Using Philips TV for home automation

[smart]

Hi,

looking at embedded fairs, I see home automation as one trend which seems to get more and more into products. For example, the popular AVM Fritzbox 7390 as a router, will introduce a home automation module into its coming firmware updates. In particular, they will include the FHEM server into the router: http://fhem.de (domain is german, but site is english).

This made me think, that it will be very practical to use a Philips TV for accessing the home automation. My thought was, that I have a server in the local network which will provide a simple Website for basic home automation functions. Since Philips NetTV can load every Webpage, this should be possible.

The only hint is, I can't access local ip addresses with Philips NetTV. This is a little pity, so I first have to make this local home automation portal available for public before I'm able to access it with the TV.

Why is there this proxy in between? Life could be so easy.

Local adress is http://192.168.178.1:8083/fhem in the first test version of that.
Link to AVM: http://www.avm.de (only german, english version does not provide info for home automation test firmware: http://www.fritzbox.eu)

Vision:
Imagine you can setup, dimm your lights (Philips Living Colors) in your rooms with your TV, check the weather from your local weather station, setup your heating, cut off current from unused devices in your house/flat or even check if your washing machine already finished! The possibilities are infinite!
The technical prerequisites are there, they just do not work seemlessly together!

And the best, NetTV could do that as available, but damn there is this proxy thing in the way...

Thanks for everybody participating in the discussion!


P.S. I would appreciate, if we won't discuss the sense of home automation in general, there might be people who will like it and there might be people who won't like it. This is given and can't be changed. But all who want discuss the technical advantages/disadvatages are welcome!

[KonradS]

Great idea. I had the same one. I want to spare you the details of my home automation system, but I just invested a great amount of time to add a http interface to my self made gateway program, I did that while I was away for a few weeks.

Now my application generates nice webpages which allow me to monitor and change values in my home automation system. BUT: I just found out, that my Phlips TV does not seem to be able to show webpages in the local network. If I would have known that, I would have never bought it.

Is there any easy way around this drastic limitation? I read a few posts about that problem, but none seem to offer a reasonable easy solution to this.

[smart]

Hello,

in principle, it is possible.
It should not be too difficult to create a public available web page with links only linking to lan webpages.

Please see post:
http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?1066-Internet-url-IP-Address&p=11320&viewfull=1#post11320

But I really think it would be much better without that work arround. The TV will get part of home automation solutions in future. It does not take long to boot it is easy to access and it has a huge display.

And there are many use cases such as temperature measurment, setup your heating, turn off lights, check if your washing machine finished, ...

[KonradS]

The situations you mention above are excatly the situations I want to use my interface for. The boot time is short, and usually it is on anyway. I check everything with my TV.

Yeah, I read this tread before, and could make it work. By use of a public webpage, I can connect to my local home automation network. Sounds a bit odd for me... I really think there should be a way to use the TV as browser only, especially when connection to http servers in the local network. I could have never imagined that this is not possible.