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 With the recent announcement from Steve Jobs that Apple will be releasing the iPad in the next 60 days, many people (including myself) were asking "What's the point of the iPad?" After doing a search for this exact phrase and finding numerous discussions, it appears that people such as myself with both a MacBook and an iPhone aren't the target market, as those two devices pretty much cover off any computing I need to do. No, the target market appears to be families with schedules to coordinate (calendar app) and notes to leave (using it as an electronic whiteboard) as well as people who may travel a lot and would prefer to pull out the über-thin iPad to read the paper or email vs a full-fledged laptop.
Looking at it from this perspective, I began to see an opportunity that I'm sure I'm not the first to think of: Could the iPad be the ultimate home automation controller interface? Let's consider the following: With a claimed battery life of 10 hours active use, presumably weeks of standby the iPad could sit on a coffee table and act as the central controller interface, webcam/security camera display and have enough resolution to support instant display of the entire house's status at a glance. That's something that the iPhone or iPod touch currently can't say. There's also a dock with keyboard which can continuously charge the iPad making it more of a permanent fixture in the house. You could also embed the iPad in the wall of the house, running the power feed in a more permanent fashion and using the onscreen keyboard whenever input is needed.  Multi point touchscreen, one of the highest density pixel displays and a built in speaker to listen to audio-equipped camera feeds put it on par with the best home automation interfaces, and the $499 price tag is a fraction of the usual $1500-2000 prices associated with such a device.
Troubleshooting and remote control could be accomplished via remote desktop, and the plethora of existing iPhone apps out there can run without modification as an interface to your home automation system. One of the ones I'm more familiar with, HomeSeer has an interface designer which can be used to control Insteon, Z-Wave, X10 and the like and is specifically tailored to custom devices such as this. Simply select a new screen in the designer with the correct resolution (1024x768 for the iPad) then drag and drop the buttons for your kitchen, living room etc until you've created a custom iPad home automation interface. Include weather, security cameras and lighting status/controls to your at-a-glance screen and save the profile. Launch HSTouch on the iPad and configure it to use the new profile - Done.
While technically you can use any existing iPhone home automation app on the iPad, you have to use the "2x" button to fill the screen with the interface, and it's really kind of wasting the best part of the iPad: the large screen. The beauty of the HomeSeer setup is that you can actually use the screen, although I'm sure it won't be long before other manufacturers realize the potential and start adapting (Myro seems to "get it" - pity they only work with HAI for now).
I haven't touched upon web-interfaces yet, but that's another avenue that could show promise for quick gains once the iPad is released. Without the ability to go "full screen" with the browser, the top URL bar constantly being present will be a deal-breaker for any permanent installation however.
 Being only half an inch thick can be a real benefit in this situation as well since you can essentially place a frame around it and mount it on the wall without a specialized drywall cutout. All things considered, I'm actually looking forward to the iPad launch now and I'll seriously consider getting one for this purpose down the road.
What are your thoughts on the iPad as a home automation controller?
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