On a recent episode of The Java Posse they mentioned a project I had never heard about before: project GreenFire.

From the project’s website:

GreenFire efficient manages and controls heating control of houses and saves energy. GreenFire is based on Java EE 5 (is tested with Glassfish v2), Scripting, RMI and Shoal. SunSpot integration is planed.

I applaude the effort to create a J2EE-based solution to cheap and efficient home automation. I’ve often felt that home automation was, and still is, the domain of do-it-yourselfers, with its attendant reliability problems. Running a home automation solution on a J2EE stack might solve many of these problems.

In short, kudos to the creator(s) of this project, I’ll definitely keep an eye on what you are doing.