Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tesla]

As much as I appreciate all the unsolicited advice and criticism...

I'm sorry that you took my posts as criticism ... I didn't mean it that way.

As for the "advice" or extra info ... well, I was just trying to get it straight in my mind ... maybe even looking for some validation that I was on the right track. I actually thought it was kind of cool to be able to chat with someone (like yourself) with such a vast knowledge of HA.

While your ideas of using Android in a HA system are obviously different than mine ... I would still be interested in hearing what you come up with if you feel like sharing. I'm sure others would as well.

[dhouston]

While your ideas of using Android in a HA system are obviously different than mine ... I would still be interested in hearing what you come up with if you feel like sharing. I'm sure others would as well.

Here's where I am going, if my health allows.

• http://davehouston.org/roZetta.htm

Follow the link to my Arduino related page to see the new board designs that will run the roZetta firmware.

• http://davehouston.org/Arduino.htm

There are several WiFi options, allowing direct control for any Android tablet (or any device that can connect via WiFi, LAN, RS232, USB, etc.) that can do peer-to-peer WiFi or, if necessary, via a WiFi router. Neither approach needs to have a PC running although a PC will be used for configuring and can be used for monitoring. The device itself is as dumb as I can manage, doing only what it has been configured to do in order to keep the firmware as small as possible. Most of the smarts will be in the PC configuration program. Tony Perez who was , IMO, the key member of the Big Red Machine of the mid-70s said his job was simple, "See the ball, hit the ball." This takes the same approach - when it sees an input from any of its ports, it checks a lookup table for that port and sends the bytes which the user has defined to whatever port the user has defined for the response to that input. It's more-or-less the same approach I took many years ago with the BX24-AHT (although that did have somewhat smarter and fatter firmware).

Essentially, anything with RS232/RS485 and a serial protocol can be supported so I've no idea what some of the players to be named later may be.

The RR5x5 project I've discussed elsewhere on the forum dovetails with this but is not a necessity as the I2C shield has 8 channels that can be used for RF/IR In/Out. I tend to design things with redundant redundancy.

Should someone want to create a voice activated app for it, the protocol will be both simple and published.

Both of the above referenced pages still need some updating but you should be able to grasp the gist of things.

The I2C shield has a ton of memory that can hold things like IR codes to send out one of the RF/IR channels to drive an IR emitter, or RF codes which can drive an RF transmitter. I've captured/decoded numerous RF protocols for things like ceiling fans, garage door indicators, etc. so it will not be limited to X-10 RF/IR.

There's much more but my fingers are tired of typing.

[HA Dave]

Here's where I am going, if my health allows.

• http://davehouston.org/roZetta.htm

Very impressive! Hope your health holds out for a very very long time. Take care of yourself.

[dhouston]

Now all I need is a Thing-O-Matic to make the snap together enclosures for it - or is there an app for that?

• http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/15/technology/personaltech/20110915-BASICS.html?ref=business

And Voice Control is sooo yesterday. 

• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/the-cyborg-in-us-all.html?pagewanted=2&ref=technology

[dave w]

Rabbit trail follows:
Oh "Thing -O- Matic" is very cool. I worked with a similar device two decades ago at Motorola. It used a 1 cu ft clear glass vat filled with UV hardened epoxy. Two X-Y gas excimer lasers  encompassed the vat. At the X-Y intersection of the two lasers, the UV was intense enough to harden the epoxy. Incredible to watch. It would take CAD drawings and turn in to 3D solid object. Very funny to watch when they fed it CAD drawings of Mobius strip and optical illusions: i.e. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/cog_imposs1/index.html .  If I remember, each vat of epoxy cost about $2K so they did not make very many Mobius strips. 

[YB]

I'm waiting for the day we have cell phones embedded under our skin (probably behind the ear) with the ability to talk to our personal servers and databases.

[HA Dave]

I'm waiting for the day we have cell phones embedded under our skin

I know what you mean. I've always loved the future. I am old enough that even the idea of owning a computer... was Science Fiction when I was a kid. The idea of a talking/Voice Controlled home (like a Star Trek spaceship) was more fantasy than just fiction.

X10 has helped me build a very futurist home... that still looks like just a house. It is amazing how flexible and useable the X10 systems are.

I haven't purchased my AirPad yet... but looking forward to integrating one into my automation setup.

[Tuicemen]

I'm not much of a hardware developer.
However I do plan to play with developing some sort of software for it.
My airpad is on its way!
dhouston, At some point I'm hoping to move to my off grid place so I'm extreamly interested in your works with the AirPad . I have no intentions of running a PC 24/7 there.

Hopefully X10 will develope a bit of android software to upload to the CM15A simular to AHP with the smart macro plug-in.

[dhouston]

dhouston, At some point I'm hoping to move to my off grid place so I'm extreamly interested in your works with the AirPad . I have no intentions of running a PC 24/7 there.

I've found a chip from Maxim that will let me add a USB Host port to my Zarduino^TM Serial IO shield so it should be able to support the CM15A.

• http://davehouston.org/Arduino.htm

(It should also be possible to build a Serial<->USB_Host adapter that would let the CM15A work with anything with a serial port.)

I still have to dig into the details so it will be awhile before I will have hardware.

However, you may have to come down here to get it - the problems my grandson had mailing packages to Canada about 8 years ago, that I mentioned in another thread, were to a remote area where the postal authority went strictly by the book. Or you could send me a pre-approved self-addressed mailing label. 

[Tuicemen]

My wife is always looking for a reason to travel south!

[dhouston]

One more recent development - WizNET has just introduced a $30 Serial<=>WiFi adapter. The WizFi210 is so new, they've yet to publish the datasheet. The price makes it attractive for Android<=>HA but I don't think they include SMTP/POP3 so, in a minimalist (sans PC) system, sending email alerts would require embedded HA software (e.g. roZetta^TM/Zarduino^TM) that can handle that using UDP and I'm not sure, at this point, how much code memory that would require. Also, it's not a plug-in module and will require a bit of soldering skill for DIY.

• http://www.saelig.com/product/BRD027.htm
• http://davehouston.org/roZetta.htm
• http://davehouston.org/Arduino.htm