For the last few months, I have been playing around with automating aspects of my home life. It started off with a simple script to renew library books. From there it grew to a simple MP3 player and alarm. Along the way I built a circuit to control a lamp through USB interface - which although the prototype worked came to nothing.

Within the last month I have bought and installed a couple of Z-wave light switches. Four lamp controllers with an aim to really turbo-charge my home automation needs.

With a few turns of a screwdriver, I have replaced two light switches with Z-wave dimmers, and plugged in two lamps. All electrics seem to work.

I currently don't have a control unit, since the company I bought the items from sent me the US Z-wave version rather than the EU Z-wave controller. However I did get the correct Z-stick USB controller.

This evening marked a milestone, since I managed for the first time to have a C# programme to control the lighting in my house. The simple dot net application I have running was able to control three of the four units hooked up.

How chuffed am I, nothing brings a nerd-gasm like having lights controlled from a dot net application. Long project ahead, but I'm on track to controlling z-wave lights through dot net.