I finally got it working!  I'll be doing a writeup soon, but for now here is a demo video of 1 out of the 14 shutters I want to automate in the house.  The wire going to the motor will be run to the crawlspace below the house from inside the window sill, so it will never be seen. The humming noise will also be adjusted (I have the delay set too long in this demo) so it won't be as loud. There are 10 exact positions I can set them to, ranging from closed in one direction to closed in the other.

I've written a page about my in-wall touchscreens and the software I wrote for them, but I'm just working on a few final things before I post it up. In the meantime, here is a demonstration video of how it looks.

I am currently in the process of designing a node that will control small servo motors (in groups of three) that I have attached to 14 plantation shutters in my house. This will allow me to open, close, and set the shutters to almost any position on an individual basis. I plan to have them open/close based on the time of day, occupancy in the house, season and sunlight direction, outside temperature and inside cooling/heating set points, and privacy times based on if the shower is/was in use and/or bath tub was/is in use.

I finally got around to adding some new pages and updating some old ones. Just added a page on my Lighting and Devices, RS485 Network and Multi-Purpose Node. Also updated information about the wiring closet and main controller.

 It's been a few months but I just put up a new page on my custom occupancy detection and people counting system. I'm still adding new features and thoroughly testing it, but so far it's awesome. When I get a chance I'll put up the schamatics and parts list. I need to get a page up on my whole-house audio system, and infrared controller node as well.

I have been looking for a whole house audio solution for my home since moving in two and a half months ago and I finally pulled the trigger today. I ended up buying a new Nuvo Grand Concerto along with a separate NV-D2120 Digital Power Amplifier. The Grand Concerto features 8 zones and 6 sources along with 6 OLED displays for in-wall control (see picture to right). Each of the displays can show up to 8 lines of text so that you can see the current song playing along with the artist and album. Source number 6 can optionally be used as a paging zone that I plan to use with my text-to-speech from the main controller. You can preset paging volumes in each zone so that the current volume level for music is not used for the TTS output. This is very handy when I have the music up loud and the house needs to say something without blowing my eardrums up in the process. There is also a feature where you can send text to be displayed on the keypads in specific rooms. I plan on using this to show the last TTS message for 30 seconds in each room that the main controller speaks in. I will also be writing an iTunes interface that will interface the keyspads directly and show the current song playing in iTunes along with full play/stop/next/previous control if that source is selected. Nuvo offers a similar device called the MusicPort that offers the same exact functionality with interfacing Nuvo Grand to iTunes, but in my opinion it is way overpriced. Once I get everything installed I will get a writeup of my configuration and how I'm using all of it's features. Hopefully it will meet all my expectations as I am certainly excited about adding it to my setup!