You will love the Ocelot, this is what I do with my Ocelot & SECU16:

SECU16:
* monitor garage door
* monitor dryer using magnetic reed switch mounted on drum
* monitor washer using a simple photoresistor
* monitor level of salt in my water softener salt tank
* monitor floor pressure sensors
* control garage door

Ocelot:
I moved all my critical events from my PC to the Ocelot, such as scheduled lighting events, Christmas lighting, Car starter, basically, anything that you really don't want to screw up because failure, or because you were forced to reboot your computer after a windows update. I also control all my audio/video equipment using IR (i.e. when the phone rings or an announcement is being made, automatically pause and mute everything).

There is so much more you can do with this little device, and it is rock solid, it never fails, and one thing thing that is nice about it, is that it is only a 12V device, so you can come up with a better battery backup solution than a very inefficient UPS.