Why wait for YouView or GoogleTV

I knew as soon as I decided not to wait for YouView or GoogleTV that there would be an announcement and sure enough TalkTalk announced that YouView  would be ready about September which incidentally is about when GoogleTV is expected in the UK according to the Telegraph.

So if I am not going to wait which box should I go for. There are so many to choose from. There’s the Roku , the Boxee, Apple TV, WD TV Live to name but a few. A lot depends on whichInternet services (channels) you want access to, remembering that the channels in the UK differ from those in the US. 

In the end I went for the new SONY network media and internet streamer the SMP-N200 which was only recently released and only £80 at Amazon.

The channels that Sony in the UK provide access to are shown in this interactive graphic

So if I was to ditch my laptop mashup what was I wanting from my box?

Physical

• Well it would be nice just to have a small box that is always in situ ready to roll and was a lot less expensive than a laptop or nettop.

Internet Streaming

• All I really needed was a half decent movie service. With the Sony I could get LoveFilm Instant for £4.99 a month and Sony Entertainment Network for PAYG movies.
• Oh and any CatchUp TV services I could get. The Sony gives me access to BBC iPlayer and Demand 5 & the possibility of ITV player and 4OD to follow.
• Access to YouTube channels would be good too and with the Sony I can sign into my YouTube.
• Maybe even some social media? The Sony has Facebook and Twitter. I would have liked access to Flickr and/or Picassa but you can’t have everything can you?

Network Media

• What about access to my NAS (LaCie LaCinema HD) where I store my photos, music and videos  – it can do that as well.
• Does it do DLNA so I can pick up media on one device an play it on another.?  Yes it does that too. See the item My multi-room media shifting set-up on this blog
• What about an Android app to manage the box and my network media. Yes it has that as well the Sony Media remote. Although I prefer a combination of the very neat Sony remote control and the much less bloated BubbleUPnP for catch and throw.

Flickr on my photo frame Part 2

Everything was going so well.  I could view a sequence of my photos from flickr and from my friends on Facebook interspersed with National Geographic photos, the Weather and Clock/ Calendar – see my earlier blog. Then Framehannel withdrew from the market and not only Framechannel but Frameit.livecom as well.

So all of a sudden I was left with whatever Kodak had to offer.  OK so they have a site at which I could store my photos and view them on my photo frame, but who uses Kodak’s site for storing and displaying their photos. Friends could still email my photo frame directly but none could be bothered. I had to resort to viewing my photos stored on my NAS drive my LaCie LaCinema – see my blog item My multi-room media shifting set-up

Thus began my search for another cloud service or suitable wifi photoframe.  Toshiba, Kodak and Samsung all had photo frames which could use the now defunct Framechannel. So what’s left:

• Kodak Pulse and Sony W frames use Facebook
• Samsung frames use Windows Live & RSS feed

But no-one was offering Flickr

MeeChannel with MeeFrame

However I have discovered another service that although not directly similar to Framechannel would allow me to access a whole load of my social network content on a photo frame.  That service is Meechannel.com It’s a Dutch service (use Google Translate in Google Chrome to read it) and is in Beta, but looks very promising.

It gathers together all your Photo, Video, RSS streams and makes them accessible from one stream.  What’s more is that they even have a photo frame the Looqs MeeFrame specifically to stream content from MeeChannel. It can be bought in the UK from Langton Info Services

So with this service I could stream my Flickr (or Picasa) photos, the weather and clock/ calendar but not photos from my Facebook or my friends’ Facebook.

Top Ten Reviews of WiFi photo frames for 2012 puts the Kodak Pulse at No3 and Meeframe at No 4

What about a Tablet

What I would prefer is to be able to access MeeChannel from my Kodak Easyshare photo frame.  It would seem a shame to have to buy another one.

Would you want to spend about £200 on a touch screen photo frame when there rumours that there could soon be a cheap Android tablet on the market. I could  then use the tablet  as a photo frame when not using it for surfing the web and accessing my emails and social networks.  I would need an app that could run a stream of photos.

Note

Note that this blog is UK based so the content is directed at services that are accessible from UK or products that can be bought in the UK. There are other photo frames that can access Flickr but they are not available in the UK.  The comparison site Top Ten Reviews puts Ceiva Share and Pix-Star FotoConnect at No1 and No 2. Both can access Facebook, Flickr and Picasa but neither can be bought in the UK.

