Plu­to is a new open source project con­sist­ing of a “Core”: a cen­tral me­dia serv­er to dis­trib­ute movies, mu­sic and tv shows through­out the house; a home au­toma­tion con­troller for lights, cli­mate, pool, etc.; and a phone sys­tem with video con­fer­enc­ing. It also ex­pos­es a net­work boot for “Me­dia Direc­tors” so your PC’s can boot off the net as a me­dia play­er, PVR and video con­fer­enc­ing set-top box with­out in­stalling soft­ware.

The re­mote con­trol soft­ware, called “Or­biter”, runs on Sym­bian Blue­tooth mo­bile phones as well as Lin­ux, Win­dows and Win­dows CE de­vices like web­pads and pda’s. They all fea­ture cov­er art, in­ter­ac­tive maps and floor­plans, and let you con­trol any de­vice in the house. The UI is skinnable and mul­ti-lan­guage. The mo­bile phone has a ‘fol­low-me’ fea­ture so your me­dia and oth­er set­tings fol­low you from room to room. When you leave the house, it switch­es to gprs/wap. So the in­stant some­thing hap­pens at the house (bur­glar, door­bell, etc.) you get a live video feed, can con­trol the house, and speak to the per­son through the stere­os. It also in­cludes a plug-and-play back-end for Squeeze Box­es, IP phones and cam­eras.

Check it out at plu­to­home.com. It’s al­ready use­able. If any of the Be­mused team would like to work with us on a bridge so Be­mused and Plu­to can work to­geth­er, or add sup­port for oth­er types of phones, we have fo­rums or you can email chris.m (at) plu­to­home.com