The 2 products of OR

Here is what OR does, first A/V automation, then HA automation, these are the products and they are broken down in various projects:

1. A/V automation. Beehive/Manager/Controller/iPhone combo. This first product is really where I personally started. Having an iPhone control my TV. The idea of Beehive is to enable collection, packaging and distribution of IR and RS codes. CB is working on it as we speak, claims he already has 100k codes in it (from LIRC) and says he will release next weekend. For those of you that want to contribute, details on Beehive can be found here and is probably the first step. On top of Beehive sits manager. Manager allows one to declare an A/V setup and collect a package of codes that run on the Controller. Details on Manager and how to contribute can be found here. Finally rendering the remote, with all pages is the job of the iPhone Console. The idea is to have a programmable interface (via web) and anyone can assembled simplified UIs. Details on the console can be found here. This package of application is a hefty chunk, each project a worthwhile OSS project (and in fact has been implemented in many places) but will provide a useful iteration of IR code management and iPhone UI remote creation.
2. HA automation. Controler/Protocol support. This is a more ambitious project that aims to be an integration point for existing proprietary and open HA protocols. Once we have modular support for on the wire specifications across medias and vendors, offering a unified install, maintenance and programming interface really serves the needs of the installer crowd and the DIY crowd. Protocol research, such as INSTEON, KNX, xPL, fall in this category. Applications are lights, HVAC, Security etc. Standardizing on a standard message format is a pre-requisite. Programming models research, in the vein of KNX@Home (web) or ETS, or indeed proprietary Crestron, INSTEON environments, is what we are looking at. Manager for example now takes into account a hierarchical plans of a house, not just a local A/V setup. Notions of scenes, logical names, conditional events etc appear in here. The iPhone interface is still very much a part of this second step.

As you read through the site, we tend to discuss all of these issues in parallel and it seems some newcomers may find it hard to grasp at once what it is that we are pursuing from a product standpoint.