Minerva

Minerva is an open source web-based home automation software written in PHP and Perl, designed to allow users to control various aspects of their house, such as to switch on the lights from anywhere, check CCTV footage, email a video, control the central heating, etc.

Control your whole house from a single location

With Minerva you will be able to control your whole house from one location. The project features multiple controls on one web page, a three-phase system that separates process, human readable time reports, vocal feedback, personalised alarm clock, and integration with Google Calendar.

Key features include Minerva TV server, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) control layer, FM radio control, contacts manager, advanced remote control support via SMS (Short Message Service) through TxtLocal, IntelliSMS or Gnokii, as well as IR (Infra-red) through LIRC and KIRA.

The Minerva software also includes numerous web applets, including TV guide (with keyword navigation), video streaming, MP3 jukebox, X10 control, audio mixer, clock, weather reports, calendar, CD player (with CDDB support), RSS feed reader, photo frame, Twitter support, kitchen timer, bluetooth scanner, currency converter, as well as various administrative tools.

Getting started with Minerva

Installing Minerva is quite easy, as the software must be deployed on the cloud, on top of a web (HTTP) server that is connected to your house’s infrastructure. To install it, simply download the latest version of the program from Softoware or via its official website (see link at the end of the review).

The software is distributed as a tarball (TAR archive). Save the package on a location of your choice, extract its contents using an archive manager utility, open a terminal emulator, navigate to the location of the extracted archive files (e.g. cd /home/softoware/minerva), run the ‘sh install.sh’ command as root (system administrator) and follow the on-screen instructions.

What is new in this release:

• Added audio playback button in MP3 player applet
• Improved layout of dashboard

What is new in version 4.3.0:

• Added different 'sayfile' command for Raspberry Pi (espeak, instead of festival)
• Wavplay uses 'aplay' if 'play' isn't present (as is usual for RPi)
• Various fixes to correctly handle arguments to finddev, by replacing $* with $@
• Limit security footage to SWF files only
• Moved vtime over to use Bearskin abstraction 'wavplayer'
• Vtime now supports output device, specified on the command line
• Alarm now supports output device, specified on the command line
• Support for ssh commands as Marple transmission method
• New house design, with gliffy files
• Fixed bug which prevented '_' being used in parameter names

What is new in version 4.2.2:

• Added reverse lookup of station names, from fullname to code
• Added preview for images in explorer browser applet (using embedded base64)
• Added security applet (based on browser applet) to review security images, and live preview existing cameras
• Added 'movemotion' script to sensibly order a directory full of motion images
• Improved browser applet internals
• Improved browser applet code to report file size, type, and permissions
• Improved browser applet code to link to files, where available under the web server root

What is new in version 3.0.0:

• Script for the iPhone App - "Universal remote control"
• Fully unified media playback handlers (start/stop/status)
• Command output and return codes better handled across all bearskin (mp3player outputs the current track, for example)
• Expanded lstatus to take day parameter
• "Routines" added to provide sequenced operations. e.g. bedtime
• Manifest can block music tracks from playing
• Errors reported on initialization failures
• Full status provided when mp3 playback is initiated

What is new in version 2.7.0:

• Introduction of 'minty', a timeout system where devices will auto-turn off if not used within N seconds
• Introduction of a 'cache' conduit to save processor time when requests (like train times) are called for
• Introduction of 'routine', a system for processing N timed events from an intial trigger point. e.g. a 'wake up' routine, which turns on lights, starts showers, plays alarm, caches train times
• Introduction of 'yaks', a control system for processing arbitrary messages (from X10) into Linux-bound commands
• Changes to vox scripts to direct output into a WAV, then playing it. This means voice and music can happen simultaneously.
• Inclusion of usr script in bin
• Twitter script updated to use oauth
• Fixes in human time reading script
• Introduction of the 'homedevice' script, in preparation of ZigBee control
• Unified the logging of Bearskin commands into the 'minlog' script.
• Unified the audio stings into an 'sfx' script. Allows for easier audio skins.

What is new in version 2.6.1:

• Improved Google calendar download/handler
• Fixed install script, causing problems on fresh installs.

What is new in version 2.6.0:

• Added 'SIS' (SMS Information Service) to respond to basic SMS requests, and return data via the same route. Intended as a specific instance of msgrelay.
• Added a few sample SIS services. Include fortune cookie responses from Serverus Snape ;)
• Added 'short' version of LDB query, primarily for SIS.

What is new in version 2.5.4:

• The UK Live Departure boards script was fixed to cope with changes to a third party site.

What is new in version 2.5.3:

• Directory paths with quotation marks and other oddities in them have been fixed.
• This is a proper fix to update the emergency fix that was done in version 2.5.2.