Google Voice SMS / Possibility to Integrate Python Chatbot?

Hey all,

So, I have been playing around with the Google Voice / SMS plugin, and am really thrilled to see such a nice implementation (minus the memory issues with I think are being worked out).

One of the features that this enables is the ability to send an SMS to the indigo server, and have it process that SMS as an trigger, sending back a text response.

I got to thinking: Wouldn't it be cool if you could have a totally verbose dialogue with your Indigo server?

Example:

Me: Hello House
House: Hello. What can I do for you?

Me: Security Status
House: The garage is closed. The front door is locked. The front light is on.

Me: HVAC
House: The temperature is set to 68. Would you like to change that?

Me: Yes. Change temperature to 70
House: I will change the temperature to 70. One moment.

House: The temperature has been changed to 70.

Me: What lights are on?
House: The following lights are on: Kitchen Mood lights, Living Room Lights, First Floor Bathroom Lights. Would you like to change any of those?

Me: Yes.
House: Please type the name of the light you would like me to turn off.

Me: Living Room Lights
House: Thank You. I will turn off the living room lights.
House: The living room lights have been turned off


......


You get where I am going.


I did some preliminary research, and I know that there are a variety of open source chatbots available for Python. One, in particular, is called howie. There are several others. http://howie.sourceforge.net/


My questions is this: Is anyone up for the challenge to try to incorporate a chatbot function inside indigo? Howie works over many instant messager clients already. This could be also be incorporated into the Google Voice / SMS plugin I assume.

What I assume would need to happen would be that someone would have to port the guts of the chatbot so that it could insert variables inside of responses, as well as be able to look for device names, etc within the user responses.

I don't know about you guys, but I'd have to think that if someone took 3 weeks or so, they could knock this out. I simply don't have time, but I would be willing to contribute in some way (either workflow and requirements) or even by throwing some cash at the effort.

Have any of you considered doing something like this?

The possibilities are endless really, and being able to "talk to" your house remotely would be a hugely interesting progression of where Indigo is today.

There ya go. Today's crazy idea.


Thoughts?

Dave

For any of you who might consider trying to pull this off, here is another link to a decent starting point:

http://code.google.com/p/pygtalkrobot/