What I would like to do is mount a 7" Android Tablet on the wall and have it be the main control for the apartment.
I am a Graphic Designer, and would love to be able to essentially create a basic blueprint of the apt and tap the corresponding location to turn them on/off.
Is this at all close to possible with any existing app/plugin/software?
If not, what would you recommend to be the best Android app?
Thanks
BryGuy,
Take a look at
Open Source Automation (OSA). Though I have not done what you are asking with a tablet, I have done it on another PC through the OSA web interface. I have a floor plan of my house set up with images that I can click on for things to turn them on and off.
Basically for the lights, fans and other things, you have 2 images showing the state of the device. One showing the off state and one showing the on state. The nice thing is that you can use animated gif images for things to give it a nicer look. So for my ceiling fans, I have a plain image of the fan for the off state, but when it is on, the image is an animated gif of the fan spinning. You can go as simple or complex as you want with it too. Say you have one main light in a room, I have heard of people taking actual pictures of the room, one with the light off and one with the light on, and using those on a room by room basis.
The other nice thing with OSA is that it brings a number of different technologies to one interface. For automation equipment you can use X10, INsteon, Z-Wave and others. But you can do other things too like incorporate weather data from Weather Underground, or news data from an RSS feed, all on your floorplan image.
Keep in mind that OSA is still in beta, but is growing fast. There is a great community of forum users to help you through the setup and running of your system.