Talking Tablet Recipe

Software or Services Used

Tasker, AutoNotification, IFTTT

Hardware

Any > 4.0 Android Device

Possible Uses

  • Welcome home “Hello Rod”
  • Tell you the weather
  • Tell you what’s happening around you
  • Notify you of any earthquakes
  • There is motion in another room

Warning

This can get annoying for the people around you if this feature isn’t used sparingly or used when ONLY you are around.

Method for the earthquake example

1. Setup Tasker

  1. Download AutoNotification
  2. Create a new AutoNotification Plugin State within Tasker
  3. Select your filter command (ie. earthquake)
  4. Enter the task with the ‘Say’ command
  5. Enter a new task (named earthquake)
  6. Enter text New Earthquake %ancomm

2. Setup IFTTT to send an Android Notification

  1. You will need IFTTT installed
  2. Make a new RSS trigger with : http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/significant_day.atom
  3. New android Notification

Conclusion

You can get your tablet to respond to anything you would like. This could also be used as craigslist notifications to your devices.

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What’s the Best Tablet for Home Automation?

 

Answer

Since the ideal tablet is the one that you can see from anywhere in your house it has to be the following:

  1. A really good price (buying 8 Nexus 7’s isn’t cheap).
  2. Have enough RAM not to lag.  This would be a minimum of 1GB RAM and have any bloatware removed.
  3. Have as many sensors as we could on it.  The most important features:
    1. Decent front camera
    2. Good microphones
    3. Good WiFi (Most of the cheap tablets you buy from dealextreme and focalprice have terrible range)
    4. Ideally has IR for adding the cheapest automation products to your home

What is the most functional tablet to hang on your wall?

After considering all these factors and checking with the available tablets on deal sites the answer is…

Without a doubt it’s a seven inch Samsung Tab 3 with IR Control can be found on craigslist and ebay for under $80.

tab3_craigslist

These are pretty awesome for many reasons:

  • Cheap
  • 1 GIG RAM can JUST handle what you need to do without crazy lag.
  • Can act as full Voice Control with autolistening on.
  • Easy to Root for full admin control
  • Tasker, AutoRemote, SmartIR are necessities and make great companions to this device
  • It can replace expensive IR only controllers
  • It can be an IP cam that can integrate into Netcam Studio Server
  • Very light and yet big enough to see from a distance

I will go on to say that these tablets aren’t the BEST ones but they do provide the best value for home automation and can be placed all around the home for easy integration into most home automation systems.

What are some things you’ve done with it?

1. Voice control with an always listening capability.
2. Use my iPhone to use Google Now and Search my Home PC to play whatever music I would like.
3. Use Yatse to auto play videos on my XBMC PC.
4. When you enter a room you can have it tell you that you’ve entered.

Why not the Tab 4, Nexus 7, Asus, Fire etc?

It’s all based on price and what’s the best value for what you want to do with it.  Some of those are overkill for just having a tablet on the wall to do basic home automation tasks.  Most do not require a fast processor or lots of ram as most tasks are done with one open application at a time.

Conclusion

There are plenty of better and faster tablets available but this one is the one  you should be looking for on deal sites and second hand from friends.  They can have so many uses and are pretty amazing little devices.

As of today, June 4th, 2015 you can buy it on Amazon for 84.99 Used or 119.99 New

 

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