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wraggster
April 17th, 2005, 20:46
LiquidIce posted this over at http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=1439


I have not seen anyone else do something like this with the PSP, so I am posting it in hopes to inspire others to do something cool with their PSP. The closest thing I have seen is a controller page for XBMC, but it was just some text links, and did not impress me.
I've taken it a step further. I now have the ability to turn my lights on and off. Have full control (Play, Stop, Pause, Menu) of my DVD player, TIVO, and High Def TV, all wirelessly from my PSP. I did this in a few hours using Photoshop to make some graphics. I put an image map on the graphics and created some HTML pages which are hosted on my WACI NX server. The links are crafted so that when the PSP highlights and clicks on a spot on the image map, it instructs the WACI NX server to send an IR signal to my A/V equipment or triggers it's relays to cut power on the lights.

Apologies for the blurry pictures. The PSP is not very photogenic. I will try to take better ones later.


My next step is to add some temperature monitors, and more integration with my PC and some AV switching equipment to stream video signals around the house. Hopefully there's a way to embed a little video clip or live stream in the new browser.

I hope that Sony realizes the potential the PSP has. If firmware update on May 1st adds a browser that resides in flash that can be called from the 'start' menu, I will be able to quickly surf to my control page and start controlling things throughout my house. Currently, I just leave Wipeout in browser mode and put my PSP to sleep. Wipeout has so many menus and loading screens to get to the web browser.

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Oh and before everyone goes around screaming that this is another hoax like the AIBO PSP controller. I can assure you this is real and it works, and I use it every day. I snagged the WACI NX web server left over from a home theater install job I did last month. It's great because it has an HTTP and FTP server and uses regular HTML to issue the commands making it the perfect match for my PSP, which does not support any fancy Javascripts or DHTML. For more info on the WACI NX you could check out waciworld.com

I'd like to open up a discussion on how the PSP can be made to be the ultimate home automation controller. What would you control and how would you control it...?

Mods if you feel like this has been posted in the wrong place, please move it. I consider it to be development because I made software that does something that the PSP was not intended to do.

wraggster
April 17th, 2005, 20:47
he also followed it up with this:

Page navigation is quick since it's on a local network. Loading the graphics takes about a half a second but seems to get faster once images are cached.

The pages currently do not automatically refresh to show status, however This could be done with a META refresh tag. The WACI NX Web server supports ASP (and soon PHP) so the pages can be dynamically generated to show status (if lights are on or off, if dvd player is on or off, and if dvd is currently playing, etc...)

I want to clean up the pages a bit before i post them here, however they are constructed using layers and Div tags which have images linked to image maps made in Dreamweaver. The actual links are name value pairs going to a script I made on the WACI NX. http://10.10.10.10/psp.asp?method=IRSend&Param1=1&Param2=DVD&Param3=Play
That script is written to execute the IR Send then redirect back to the referring page.

Yes it is a little clunky now, I'm waiting for the official Sony browser to see if I can achive the same thing without refreshing the page using IFrames or XMLHTTPRequest functionality.

Using the up/down/left/right/ to select each 'button' on the image map works OK for now. It's not perfect and takes some geetting used to.

I asked around and it doesn't seem like Sony or any third party has any intrest in making a touch screen. It would make this a whole lot easier to navigate.

Kpow
April 17th, 2005, 20:50
Nice idea, yeah shame about the touch screen would make it much more flexible......hang on what about a DS remote control......nah it would never catch on, nobody in their right mind would buy one ;)