home automation

Hello everyone, I'm currently exploring options for implementing a security and access control system for my home/business, and I could use some advice from those with experience in this area. I'm particularly interested in understanding the different types of systems available, such as...

Link Removed Cortana helps make your life easier by making it easy to control your smart home devices from afar. Rush out of the house and forget to turn off the lights? No problem, just pull out your phone, open the Cortana app and say, “Hey Cortana, turn off the lights,” and she’ll take care...

Link Removed If you’re like me, you use Cortana to regularly add reminders, so you don’t miss anything at work or home. Which is why I’ve asked Cortana to remind me to check out the new voice-activated speaker our partners at Harman Kardon are releasing on Sunday, October 22 – the Harman Kardon...

Hi This is so funny that I had to post it. I have 3 Amazon Echo Dots or Alexas, (a stand alone version of Cortana on steroids) spread around the house, one on each floor. Just to test how Cortana was working after reading a post here about Cortana not hearing them when they speak, I asked...

To wrap up the “New Year, New Dev” blog series, we’ll go into using Windows 10 IoT Core and show how easy it is to start developing applications to deploy on IoT devices such as the Raspberry Pi 3. If you haven’t had a chance to read the first two posts in this series, you can find them here...

Marie Mawad and Stefan Nicola | Bloomberg As makers of household appliances fill their machines with computer chips to make them smarter, consumers and privacy watchdogs should beware the data collected by these objects and how it’s used, says Marco Preuss, a director on Kaspersky’s global...

Hey! I'm new here, but if anyone could tell me if they know of any apps that serve the same general purpose as Activator does on a jailbroken iOS device? (If you don't know, it allows you to set up an almost infinite amount of gestures and macros to your liking, so you can, say, if you're...

Caesars Entertainment Corporation, a leader in the hospitality industry and one of the world’s most diversified casino-entertainment providers, is always looking for new ways to enhance the guest experience. Today’s customers have high expectations when it comes to personalized services and...

Funny how some of the coolest projects come my way. Today project by Evan Cohen came via a "first time poster" on an internal Microsoft Distribution List, that happened to be subscribed to by a Channel 9 dev, who happened to read and realized it would be great of the Coding4Fun blog. Got to love...

Last we we highlighted, Jumpstart your Win10 IoT development with the AllJoyn Studio for Visual Studio 2015. This post from Link Removed, Official Coding4Fun Friend seemed like a great follow-up. Not only do we have AllJoyn but how can you go wrong with Cortana too? Link Removed This post...

Hi Before I updated to the final version of Cortana I could get her to play my music by saying, "Hey Cortana, Play my music.". Now she responds saying Sure thing playing your music. Then she says, "Something's not right, try again in a little bit". I've removed all my playlists, cleaned...

Everyone knows Windows 10 was released last week, but not everyone knows that besides the desktop version was released, but Windows 10 IoT Core was released for two devices too, the Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard MAX. Once you get these, the next question might be, how do you get started...

IoT is all the rage, but how do you connect those "things" TO the internet, to the cloud, to Azure? Luckily Visual C++ MVP Alon Fliess is here to help with a great blog post. Link Removed Introduction to the Internet of Things – From the Device to Microsoft Azure Cloud Technology advances in...

Since Build I've been accumulating Windows 10 IoT Raspberry Pi stories, thinking I'd release related posts over a couple months, dibbling them out. But the stories just kept coming in, piling up. If I tried to post these one at a time every Friday, I'd be posting nothing else for the year! Well...

I did find something cool! A couple weeks ago I said I wouldn't post anything more about the Microsoft Band (unless I found something really cool). Well today's project is officially cool! How could you not think Paul DeCarlo's recent project RPi + WinPhone + MS Band + Azure + Excel +...

AllJoyn is a technology that enables IoT devices and applications to discover and interact with each other. Since AllJoyn is built into Windows 10 and the Windows 10 SDK, it's easy to take advantage of AllJoyn using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Link Removed This blog post will help...

I look back on this past quarter and kind of say, "wow." So much has been released, there was so much news that even with this round-up, it's hard to grok it all. Then I try to imagine what the NEXT quarterly round-up, post BUILD/Ignite, will look like [Brain Explodes]... Coding4Fun Blog...

Link RemovedEliot Stein from SmartThings shares with us their app they created for Windows. Listen in and learn how you can turn your home into a smart home with the help of SmartThings and your Windows device. Link Removed SmartThings is the easiest way to turn your home into a smart home...

Our home is equipped with a relatively old gas heater, built in 1996. It still works great, has been serviced regularly since it was installed and there is no good reason to replace it yet. However, it isn’t as energy efficient as more recent models. The other aspect of this gas water heater is...