[X-posted to uk.telecom.mobile since I posted a repeat of this question
(retitled "using mobile to control appliances at home?") to that group as
well as to uk.d-i-y]

"John Weston" wrote in message
.. .

From the Vellman site, http://www.velleman.be/ (search for MK160). It
appears to need to be in a dark place with a mobile handset. It detects
the
screen light coming on when the phone is called...

Hmmm, sounds daft (as someone else commented) but I've actually got an old
Cellnet mobile (Philips Diga) on which the LCD has broken up so badly it's
unusable but it still works to receive calls (O2 haven't disconnected it
yet) and until recently I left it plugged in at home to give an out of band
channel to get through to SWMBO when she's talking on the landline[1].
Trouble with the Maplin/Velleman idea is (a) unless the number of the mobile
you use is completely unknown to anyone else it would be prone to spurious
operation by other people phoning its number (b) it's even lower bandwidth
and lower reliability than RFC1149 (Google :-)

What might be a viable alternative to the 'conventional' remote home control
system of having some box'o'trix (possibly a PC) answering your home phone
line and responding to DTMF signals would be an SMS to email gateway and
suitable script processing your email. Trouble is whilst everybody and their
dog offers email-to-SMS services there seem to be precious few if any
offering SMS to email.


It's discontinued by Maplin, anyway

Maybe that's why it's on offer (they just forgot to say 'clearance' :-)


[1] which is most of the time ;-)
(and when her own moby is in the boot of the car/under a pile of washing/run
down)

--
John Stumbles
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