introduction	approach	future	achievements	information
Future Interfaces
The two interfaces that we plan to implement in the near future are Perl and Tcl. With the perl implementation, we plan to create objects, which represent devices. These objects will expose methods to modify their status, callbacks on success and failure as is done in the C interface, and methods that return the current status. Our plan for the Tcl interface is very similiar, but we will model the syntax on the Tk interface framework so we may determine how well our framework meshes with Tk.
Applications
Most of our work has been focused on creating interfaces for controlling X10 devices, but we have also developed a few simple applications as a means of testing the framework. Our first application was a system to display weather data using the RWIL. This worked fairly well and we were able to create an understandable link between the temperature and a light, and the wind speed and a fan. The system was slightly interesting, but it is always easier to check the whether by walking outside. Our next application was a meeting manager. This system is designed to inform you of meetings and events that are upcoming. We linked the RWIL to a Palm Pilot’s date book, and used its meeting scheduler for our interface. This system is more useful than the previous example as it is extremely easy to determine what it means, and the information is timely. We have linked the concept of a light slowly turning on to the idea of a meeting approaching in time. Therefore when the light is on, it is time to leave the lab or office and go to your meeting. Finally, we are developing an application to link a ftp client to the RWIL. This application will use the X10 device to inform users of continued progress of their large download. The idea is to have the light server as a throbber as is seen in the corner of a web browser. This could prove of use in large downloads such a downloading an image of a Linux distribution for example.
Finding About Applications
We have found that it is difficult to justify the use of X10 in most applications. This is because of the slow response time of the interface. However, we feel that interfaces, which must respond over a rather long period of time lasting at least a few minutes, might be benefited by the addition of X10 control to their system.
Further Investigation
Our goal in the future with regard to X10 is to continue to improve the RWIL and to create more applications to serve as experiments into the use of X10 as a part of an overall user interface. We are hoping to discover new appliances to control via the X10 protocol, which can enhance the power of the toolkit. Other work is being performed in this field of study by creating new devices that are designed to be controlled by a computer, but our focus remains on using X10 to control devices that are more familiar and in place across the world in every home and office.
Send comments and suggestions to: rwi@listserv.vt.edu Last updated: 20 January, 2002