Hello,

Was hoping to get a few suggestions, im currently renovating/refurbishing a house I purchased and have always wanted to have a reasonably high spec technological home.

I've got the common apple products; iphone, ipad, ipod, apple tv and airport express.

Now I want to go the step further and use my devices to control more houshold appliances.

I'm aware you can get a wireless thermostat so you can control the temperatre from an app, plus you can get multiroom sound and visual. Both of which I'm going to do.

But is there anything else I can do and what would I require to do so?

Is there any appliances I can buy that can be fully controlled (for example a kettle or coffee machine).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I just saw this on a TV programme this morning http://www.gear4.com/showcase-unity/

Not only were they using it to control AV equipment but also do things like turn fans on and off.

The Archangel

That looks ideal, also seen some other apps like control4 which looks very good on controlling things like CCTV and lighting.

Does anyone have anyother suggestions?

I found on eBay, and bought, an IR-controlled UK 3-pin electricity socket from a distributor in China... was only about £10 incl p&p. It's a bit crude, i.e. just basic on/off, but I find it very useful as I've connected it up to my DVR via Slingbox so I can do a remote hard reboot (i.e. power it off and on again) of the DVR when I'm travelling and the Freeview freezes up. It goes without saying, of course, that I watch the DVR live and recorded TV on the iPad Slingplayer Mobile app, which I find works great over 3G as well as wifi.

On your general concept of using iOS devices to control home automation... I'm really with you on that. In my not-too-distant future world... I see Siri moving across to other iOS devices and being hooked into the iOS apps controlling the home automation hardware so that we have voice control of the home devices.

I use Indigo software Macintosh Home Automation and Control Server and both newer Insteon and some older X-10 controllers I've had for awhile. In addition to the thermostat you mentioned, I have it do various indoor/outdoor/aquarium light on/off timings. With some scripting and with a motion detector, the lights come on with motion in my garage, and they stay on until 10 minutes after motion there has stopped. I plan to add a lawn sprinkler system and control that as well.

I really like the idea of controlling blinds and lights. Sprinkler system not much use here in the UK as we have a natural sprinkler system that comes from the sky.

I had a quotation on a bath you can fill from your ipad, set temp, level, add perfumes and soaps, but it costs about £7k (that does come with built in pop up waterproof TV and pop up champagne cooler with glasses) but my wife has agreed to fill all my baths for the next 10 years at a price of only £40 a year - quite cheap and no work involved for me.

Does anyone have any other good ideas?

Good old Google helps with this sort of thing, check out this google result.......lots of things to control

control your house with iPad - Google Search

It's amazing the things that can be controlled by this small technological wonder!