My digital home just isn’t quite there yet

I’ve been trying to have the whole digital home experience for a while now. I’ve reviewed Vista Media Centre, Home Server, Wireless N before, the experiences there are documented.

The impossible dream I am thinking of consists of seamless integration between:

Home Server

Media Centre

Extenders

Game Consoles

Digital Picture Frames

Media Players

Wireless

Broadband

VOIP vs VOIP vs VOIP

Desktop PC’s

Cloud Services

• So lets look at the current state of play for these things.

Home Server

I reviewed home server here. It’s a great product that acts as a network store for your folders, and backs up all the PC’s in your house. It has a brilliant Disaster Recovery solution and one of the most innovative backup and storage solutions I have seen in a long time.

Unfortunately that’s all it is, and that means 40watts at idle 24/7 – 88KwHrs / qtr, and more if I make it work hard.

Media Centre

This thing‘s purpose in life is to record TV, and play content. In Australia it does an average job of both. It’s another 50watts 24/7.

Trying to get a PC to work well in a lounge room is an exercise in frustration. Noise, power, keyboards, mice and windows hiccups are just not fun. Add in the TV compatibility problems many experience trying to get TV interfaces and resolutions correctly out of a PC.

It’s great when it works, but it’s definitely high maintenance.

As many people have said before me, what about storing the videos on Home Server, and getting it to do the recording too. That way they noisy PC can stay in the back room, and one PC can have an excuse for staying up chewing power 2/47, not two.

I don’t really stream my video, I watch it off a remote file share. A performance comparison of Streaming vs File Serving is here.

Extenders

I can’t claim to have one of these yet. The reviews are average, and every XBox 360 I hear about dies an early death.

These seem to be the obvious choice for the lounge room. They are quieter, more aesthetically pleasing, have native TV interfaces (PAL, Component etc), and an interface that never needs a mouse to drive it. They also play games, so many people end up wit one anyway.

The well known issues with power consumption on some of these come up, but at least it’s only when being watched, and it’s probably not more than the plasma TV anyway.

A chipped XBox with XBox Media Centre was my weapon of choice for years. It’s an aging solution now, and doesn’t have HiDef, but as a media player for over the network content, it beat Vista Media Centre hands down.

I can see this being the future of the lounge room.

The current problem being the limited support for what can / cannot be streamed to the current extenders, and how to connect the things.

Game Consoles

The Wii seems to excel here, as  a pure games console. The best comparison i reckon is here.

If you want all the video streaming, it’s XBox 360 or possibly, Playstation 3.

Digital Picture Frames

Nice toy, chews power all the time, unlike an old fashioned photos. Be good if they only displayed when they sensed movement.

The wireless versions I have seen seen only work off Flikr and other web services. None seem to be connecting to a local PC to show photo’s from. Great for using bandwidth.

Media Players

Everyone has an iPod, even me. I dont’ use iTunes at all, so it’s solid MP3’s. Unfortunately Apple in their wisdom designed the thing on ID3 tags, not on files / folders. If your tags aren’t perfect, you’ll have all sorts of fun navigating the thing.

I’m still looking for the cheap simple, web managed, wireless MP3 player I can plugin to my amp.

An old laptop or Asus eePC is topping the list at the moment.

Wireless

I ran wireless G for ages – just plain G, none of the tricky variants as my laptops built in is only basic G. It’s fine for web browsing and acceptable for file copying, but coverage and streaming movies never really worked.

I recently threw a bucket of cash a a Wireless N solution, sticking to a single vendor to keep the process smoother. Netgear is more common that Linksys in Australia.

Well the coverage is mildly better, and it is a bit faster, and that’s all. The problem is that the speed is still very variable, so even though the average is OK, for playing movies over the LAN – it all falls down.

Luckily my house lets me run a cable underneath to the lounge easily, so I have a solution, but it’s a disappointment.

I will have no such luck with running a cable for the spare room with the kids TV and their (might get for XMAS) 360. The consoles also don’t support Wireless N, so that’s more kit to buy.

So much for the wireless dream.

Looks like some others agree with me here and here

Broadband

I’m got lucky here, with my house being able to get Naked (Unbundled Local Loop) ADSL2+. I get about 7 Mbit download speeds. Being ULL means I don’t have to pay Telstra any money, and that makes me happy.

I don’t quite understand why a GB is cheaper on ADSL2+ than the same GB on ADSL, but I won’t complain seeing as I get the service.

This is one part of the equation that works well for me.

I do however have to run THREE devices pulling another 40Watts 24/7. A Wireless/Firewall/Router, an ADSL Modem and a VOIP adapter, all pulling their own power, each with their own old fashioned power brick radiating heat.
Where oh were is the all in one Modem/Router/Wireless N/VOIP adapter that only pulls 5 watts.

VOIP vs VOIP vs VOIP

“Skype” vs “VOIP from my ISP” vs “Messenger”

And never shall any of the above meet. Good luck all ye who enter here.

Then we move onto Bluetooth headsets, Wireless Handsets, GSM Picocells, and Cordless phones just for laughs.

Desktop PC’s

These integrate acceptably into the home network. My biggest hurdles here are

• What version of Vista
• Remote Desktop
• Local User logons
• Authentication and Passwords for file / printer sharing

I’m used to domain authentication, and sharing stuff around a home network isn’t quite as simple as I would have thought. More work to be done in this space.

It is still common to email a file via their internet email address, that is in the same house as you! That tells me point to point file transfer is still way too hard.

Hmm – maybe device authentication is a better idea in this space than traditional user authentication.

Wireless Printers

I have a HP wireless (802.11g) All In One unit. It works well enough except for one critical problem. It gets it’s IP Address via DHCP from the Router. If I don’t set a reservation, this changes sometimes due to the alignment of Venus and Mars. The software fails badly at finding it when it’s IP address changes.

Tip for Wireless device designers, home IP addresses are very dynamic, plan on your drivers having to work with that.

A reservation fixes the problem – until the next firmware upgrade.

Cloud Services

And finally we have the latest set of toys, the one’s the world’s been saying will happen for years. Well it’s not there yet, even with ADSL2+, but I agree, it’s coming.

I do like some of the services and I’m using more and more over time.

• Google Docs is interesting for sharing stuff with my wife.
• Windows Live Mesh is a new toy – no comment yet
• Newsgator / FeedDemon
• GMail w/ Outlook IMAP (testing – it’s a hassle)
• Domain hosted with Bluehost
• WordPress for this

I tried online backup of 20Gb of data, and it does work, but it’s nowhere near as practical as Home Server for me. For small quantities of data it would be very good.

The whole area is changing, and local sync options are making it more interesting. Google gears enables some of this functionality and is worth looking for.

Security and privacy are significant concerns. Google can inform you about google here.

A single authentication solution like OpenID starts to make all of this much easier.

Summary

Well the seamless integration of all this stuff is still a long way off. The problems are solvable, but the maintenance is high.

All I want is devices that chew no power, work together seamlessly, is available anywhere in the world and takes no effort from me. It’s not too much to ask for is it?

Watch this space.