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This blog is not dead!

I’ve been working over the last few weeks on redoing most of the electricity distribution in my house.

I bought, last March, my first house (yay!!) and as I decided to buy a really old house (I mean really really old – can’t know easily how old it is, I only know it was built before 1850), I expected most of the electricity to be redone.

Guess what, I wasn’t wrong :-)

There was no ground on most of the outlets, or sometimes it was there but not connected on the power distribution unit.

Hopefully my father know a lot about this stuff and I took the opportunity to do something that really fits my need. I redid all the distribution on my second floor, where I have some rooms and 2 offices. I took this opportunity to think about home automation and network distribution too.

So far, I’ve got all the power distribution done properly on this floor and I have room for the Ethernet Cat.6 cables. I still have to think about how to do a proper network distribution and will be able to complete this as soon as I find some cables and plugs (I have already added some RJ45 plugs in the walls).

I also chose a power distribution unit that has enough room available so that I can plug in an IPX800 module. This module should prove useful in order to control the lights and some radiators. This module is really nice because it’s basically an IP server (with APIs!) allowing you to control & monitor 8 relays and some external sensors. It’s bundled with an Apple devices compliant website so that administration can be done from an iPhone/iPad with a nice interface.

I’m postponing a purchase of a Vera controller, as the V3 has been announced. I’m still selecting which Z-Wave modules I’ll buy though.

Anyway, I will post updates on the blog when I plug in the IPX800 module and let you see the kind of stuff that can easily be done with it.