Rakesh Agrawal’s Blog

One of my weekend projects a few months ago was making it so I could open the garage door on my house with my iPhone. Here’s how I got it working.

First, a quick demo of the final product. Once I got everything working, using this thing is pretty simply. I launch X10 Commander on my iPhone:

Then I tap the “ON” button with my finger and after a small lag (1 second?), my garage door…

…springs open! (or closes).

“Who cares?” you ask… well, having my iPhone to control my garage means:

• I can be in a car that doesn’t have my garage code programmed into it and open/close my garage (e.g. a friend’s car)
• I can go out for a walk or a run, close the garage door behind me and open it again when I get back home
• Generally speaking, it’s one less box to worry about when I go out
• I can open and close my garage door from my iPhone… just for the sheer pleasure of the act
• And of course, I have a cool thing to show friends when they come over.

So how does this all work?  Pay attention because it’s a somewhat long-winded chain of events that makes X10 Commander control my garage door (almost a Rube Goldberg machine!):

1. I have the X10 Commander iPhone App installed on my iPhone (link, $9.99):

2. It talks, over my home wi-fi network (a pair of D-Link DIR-655s setup as access points), to the X10 Commander “Server” software I have running on an always-on Windows XP PC upstairs in my home office:

3. The X10 Commander Server software talks to an USB to RF X10 interface (the X10 CM19A)dongle on the same Windows XP PC:

4. That dongle on my computer talks to an RF to X10 interface device (the X10 TM751) plugged into a nearby power outlet:

5. Now we move downstairs to the garage where I have an X10 controller for low-voltage devices (an X10 PUM01) plugged into another home power outlet:

6. And the terminals on the X10 low-voltage control device are spliced into the control wires for the garage door opener:

7. And the control wires are, obviously, connected to the garage door opener which opens my garage:

And that’s it!

It’s all run pretty reliably for a couple of months now and never fails to impress.  Surprisingly the most fragile piece has NOT been the Windows XP PC (would have been my first guess), but the  TM751 (step 4 above).  Because it’s connected to a childproofed power outlet and it’s at the entrance to my home office, if it’s ever brushed by a passing child, a the cuff of my pant, or a projectile toy, it easily loses contact.  But even this hasn’t been a big deal — I can only remember one occasion where the whole thing hasn’t worked since I set it up.

Another tip: A lot of the X10 stuff can be found on eBay and elsewhere online at pretty low prices.  The $$$ savings are nice and I personally make an effort to avoid buying anything from X10.com thanks to their <BLINK>WOW!! DO WE HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU!!</BLINK> style of website design and ecommerce tactics (not to mention that almost every page on their site starts a video with audio and then there are the bikini-clad women being spied on and… sigh, I should just stop. Please tell me you won’t spend any of your money at X10.com?).

We lost track of time on our bike ride and got their late, but luckily tofu13 got a nice video. A friend of mine that lives in the building behind the Compass Bank Building (the video has shots of some people on their balconies in the same building) said the implosion shook his building and woke him up.

I happened to be on Post Oak (near the Galleria) earlier this morning and I had my camera with me so I took some photographs of the Compass Bank that’s Houstonist reported is going to be demolished tomorrow, Sunday March 15.

If you’re wondering where the building is located, it’s across the street from the Sports Authority and near Maggiano’s Little Italy on Post Oak, just up from Westheimer and Post Oak.  Here’s a Google Maps Street View of the building.

While Houstonist reported the building will be demolished at 7:45am, the foreman I talked to said it would be more like 7am to 7:30am.  People who want to watch will be able to from the Hilton, about a block away, a little bit north of Post Oak.  According to the guy I talked to, past there, all traffic (pedestrian, car, bicycle) will be blocked.

If the timing works out I’ll be there on bike with my camera!

UPDATE: Swamplot has a lot more background on the building.

This weekend, I set my sister up with some whole home audio courtesy of her iPhone, iMac, iTunes, and a couple of Airport Expresses (Lifehacker’s how to).  One Airport Express and speaker pair went in the kitchen but the cables were a huge mess:

• the Airport Express and speakers each needed power
• there was the cable connecting the speakers together
• there was the cable connecting the speakers to the Airport Express
• add to that the existing power cords for a digital photo frame and a cordless phone charger power cord

This is a good time to explain this particular sister of mine: I call her the Indian Martha Stewart (before Martha Stewart went to jail — ie when she was just known for being an freakishly obssessive homemaker). Yup, that’s an accurate description of my sister. So I knew that left alone, the mess of cables wasn’t going to survive more than a few days.

I found a solution in a wicker basket.  Here were the ingredients for my solution:

• squid power supply (Amazon link)
• a wicker basket (for some reason, my sister has a cabinet full of these things)
• some hefty scissors
• a bunch of cable ties

1. First, this particular wicker basket had a bunch of internal compartments.  I remove most of the walls that created these compartments with the scissors.  

2. Removing the compartments made it so I could rest the squid power supply inside the thing. The tentacles plugs were essential — with them, I could bend the outlets around the inside of the basket.

3. I cut square openings (about 1.5″ by 1.5″) on the left, right and back of the wicker basket.

4. Then I positioned everything inside and outside the basket and cable-tied all the loose cables, plugged everything in, and pushed everything inside the basket as low-down as possible.  Done!

The Container Store should be making and selling this thing!

Photographs of the final product:

I think it helped that the wicker basket I had stuffed all the cables inside of had this steel frame.  Here’s a shot inside the basket…

One of the square openings I made on the left side of the basket:

And the one on the left side of the basket: