it does not make sense to throw away the TV and get new a one just so that you can watch online streams or view your personal media content. This is where Raspbmc comes into the picture. Raspbmc is a device which allows you to do most of the above on your conventional TV. Raspbmc is a Raspberry Pi computer running the XBMC software. It can be set up for less than $50. Continue reading →

Smart phone as Security Camera

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These days owning a Smart phone has become almost a must. On top of that there are those who have the urge to have the latest and greatest model. This as well as other reasons are there for quite a lot of old spare phones which are just lying at home without any use. There have been a lot of articles written about how to use these phones. Some are just silly yet useful like using it like a torch. Some are sensible like using it as a music player so that your current phone does not drain battery. Some are downright geeky like using the phone for opening a garage door. I am going to take middle ground and write about what I think is sensible use of the spare smart phone. Continue reading →

Accessing Buffalo NAS Drive from Web, I devices and Android

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As NAS drives become common these days as a centralized storage of data at home or office, we find the need to integrate it in our connected lifestyle where everything is accessible over ip network and everything is accessible from everywhere. To cater to the modern lifestyle of a connected world, device makers are making devices which are cloud based so that your service is accessible from anywhere over the internet. These devices have cloud softwares and applications for your laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc which make accessing your content seamless  This article is not about those devices because as you know, those devices have seamless connectivity. This article is about those devices which do not have built in remote access feature like many of the NAS drives today and need little tweaking to make them work. Continue reading →

Media Centre for Your Connected Home

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Technology has brought us close together. Satellite communications, TV, Radio, Internet has made the world a smaller place. With the whole world moving towards ip network, the world will become ever more converged. There was a time when individual devices like TV, VCR, Radio, etc had to work independently and beautifully. Nowadays they have more responsibility and must communicate with the other devices for a sublime consumer experience. Gadgets have come which make everyday electrical utilities to form part of ip network. You can control your electrical equipments, heating and cooling devices away from home through your smart phone. In this blog, we are going to talk about bringing the entertainment devices together so they seamlessly communicate with each other and reduce the hassle of managing individual devices. Continue reading →