Maplin Remote Control Via Mobile Phone

[John Stumbles]

in a Maplin email flyer I've just received:

Remote Control Via Mobile Phone Only: £9.99 Save: £10.00 Code: N34BF · Turn equipment on & off from your mobile phone · Compatible with most mobile phones · No phone charges incurred · No need to open or modify your phone or connect with other devices · Applications include turning lights on & off, activate a car alarm, control the heating etc.

Any ideas how it works? Presumably it only works within direct receiving range of the moby (i.e. you can't dial in to it from the other side of the country)?

-- John Stumbles

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

-+ Just because you're paranoid doen't mean They're not out to get you.

[Sparks]

I cant seem to find it on

however, the ones I have seen before rely on you ringing the house phone a number of times for a number of rings.

So you may find it will actually work from any phone, they may have just highlighted the mobile phone to make it sound better!

Sparks...

[John Weston]

From the Vellman site,

(search for MK160). It appears to need to be in a dark place with a mobile handset. It detects = the screen light coming on when the phone is called...

It's discontinued by Maplin, anyway

John

[BillR]

What a stupid idea.... The tip about using your mobile as a bugging device is interesting though. Set it to silent ring & autoanswer. Then leave in room hidden and call it up ....

[John Stumbles]

[X-posted to uk.telecom.mobile since I posted a repeat of this question (retitled "using mobile to control appliances at home?") to that group as well as to uk.d-i-y]

Hmmm, sounds daft (as someone else commented) but I've actually got an old Cellnet mobile (Philips Diga) on which the LCD has broken up so badly it's unusable but it still works to receive calls (O2 haven't disconnected it yet) and until recently I left it plugged in at home to give an out of band channel to get through to SWMBO when she's talking on the landline[1]. Trouble with the Maplin/Velleman idea is (a) unless the number of the mobile you use is completely unknown to anyone else it would be prone to spurious operation by other people phoning its number (b) it's even lower bandwidth and lower reliability than RFC1149 (Google :-)

What might be a viable alternative to the 'conventional' remote home control system of having some box'o'trix (possibly a PC) answering your home phone line and responding to DTMF signals would be an SMS to email gateway and suitable script processing your email. Trouble is whilst everybody and their dog offers email-to-SMS services there seem to be precious few if any offering SMS to email.

Maybe that's why it's on offer (they just forgot to say 'clearance' :-)

[1] which is most of the time ;-) (and when her own moby is in the boot of the car/under a pile of washing/run down)

[Scott M]

Or its battery going flat - mine lights the screen & pops up a message to let you know.

[Sparks]

Or you get a spam text massage!

Sparks...