The Harmony remote control that I wrote about in June is perfect for the control of an audio/video setup, or in fact of anything that communicates via infrared. But in The Asia House there are also other systems that need to be remotely monitored or controlled, and for which there is no line-of-site infrared capability. To me, the best way is to manage communication via an in-house intranet website on the house server, via wireless LAN.

The iPod Touch is perfect for this. The user interface is great and it looks good. Here I’m showing one of the control pages for the Linksys wireless access point. My iPod Touch is encased in a plastic case for protection, and it also has a stand in the rear. Of course, I have not yet implemented any interesting control software on the house server, but they’re coming!