This is a random post inspired by recent purchases. Some things we buy are practical, others are a little arbitrary.

I tend to avoid buying things for the sake of it, and have explicitly started decluttering our house over the past few years. That said sometimes things just seem sufficiently "cool" that they get bought without too much thought.

This entry is about two things.

A couple of years ago my bathroom was ripped apart and refitted. Gone was the old and nasty room, and in its place was a glorious space. There was only one downside to the new bathroom - you turn on the light and the fan comes on too.

When your wife works funny shifts at the hospital you can find that the (quiet) fan sounds very loud in the middle of the night and wakes you up..

So I figured we could buy a couple of LED lights and scatter them around the place - when it is dark the movement sensors turn on the lights.

These things are amazing. We have one sat on a shelf, one velcroed to the bottom of the sink, and one on the floor, just hidden underneath the toilet.

Due to the shiny-white walls of the room they're all you need in the dark.

By contrast my second purchase was a mistake - The Logitech Harmony 650 Universal Remote Control should be great. It clearly has the features I want - Able to power:

• Our TV.
• Our Sky-box.
• OUr DVD player.

The problem is solely due to the horrific software. You program the device via an application/website which works only under Windows.

I had to resort to installing Windows in a virtual machine to make it run:

# Get the Bus/ID for the USB device
bus=$(lsusb |grep -i Harmony | awk '{print $2}' | tr -d 0)
id=$(lsusb |grep -i Harmony | awk '{print $4}' | tr -d 0:)

# pass to kvm
kvm -localtime ..  -usb -device usb-host,hostbus=$bus,hostaddr=$id ..

That allows the device to be passed through to windows, though you'll later have to jump onto the Qemu console to re-add the device as the software disconnects and reconnects it at random times, and the bus changes. Sigh.

I guess I can pretend it works, and has cut down on the number of remotes sat on our table, but .. The overwhelmingly negative setup and configuration process has really soured me on it.

There is a linux application which will take a configuration file and squirt it onto the device, when attached via a USB cable. This software, which I found during research prior to buying it, is useful but not as much as I'd expected. Why? Well the software lets you upload the config file, but to get a config file you must fully complete the setup on Windows. It is impossible to configure/use this device solely using GNU/Linux.

(Apparently there is MacOS software too, I don't use macs. *shrugs*)

In conclusion - Motion-activated LED lights, more useful than expected, but Harmony causes Discord.

Tags: random | 3 comments