Can my marriage survive the QNX smart energy reference?

My wife and I agree on almost everything, with one notable exception: the thermostat.

Here's the problem. When she's freezing, I'm toasty warm — and when she's toasty warm, I'm broiling. Mind you, all this changes in the middle of the night, when my metabolism does an inverse backwards somersault. Suddenly I'm freezing and she's toasty.

It's no surprise, then, that the thermostat has become a flashpoint. I turn it down and my wife turns its up. I turn it down again and she turns it up again. Repeat until married couple reaches critical mass.

So imagine my wife's dismay when I told her that the QNX smart energy reference allows home energy systems to be controlled remotely over the Internet. Great, she thought, now's he going to download a smartphone app and crank down the temperature when he's not even home.

Kidding aside, the smart energy reference, which helps developers create in-home security, monitoring, and automation applications, is now available for download. Better yet, you can download versions for several platforms, including the Atmel G45, Freescale i.MX25, Freescale i.MX35, TI BeagleBoard, and VMware.

Features include:

• support for Zigbee sensors, Insteon home area networks (HANs), and streaming IP video cameras


• an app for calculating costs of energy consumption


• zone temperature controls, individual and zone light controls, and appliance monitoring and control


• support for deploying human machine interfaces (HMIs) in Adobe Flash

The smart energy reference also takes advantage of QNX's persistent publish/subscribe technology, which I've discussed in previous posts. This technology provides an efficient abstraction layer between the HMI (user interface) and the system’s control software. As a result, it becomes much easier to add, change, or upgrade sensors, thermostats, alarms, and control mechanisms, without having to change the HMI.

Speaking of the HMI, here's a screen capture of the main screen for the smart energy reference. But why stop at a still picture, when you can see a moving picture instead? Click here to see videos of the reference on three platforms: Atmel, Freescale, and TI.


Click to enlarge.