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Part I: Home Automation
Wrapping Up
The modular approach to this project actually ended up making it much
more complex than it needed to be. It’s certainly possible to create a single
C# application that checks the weather, turns on the wireless speakers, and
reads the weather aloud. However, I want you to create your own applica-
tion and have it say whatever you want, so I made it as easy as possible to
replace parts of my solution. Separating the individual components allows
you to replace one or more of the components, as needed for your custom-
izations.
Extensions
If you’re anything like me, you’ll quickly realize that you want more infor-
mation than just the current temperature. Browse through the web services
listed at http://www.xmethods.net/ for interesting data feeds. (Most of these
don’t actually work, though, so test them out before writing any code to
connect to them.) You may also want to switch to an on-demand control
mechanism so that the cold, mechanical voice doesn’t wake you up on
weekends and holidays when you forget about it.
I’ve gotten very excited about the potential of voice synthesis and remote
audio components of this project. For example, you could use these tech-
nologies to do the following:
• Read your email to you in the morning.
• With motion detectors and wireless speakers placed throughout the
house, keep track