Since I hadn’t updated this in a while, thought it might be good to post a idea that had been floating in my mind lately. Been quite busy with school work and will be for a while, so this idea probably won’t solidify for a long time. Basic concept is a home intercom system.

Most consumer intercom systems out there today (NuTone and M&S) are very limited. Their main function is to allow communication audio and video from the front door to any room, room to room communication, home wide music and sometimes integration with the security system so you can access for example an outside camera from any of the intercom systems. These are usually mounted flush into your walls.

Of course my idea is replacing all of the intercom systems in each room with LCD touch screens connected to small computers (MiniITX) and have them networked. This would allow endless possibilities. Because of the processing power in each one, you can do things like completly hands free intercom operation such as saying “IntercomStart” would start broadcasting a message to all the other stations (rather than walking over there and pressing a button and ending the message with “IntercomStop”. Other uses can be integration of this with a home X10 system, so from anywhere you can control your lights and other electrical appliances.

Since each of the intercom stations mounted would be simply a LCD, they could very easily blend into the surrounding since you can change their appearance. Most of the intercoms out there in the market are a solid color with a plastic or metal grill, which is either very ugly or simply too distracting, and the functionality they offer is also very low.

Hopefully I can build a small one sometime later next year. My goal is to have a standardized method to communicate and setup LCD Intercom systems, so this way people may write plugins or extensions for the system and anyone implementing it can use it, much like the X10 home automation systems or Asterisk PBX (the uses are endless, but since it’s standardized, many people can easily get it started quickly and expand easily). Expect more about this subject in the near future, hope you found this informative.