And once again some smart people put their heads together and came up with something that will revolutionize your world. Well it’s ‘just’ home automation but indeed it looks very very promising. Especially the human-machine interface through speech recognition. First of all let’s start with a short introductory video:

“CastleOS is an integrated software suite for controlling the automation equipment in your home – an operating system for your castle, if you will. The first piece of the suite is what we call the “Core Service” – it acts as the central controller for the whole system. This runs on any relatively recent Windows computer (or more specifically, the computer that has an Insteon PLM or USB stick plugged in to it), and creates a network connection to both your home automation devices, and the second piece of the integrated suite – the remote access apps like the HTML5 app, Kinect voice control app, and future Android/iOS apps.” (from the CastleOS page)

So it’s said to be an all-in-one system that controls power-outlets and devices through it’s core service and offering the option to add Kinect based speech recognition to say things like “Computer, Lights!”.

Unfortunately it comes with quite high and hard requirements when it comes to hardware it’s compatible with. A kinect possible exists in your household but I doubt that you got the Insteon hardware to control out devices with.

That seems to be the main problem of all current home automation solutions – you just have to have the according hardware to use them. It’s not quite possible to use anything and everything in a standardized way. Maybe it’s time to have a “home plug’n’play” specification set-up for all hard- and software vendors to follow?

Source 1: http://www.castleos.com