Your house and his devices use the power of the computer!
RES(T)mote Control is a "framework" that helps you to control your pc remotely, ideally from a mobile device like a smartphone or an Arduino, but potentially from any Http client. Architectually it's a Java stand-alone HttpServer with a simple REST API to run commands on the machine where it's running.
You can make calls like:
and other calls to browse/open files, setting system volume, shoutdown the machine.
You can use it as a media remote control from your couch, calling things like:
and therefore build straightforwardly an Arduino Lazy Couch that stops the movie when you stand up.
It's easy to configure your own controller, defining customized actions responding to a call like POST http://server/api/apps/yourapp/control/yourDefinedControl that could for example type Alt+F4, or do a save through a Ctrl+S.
The server hosts also a ready, but evolving, Mobile Web App written with jQueryMobile (client/index.html). We are developing a simple Swing UI to set the server and define controls (MainUI.java).
RESTMote controls is build with Java, Jersey, Grizzly, Hibernate, Swing, jQueryMobile and experiments with Android, Arduino, and Processing. There are project files to open it with Eclipse or NetBeans. No Maven (yet).
Have fun!