Several neighbors and we decided to hold a bbq this weekend. I opted to provide the beef tenderloin (among other things) as I wanted to try cooking it on the grill. I got inspiration from this post: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/06/how-to-grill-roast-a-whole-beef-tenderloin.html But, there were a fee things I did differently. I couldn’t find kitchen string in time. So I didn’t wrap the narrow end and tie. Instead, I used aluminum foil to keep it tightly together.

I got another toy today - the Fibaro Door and Window Sensor FGK-107. The primary reason why I got it was I wanted to be able to automatically lock my door when it is closed. The Yale lock I got 2 weeks ago is Z-Wave enabled, which means I can connect it (wirelessly) to my Vera Lite home automation controller. One of the shortcomings of this lock is it won’t automatically lock when (and only when) the door is closed (like other fancy digital locks on the market these days).

I wanted to add a widget to my Imperihome set-up telling me if my LIFX API was still running. If you check my earlier post, you’ll see that I am running the unofficial Ruby LIFX HTTP API from https://github.com/chendo/lifx-http. I decided to write something simple in php and run it also on the Raspberry pi. But first, I need an http server. I decided to go for lighttpd (following directions from this page: http://www.

A quick guide on how I got my bulbs (sort of!) connected to my Vera network. No real trickery here. And the bulbs themselves aren’t yet added, instead, I focused on creating common scenes and made scenes in Vera. What’s needed: A Raspberry Pi (or other *nix computer that you’re happy with keeping on all the time) Ensure it has a static IP on your local network - otherwise if the IP keeps changing, this won’t work too well.

Finally got my Z-Wave (EU)-enabled Yale smart lock from my friends at L3 Homeation [http://l3homeation.com/] (Kallang Leisure Mall) It shows up as a lock in the Vera interface: I also finally found a use for my Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet that’s been collecting dust. A work in progress….

About two months ago, I started looking into home automation solutions as the condo my wife and I bought way back in February of 2011 was going to finally complete soon - and since it would be ours (and not rented from someone else), I figured I could finally do some fun projects to make it “ours”! In comes Home Automation. I wrote a couple of posts before here, here, and here in the lead up.