If you have a SmartLinc INSTEON controller from SmartLabs, HomeGuru is the perfect way to control your home's lights and appliances. It allows you to view a list of all configured scenes in your house, view their status and control them by sending on, off or fade commands to them. It is much quicker and friendlier than using the web interface to the device, especially if you use authentication.

HomeGuru supports all the devices the SmartLinc knows about automatically, no further configuration is necessary.

HomeGuru has been tested against SmartLinc firmware version 3.0 (iPhone 2.0).

Version 1.0 supports any custom commands configured for a scene, but does not currently control a thermostat, only lights or appliances.

“I just got the app and I'm impressed mainly for the fact that it was easy to set up and works.”

- James W Pyle III

Available in the App Store: HomeGuru (iTunes link)

Please send us any questions or feedback on the product, we are constantly making improvements and welcome your suggestions!

E-mail - homeguru - at - zenwheel dot com

Getting Started with INSTEON

• Read about the INSTEON technology at INSTEON.net
• Purchase a SmartLinc - INSTEON Plug-In Starter Kit

Getting Started with HomeGuru

When you first run HomeGuru, it doesn't know how to communicate with your SmartLinc, so the first step is to tap on the Settings button to enter the information about your SmartLinc:

Next, you will see the above Settings screen, where you should enter:

1. The name or IP of your SmartLinc controller. This is probably internal IP (192.168.x.x) but could also be an internal name, external name (x.dyndns.org), external IP depending on your setup.
   
2. If you have set your SmartLinc to use a different port, enter it here. (see above)
3. You will probably want to leave SSL off. If you have configured a secure tunnel (see How do I make sure my home automation is secure over the internet (How do I use SSL)?), you will want to use this option.
4. If you have gone to the Authentication page on your SmartLinc and configured a User Name and Password, you'll want to turn this option on and enter these in the fields that appear below.
   
5. Tap done when you have finished.

Once you have successfully entered the details about your SmartLinc, you will see a brief progress wheel while the options are loaded from your SmartLinc. Once the list of your rooms and scenes they contain is loaded, you can see each scene's status on the right. Tap on a scene to send it a command such as turning it on or off. On the scene's screen, you will see a check mark next to the On or Off depending on the state, if the scene supports status. You can click the refresh button on the top to update the status. The Options screen at the bottom of the scene will automatically log you into the SmartLinc and allow you to change details on the scene.

To make it quicker to load, the full status list of all scenes is only loaded the first time you connect to your SmartLinc. Subsequent times you run HomeGuru, the status on the main page will be blank and will not be loaded until you tap on a scene. If you want to get a complete picture of your INSTEON devices, you can use the refresh button on the main screen to refresh all the rooms, scenes and statuses at any time. Once the status is loaded for a room, a swipe gesture on a scene will allow you to toggle the scene's on/off state.

I am Having Trouble Connecting to my SmartLinc

Without having access to SmartLincs configured for each installation's unique setup, it is difficult to make HomeGuru support every possibility. If you are receiving errors while loading HomeGuru or controlling your devices with HomeGuru, please help us out by sending the source to the main (/index.htm) page and the source for any room's page (/r01.htm) from your SmartLinc from your computer's web browser. If your browser lets you, if you could also load the javascript page (/myJS.js) and send the source to that page as well, that would be extremely helpful.

How do I add a new scene or device?

HomeGuru doesn't support this yet, but we're working on adding it in the future. Please contact us if you have any other suggestions.

How do I use HomeGuru over the internet?

The easiest way is to add a port-forward to your router to allow connections to a certain port to reach your SmartLinc's web server. You'll probably also want to give the SmartLinc a static IP or a static DHCP lease.

How do I make sure my home automation is secure over the internet (How do I use SSL)?

Since the Smartlinc doesn't support SSL, if you wish to use SSL you can set up a machine or your firewall to redirect via stunnel to secure the connection. If you use pfSense for your firewall, it has a package for stunnel that makes securing your SmartLinc nearly painless. You'll want to avoid having a direct port-forward, but instead use a secure tunnel port on your external IP to forward to the insecure internal port on your SmartLinc. To make it easier to set it up on your home network, HomeGuru can accept self-signed certificates.