Written by The only way I can currently easily turn on my bedside light is to send an IM message to my house. I have a lamp which though screwed into the wall, is plugged into a wall outlet. It used to have a little pull-chain switch on it, but back when it was Erica’s bedside light (before she switched for mine), she broke the chain. So the only way to switch it is to either plug/unplug it from the wall (which is logistically tricky because the socket is under the bed), or to get an X10 controller and plug the lamp into the wall through that. I chose option 2, selecting a radio-controllable module so that I can have the on/off button located on my bedside table. Great. Except that the batteries just died in the remote. Luckily though, I have an alternate control system set up — a server written in perl which parses input from a variety of sources, and then sends out X10 control signals throughout the house. One interface I have hooked up is an IM-based one. I can send IM messages to my house, and it’ll take actions based on what I tell it to do. So as of right now, the only way I can switch my bedside light on and off is to send an IM to craiglog on AIM, with the message “turn on bedroom light” or “turn off bedroom light”.
It’s especially lucky that I’m such a geek I normally bring my laptop to bed with me anyway…
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