Re: [Embedlets-dev] JINI SmartHome framework

[Gregg G. W. <gr...@sk...>]

>Topic tags:[ARCH][JAPL][WIRING][DOCS][MGMT][STRATEGY][NEWBIE]
>_______________________________________________
>
>Gregg,
>
>What do you know about this JINI based smarthome framework?:
>
>http://www.sun.com/br/comms_1021/feature_homes.html

This was shown in the Jini Fest at JavaOne this past spring.  I did not look 
at it in depth at that time.  They had a lot of foundation stuff in place, but 
were still tying it all together.  It sounds like they've made some progress 
towards getting it all working together.  They were talking about open source 
and sharing at Jini Fest.

Technical stuff:

They are using a number of powerful features of Jini. 

ServiceUI allows the user interface to be provided by the server via 
downloaded code.  This is similar to the applet model, but a local Java 
application is the host of the interface, not your web bowser.

ServiceUI includes the notion of toolkit specific UIs so that the client can 
ask for a UI that supports its toolkit (such as swing vs AWT, and with CDC/RMI 
a J2ME toolkit too).

They have Javaspaces in use for holding the current state of things and for 
managing leased access to resources.

They've got X-10 interfaces for simple controls.

There is, as alluded to, some nice layering of responsibilities to allow 
differing devices and protocols to be plugged into the system.

The use Jini services extensively, and I think they are using the Surrogate 
stuff for some of the services related to stupid devices.  This means that 
devices and controls dynamically find and recognize each other to adapt to 
changes in the system quickly and easily.

I can't draw a very exact picture of the system that I saw then, it's been a 
while.  But, nevertheless, they have used Jini extensively, and their 
application shows a lot of the power associated with it.

The number one issue though is still having to have a J2SE1.4 capable computer 
somewhere in the network to provide the surrogate host at a minimum, and the 
remainder of the Jini tools too.
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gr...@cy...  (Cyte Technologies Inc)