New XTension release, v7 build 853

My day job is as a developer of the XTension home automation software for the Macintosh. This new build has a really huge set of new features and I’m really excited about it. It adds support for the Vera interfaces. They are a lot more than just an interface, but not too much more expensive than just a separate ZWave interface. These are the most full featured and most reliable ZWave interface that we support and is certainly my favorite. Though the vera we also gain Insteon support. Technically you can do X10 through the vera as well but it’s so slow as to be unusable and is only outgoing, it can’t receive any X10. For many people the Vera interface would be all the automation that they need and some people wont want to connect it to a computer, but XTension is really for people that have outgrown the capabilities of these devices and want something more.

This version also has a greatly improved web interface. The pages are completely dynamic and while you get simple unit lists for control you can also create custom pages that display any or all of your information. In previous versions this has had trouble on iOS devices, this version fixes those issues and runs great on iOS or other mobile platforms. More mobile templates are on the way so that you’re not looking at a large screen designed interface. You can also create as many different interfaces running on different ports as you like so make a separate one for iOS and another for your tablets and another for your browser.