I’ve run an autopatch matrix switch for a few years in my house. This total overkill solution boils down to one key feature: The ability to send any device (Tivo, DVD, Cable) to 0 or more outputs (Televisions, computers etc) in my house. It does this in a ‘matrix’ fashion so, for example, I can have my Tivo on in the living room but the DVD player on in the kitchen and the bedroom while my media server is switched to the garage so I can listen to music.

Its a very flexible way to manage your A/V distribution needs. However the real problem with it is controlling it, these matrix switchers are Old School and require Serial commands. Here is an example session over the serial port:


CI3O6T


That means Change Input 3 to Output 6 Take

Fun right? Well, maybe for me but my wife and children hate it.

A few years ago I wrote an interface for my Pronto remote that relied on Girder, a Windows based home automation package. Well, the pronto went belly up and the media PC was then replaced by an AppleTV and now, whenever we want to switch, I have to VNC to an old G4 laptop in the garage to issue the switching commands. Terrible..

So, this new category, AppleTV, is where I will document my quest to turn my AppleTV + my Harmony remote into a Matrix Switch Controller (on top of its normal duties). I have a roadmap prepared of all the tasks to accomplish in order to make this a reality. Some are these are done already but I will list them for historical purposes.

1. Hack my AppleTV. It needs to be SSH, fink (for svn and other utils) and USB enabled.
2. Get the AppleTV to recognize the USB-UIRT so that I can send it IR commands.
3. Get the AppleTV running java and jetty, so I can create a simple web UI to manage configurations
4. Convince the AppleTV to recognize and interact with the Keyspan USB->Serial port dongle
5. Get the USB->Serial Dongle and the USB-UIRT functioning on a USB hub
6. Get ribsu to receive commands from the USB-UIRT on appletv.
7. Get ribsu to flush its STDOUT so that I can exec it from java and work with the output in real-time
8. Prototype a simple control app via Jetty to prove that it all snaps together
9. Can I get wicket or some other jetty controlled app to do some AppleTV UI control so I can break the web barrier?

These items will prove it all fits together properly and will allow me to design my application. This app has some high level features, here they are:

1) JSON interfaces for all functions for future automation purposes.
2) Lightweight server process / highly visual and dynamic web app in javascript so the weak AppleTV doesn’t get burdened.
3) Ability to create configurations that can be referenced as a whole (EG: Switch DVD to Bedroom (CI2O5T) )
4) Ability to learn remote codes and then assign them to a configuration

That is the base minimum to allow my usage scenario of teaching the harmony remote how to do these things.

The future dreamy stuff would be to create some sort of plugin architecture so folks can extend it to do other things. Thats out a bit, right now I just need to be able to control the switcher..