Throw music at your speakers

Yes I know it sounds a bit mad but in the UK you will soon be able to courtesy of SONY.

According to Stuff.TV Sony will be bringing their NS510, NS410 and NS310 speakers to the UK in the summer of 2012.

Sony will enable you to select music from your PC, smartphone or network drive and ‘throw’ it at their speakers.

This is possible because all three speakers accept streaming via DLNA, Airplay (Apple’s own version) or Music Unlimited (Sony’s rival to Spotify). 

For me this is fantastic news (until I find out the price that is) as I have already set up my home media network to be DLNA compatible where possible.  See my earlier blog item My multi-room media shifting network

I can already ‘throw’ my music from my LaCie LaCinema to my TV, PC or smartphone. Now I will be able to throw it at some decent speakers anywhere in the house and even different music to different speakers.

Roll on the summer

What should I use to manage my energy usage?

I have been keen on monitoring my energy usage for a while now. It’s probably because I am a bit of a miser and any savings I can make anywhere are hotly pursued. I’m also a bit of a gadget freak.

My first attempts was to use stand alone devices as they were cheap and didn’t require much setting up. I used an OWL electricity meter monitor and a Maplin plug in Power and Energy Monitor to monitor individual devices. This gave me an idea of what I was using minute by minute day by day etc but there was no data storage and graphs or remote access. This got me thinking about what I really wanted from my energy ‘management’ system.

Energy Management Requirements:

1. Must collect data and store it in the cloud.
2. Must provide graphs of usage and comparisons with peers.
3. Must be able to export to my PC for further analysis and reporting
4. Must be accessible over the web for when I am away from the home
5. Must use recognised industry standards like ZigBee or Z-Wave so that I could buy from other manufactures and it still work as a system.
6. The home network must be separate from my home computer and media network which is WiFi based.
7. The system should be capable of expanding to from just monitoring to management.
8. The system should be able to work with any possible security  management system I might include at a later date.
9. Some big industry boys are using the products
10. Hopefully has a cheap starter kit so I can get going and abandon if it doesn’t work out.
11. Hopefully I could control the system from my Android SmartPhone.

I was very tempted by the Vera Home Control System which use the Z-Wave system. However this would have required forking out a reasonable sum just to get going.  So I settled on the ZigBee based Smart Energy from AlertMe.com which is only £49.99

For this price you get an electricity meter monitor which connects via ZigBee to a hub and then to a display screen. The hub also passes your data to your account in the cloud automatically.  Thus not only do I get a constant read out of my electricity but I can see all the charts on the internet which also predicts my costs.

This a screen capture of my energy usage and cost prediction

And a graph of my usage today

I wanted to play with their smart plug which also connects to the hub using ZigBee. The smart plugs not only capture electricity consumed but the attached device can be switched on and off remotely from the dashboard.

I have connected mine to my fridge/freezer just to see how much it is costing me and whether its time to get a new one. Not that I want to switch it on and off remotely Here is the graph of my fridge/ freezer consumption today

Future possibilities

1. I could extend this system to include a camera and sensors.
2. There is talk that AlertMe are considering full energy management since they bought Wattbox see this news item

My requirement that Big Business is interested in the company and it’s products is met by British Gas’ interest and use of its products  see this news item

My Solar Photovoltaic Rig

Last autumn I took the plunge and had solar photovoltaic panels installed.  I have detailed below the components of my rig, who installed it and how much it cost.

I have also embedded a Google spreadsheet which shows the performance of the rig since installation (Sheet 1) and the income I have earned (Sheet 2). This spreadsheet should automatically update each month.

PV Cells – I have 12 Yingli PV modules. The product is the Multicrystalline YGE 185 Series module type YL175P-23b with peak power output 175W. The installation is rated at 2.10 kW

Inverter   – power-one Aurora PVI-2000

Meter      – ISKRA Type: ME162 D3A51 M3K0

Installer  - PV Solar UK

Cost        – £10,640 incl VAT

Commissioned 28/07/2010

Estimated annual generation 1573.00 kW (@41.3p = £649.65 pa

I opted to have my exported electricity metered separately rather than accepting a flat 50% of the amount generated.

My Solar PV Performance

This uses the Google Docs embed feature.  Alternatively go to the Google spreadsheet directly  My Solar PV Performance

My mobile hotspot courtesy of Zoom

My mobile hotspot courtesy of Zoom,
originally uploaded by martinrstone.

