MQTT bi-directional communications in PERL

In attempting to interface openHab with my Comfort system, I needed to adapt an existing Perl linux driver for Comfort to work in Windows. The idea is that a small Perl program manages serial communications with the Comfort system and uses the IoT protocol MQTT to pass messages back and forth with openHab.

In doing so, I found that there was a very limited amount of information on integrating MQTT with Perl. There is a minimal MQTT interface for Perl that does the trick but the sample code was not obvious to me and there's very little else out there.

I've written a vey basic Perl <-> MQTT program to show how basic input and output is achieved.

Google Stuff

So I was thinking about buying an Amazon Echo . Just to play around with. I also need a new phone and was seriously looking at the new Sony Xperia XZ . Then Google had their product announcements yesterday.

Pixel Phone
Google Home
Daydream
Chromecast Ultra
Google WiFi
Google Assistant

I'm right in the middle of researching a new smart home platform to implement over the winter. Right now, it looks like it's going to be based around OpenHab and I'm looking for technology that will integrate with that. The Amazon Echo Dot is super cheap and provides some level of voice control and integration but has a few rough edges and limitations. I think I'll wait a little to see what the developer APIs will be like for Google Home. If I can instruct it to say things from OpenHab, it could be the one!

Now, Sony XZ or Google Pixel. Decisions, Decisions...

The address you are looking for is meep.cmx at gmail.com

unRAID 6.2 Update

The 6.2 update came out a few weeks ago following a couple of months of public beta. I usually dive right in to the betas but my unRAID system has become so fundamental to our house that I couldn't risk downtime and general family wrath.

However, with all parties out working or playing sports this weekend, I had a couple of hours so, after backing up my unRAID stick, I ran the update.

The Scourge of the Freeloader

I'm a Kodi user. I'm starting to feel dirty.

Kodi is being tarnished. Eteknix today reported on an 'epidemic' that's becoming the 'scourge of the audiovisual industry'. In that article, a spokesperson for the UK governments intellectual property office is quoted as saying;

'We are aware that set-top boxes, while perfectly legal in their own right, are frequently adapted by criminals to illegally receive TV channels protected by intellectual property rights'

These boxes are everywhere. My facebook feed is filled with sponsored posts promoting their merits. Even Amazon has a slew of 'fully loaded' android boxes at ridiculous prices.

Bi-Amping with Marantz NR-1506

Over the past 18 months, a secondary system has been evolving in our family room. We don't always feel like firing up the Home Theatre, especially during the summer, or for sports where the projector is not as good as an actual TV.

I have an old 40" Sony Bravia HDTV in there, along with a pair of B&W CDM-1NT speakers and a REL Q200E subwoofer.

We only use stereo in this room, with the system used about equally 1/3 TV watching, 1/3 movies and 1/3 music listening. Sources are a Gigabyte Brix HTPC running Kodi and used occasionally for Netflix as well as an eir Vision IPTV box (this is part of our home phone/broadband package from eir and is essentially a belt & braces second TV source just in case anything goes wrong with whole house TV via TVHeadend and Kodi).

The first million is the hardest

So, after 4 years, 72 posts and 88,069 page views, this blog is about to pay dividends. I'm about to click over to €70 in Adsense earnings. This is the earning threshold at which they send on the cash so I'm about to get my first payment. Yay! Wonder what I'll blow it on?

I obviously don't maintain this blog for the riches and fame!

However, I'm keenly aware that I have hardly been maintaining it at all of late. This is largely due to the fact that MediaServer8 has been so stable and reliable recently. unRAID and all the plugins and dockers I use to run whole house storage and a/v have been ticking along quite nicely, thank you very much so I haven't had very much to write about on that front.

However, there are a few projects in progress and on the horizon that  are related and might be interesting. I've set up a secondary a/v system in our family room in anticipation of a pending Xbox One S acquisition and have installed a new A/V receiver there. I'm also updating the main home theatre with ceiling speakers to enable DTS-X and Atmos height channels. I'll also be replacing my X10 lighting control system with Z-Wave in the near future. Plus, unRaid 6.2 is out!

A lot of these projects are not directly related to home server, storage, NAS and virtualisation which have been the main topics of this blog for the past 4 years. However, they will all one way or the other tie into some back-end systems so I'm going to expand the subject matter beyond just MediaServer and start documenting wider a/v projects and the like.

Here's to the next €70!!!