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Author Topic: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.  (Read 14796 times)

Deemar

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Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« on: July 23, 2009, 12:04:49 AM »

What I have so far is a CM11A hooked up to my desktop running Ubuntu 9.04. I can SSH into my desktop (or just run from the desktop itself) and run commands to Heyu which I have installed and working. It will control various X10 components around my house.

What I'm trying to do now is get MisterHouse working because I see a lot of features in it that Heyu doesn't have like the voice recognition. So I installed it on my desktop but when I run "./mh", it just spits out light on/light off every 30 seconds for a dummy interface. How do I configure it? I looked through the mh.ini file but it is confuuuuuuusing. I've got a pile of computers at my house and can run a server if I have to but from what I read this will just run in the background on my desktop. What am I doing wrong here?
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Deemar

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Re: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2009, 06:37:41 PM »

Nobody?
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Deemar

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Re: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2009, 01:05:49 PM »

So does anyone here use X10 or is that a myth? Maybe nobody uses Linux. It shouldn't matter though, it should have to be configured the same way.
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Brian H

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Re: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2009, 02:24:49 PM »

There are Linux X10 users.
Maybe they are not too familiar with MisterHouse.

Have you looked in more generic Automation Forums where there are all types of protocols and software used?

http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php

http://www.cocoontech.com/forums/
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Dan Lawrence

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Re: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2009, 04:16:39 PM »

Here's the link for MisterHouse:  http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/
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I don't SELL this stuff... BUT I sure do ENJOY using it!!!

willyou

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Re: Questions On Configuring MisterHouse.
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2009, 12:48:46 AM »

MisterHouse configuration is a bit of a mess. Even as a software enginner it took me some to to understand what is happening. But having said that I have used it in many ways that the other systems can not even come close to. The fact that it is so open and perl is such a basic language makes it even more cuirious to work with but very flexable.

For WOT its worth, I have used it for home automation, it sends me sms message of traffic reports, to do lists and even updated shopping lists. I get my daily earthquake, weather and news read to me 20 minutes after I get home and that saves me from flipping news channels. My parents are not computer savvy so they just need to turn the dam thing on and it spits out emails and pictures of the kids. Voice recognition is basic but it is what it is. My current project is to automate my patio with fully automated hydroponics growing fresh organic veggies with little or no labor or dirt (I hate dirt). Since my background is advanced automation and robotics it helps with the logic parts and my friends with green thumbs do the rest of the planning. The point is why automat a switch?  I have the energy to turn a switch on.

 Home will automation will grow, as fast a touch screens have in just the last few years, and this is the next largest green push item. But its like the 70s pc era right now and to get there it must fill a need rather then invent some new tasks. Like where the hell, is the remote :) Right now my son wants it to populate his twitter page while he watches a movie while chatting with 10 friends all in their own homes ( cost savings on snacks and spilled soda). Is this home automation? you bet it is. Think long polling, sms and Ajax and you may see the future 



As for your original question, the docs are a mess and so are the tutorials; I am even considering a port to mysql to make management more reasonable.

But here is why the thing keeps turning the light on and off, its coded as a test, that’s all, to show you  how it operates, but since they assume you read all the code first, then decide, lots walk away in fear of touching it at all.

The code is in a file  /code/test  called test_x10.pl

# Toggle the light on/off every 30 seconds
if ($New_Second and !($Second % 30)) {
    my $state = ('on' eq state $test_light1) ? 'off' : 'on';
    set $test_light1 $state;
    my $remark = "Light set to $state";
    print_log "$remark";
#   speak $remark;
}

All the code does when started ( which also makes it very learn and fast with little memory/cpu ) is as follows

1: Read config files and initialize things you set in mh.ini and mh.private.ini

2: Read and evaluate/compile the user event code into the mh_temp.user_code file:

           
>That includes all the .pl files in its path.  A better design here might be a calling function, but this is it, the rest can be call by time or other events.



  Finally     
3: Loop until exit, each pass executing:

           Set global time/date variables
           Check for voice commands
           Read/write socket data
           Read/write serial data
           Check for timers actions
           Check for external command files
           Evaluate the &user_loop function
Here is test_x10.pl being called to evaluate its time and then respond if needed.
           Sleep for a while (default is 100 milliseconds), so mh does not hog the CPU.

Beyond that is just writing some foo.pl code to do something and give it an evaluator like
get read say do something.  Then activate it, so that it’s called into the user_loop functions and add an event for it with a time, or put that in the code so it will create its own event that you can modify later. If there is an error, it will beep and show you the error. There really is not much else to do. Any thing perl can do you can add.

The rest is setting up x10 devices and other config items like you location and zip and such. As for the emerging standards, open source code like this wont hold you back from adapting , you just include the drivers some one has to write to test the product.
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