In rural locations it is difficult getting a 3G signal. I have resorted to a MiFi from Zoom which can pick up a good 3G signal from the car in the drive! Now my laptop and phones can surf the net from the warmth of the bungalow using wifi. The Zoom is great because it will take any SIM and automatically establish a data connection. Also I have the flexibility to just use the USB stick direct into my computer.

The full name of this device is Zoom 3G Wireless-N Travel Router hence the need to also use the Zoom 7.2Mbps 3G Tri-Band USB Modem

In this configuration I am using a PAYG SIM from 3

My multi-room media shifting set-up

One Quiet Media Server

I have always hankered after one store for all my media accessible to all my devices. I first of all tried this with a PC dedicated to media. It worked fine except I needed to leave it on all the time which was not very energy efficient and quite noisy. So I looked around for a Network Addressable Store with a media server.

I finally settled on the LaCie LaCinema HD 1 TByte. It’s small, quiet (no fan),  connects directly to my TV via HDMI and sits on my LAN.  So I can leave it on without disturbing anybody, yet it’s accessible to anyone in whatever room they are in.

Media Shifting

The other feature I wanted in my network media server was for it to be UPnP DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) compatible. The main reason for this was most if not all media players can recognise a UPnP/ DLNA server on the network.  Thus any media player device on my network should be able to fetch media from the server whether it be music, video or photos.

Including DLNA in the specification brought a surprise benefit – media shifting. This means that one device can take media from another device and play it on a third device. My mobile phone can take media off my laptop and play it on my TV (via the LaCinema). This feature depends on the software so for instance Windows Media Player 11 cannot send the media to another device but Twonky software can.

Internet Streaming

Being able to store all my media on my home network and shift it around to any player is wonderful, but today everybody wants to be able to stream their media from the Internet as well.  Thus we have services like Spotify to stream music, YouTube for videos and Flickr or Picassa for Photos (plus many other services).

The PCs and my smartphone on my home network all have access to the internet and can stream whatever service I like.  The beauty of DLNA is that I can use a PC or my smartphone to stream from the internet but send it to any other DLNA device for playing. This feature depends on the software so for instance Windows Media Player 11 cannot pass the stream onto another device but Twonky software can.

So here is my media shifting setup:

Device	Media Software	Feature
LG TV via LaCie LaCinema HD	Twonky Server	D, i
Revo Blick Radio Station WiFi Radio	Revo – Audio only	P, i
O2 Joggler	O2	P, I
Windows XP PC	Twonky Manager	D, I
Windows Vista Laptop	Windows Media Player 11	D, i
HTC Desire Android smart phone	Twonky Mobile	D, I
WD MyBookWorld (blue ring) NAS	none
Kodak WiFi Picture Frame	Framechannel	i
Humax Freesat	BBC iPlayer – ITVPlayer soon	i

Feature Legend:

D = DLNA compatible so can play from any server and send to any DLNA player

d = DLNA compatible can play from any server and receive via a third device but cannot send to another DLNA player

P = although not DLNA compatible will nevertheless play from any UPnP server.

I = internet streaming to another device

i = internet streaming only to itself

My possible next steps

Now that I have experimented with DLNA I am ready to upgrade my media players. I should be able to upgrade to a decent stereo music player that is DLNA compliant

There were some DLNA Photo Frames but they don’t seem to be available anymore.

• Buffalo WiFi digital photo frame PF-50WG wirelesspictureframe
• Philips G3 Wifi photo frame 8FF3WMI at Amazon

Some of the new smartphones come DLNA enable such as HTC Desire HD

Difficulties encountered

Windows Vista (Home edn)

• Windows Media Player will only recognise the LaCie if I first use the LaCie Network Assistant to mount the drive it will then appear as PVConnect on LaCinima_HD
• Windows Explorer recognises the the LaCie as a network media device but not as a Network Addressable Storage.  I can only access the folders on the LaCie through the LaCie Network Assistant.

Windows XP

• Windows Media Player doesn’t recognise the LaCie even if the LaCie Network Assistant has mounted the drive
• Windows Explorer recognises the LaCie as a network media device

Twonky Mobile

At present I am having a problem playing music from the LaCinema on my mobile. Play stops abruptly part the way through the track. I’m still working this one through with LaCie and Twonky.