There's a number of other RF options out there.

Some that have a bit of a dummy switch which is battery powered and can go anywhere which acts as a remote and the RF received goes above the light fitting in the ceiling. There's even some lightbulbs out there that have it built in.

I wanted to easiest way to fit a remote controlled light and that was two screws and 2 or 3 wires with the LightwaveRF switches.

The switch I ordered should arrive in the next couple of days and I can have a play. Hopefully it does what I want. Or more so, I hope I can get the Arduino talking to it properly!

I have a set of the Phillips Hue bulbs.  Most of the Open Source Automation programs that I've messed with can control them.  But the downside is they are crazy expensive.  I don't think I'll be getting any more but who knows.

The switch I've bought is £25 (~$40) which I do feel is a bit expensive. Equivalents are probably cheaper in the US.

I've seen a bunch for ~$40, that seems to be the norm for them.  I think that's a little steep but it's the going rate!

Can't find the right thread, but this made me think of your temperature logging stuff. Also seems very interesting and has many very cool possibilities if all SD cards can be hacked like this..
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554

Bet they work for the Feds.

Who /doesn't/ work for the feds?

Definitely interesting. Large memory, high speed (relatively) microprocessor.

And essentially free. No doubt if it gets popular the manufacturers will start looking the bootloader though :-(

But if it's possible to use something like I2C with it it would be amazingly useful.

Definitely, I2C, SPI or even a GPIO pin or two would be very useful.

> No doubt if it gets popular the manufacturers will start looking the bootloader though

The bootloader is already "locked" - you have to send a special sequence to unlock it.

As the article says:
> It's not feasible to indelibly burn a static body of code into on-chip ROM.
> The crux is that a firmware loading and update mechanism is virtually mandatory.

So the functionality has to be there - they can't take it away. They could perhaps start changing the sequence required to enable loading mode, but what would be the benefit to them? It wouldn't increase their profits, and they have no reason to care about a few people hacking SD cards to do more than store stuff. Maybe, if the dodgy/oversized cards being sold are negatively affecting a particular brand's reputation, they might insist on their chip producers doing something... *shrug*

Locled/secured, whatever. Given the potential for malicious use, it could well be in the manufacturers interests to stop people messing with them.

According to the video presentation, the potential for malicious use is somewhat limited by the fact that comms control is led by the host, not the SD card itself.

I hope these Arduinos get here soon, the light switch came last week and is fitted and waiting to be controlled!

I am curious. In what situations will you remotely control your lights? I tried to count the times I wished I didn't have to go over and press a switch on the wall like some sort of schmuck but so far it's none. No times. But I bet people said that about the TV remote, and well, who's a schmuck now? Those potentially-existing people that I bet on, that's who.

Part of buying just one switch is to see how useful it is.

Current ideas are switching between "moods" if I'm watching TV or a film. Once I can control the switch(es) via RPi/Arduino I will easily be able to that through XBMC.

So, I'd pop the living room lights into my Film mode which might be to turn off the big light and switch on a lamp, or turn everything off all together.

Forgetting to turn a light off when you go out and being able to turn it off using your phone.

Being able to set timers for your regular lights.

If you have suitable bulbs you could even have your bedroom light slowly getting brighter like one of those SAD/Light alarms.

No idea whether I'll make use in those ways but they're possibilities.

I guess at the moment I use little timer plugs for a couple of lamps when we're away on holiday. Maybe I would get right into this! I do also turn a lamp on and a main light off for films! Although usually that's how things already are.

Pah, I didn't watch the video.

Looking at the 'features' section here all bit the write protect notch could be compromised on card.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital

Well the Arduinos that weren't pre-soldered arrived first. My soldering is pretty bloody shoddy. Annoyingly I thought they had pre-soldered Serial pins but nothing at all was soldered.

Hopefully I'll be able to control the switch tonight.

Soldering is bitchin' hard!