Home automation in Europe?

[colinjones]

Darren - I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself.... let me build my core first

But, yes, I've been looking for something that would work in Australia and was easily available here but compatible with LMCE. The Linux driver is what Dan (in Canada) is currently gearing up to write with Hari's help (in Austria I think, or possibly Germany with an Austrian email address!) So that seems already to be underway - hence I have been researching suppliers in Australia. But NOT X10! PLCBUS seems to be the closest fit yet, and with the weight of support from our European buddies, and Dan, we should be in a good position.

Have been talking with the MD from MOX in Australia, who have the PLCBUS products - he tried to sell me their complete HA solution, not understanding what I was doing. I turned it around and tried to sell back to him LMCE as a major value-add to their offerings! He hasn't replied yet, I'll see how I go with the evangelising!

The only thing I see as an obvious drawback at this stage is the wall light switches seem to be quite different profiles from Australian ones, and with brick/concrete walls in a rental property that could present me with problems....

[ddamron]

Hi guys..
Just a note on the PLCBUS progress...

The underlying structure is almost complete.  I have designed it to be as Object oriented as possible.  this should decrease bugs substantially.  The protocol seems pretty simple, and 90% of it is now implemented into it's own class object.

Now, the job of :
1.  associating 'DCE' commands to 'PLCBUS' commands
2.  associating 'PLCBUS' responses to 'DCE' commands (bidirectional support)
3.  associating 'PLCBUS' commands to 'DCE' commands
4.  associating 'DCE' responses to 'PLCBUS' commands (if needed, kind of inverted bidirectional support)

To accomplish these, I first need to make sure my PLCBUS class is sending correct commands, and receiving correct responses.

I'm pretty much ready to start the 'integrating' part, which requires access to a LMCE system connected to a PLCBUS interface. (preferrably, with a webcam of some sort, so I can see the actual command execute)

Hari is getting this set up for me.. so, I'm taking this time now to bone up on Ruby more.
The Insteon driver was my first project in Ruby, and I now have a couple books on it.  So, I'm studying...
(and finding all kinds of neat info!)

Regards,

Dan

[niz23]

Hi guys!

Hi though I share this with the rest of you.

A couple of days ago I was on my way to order plcbus products when I saw this note about Insteon products beeing available in europe soon.
See, http://smart-home-blog.com/archives/893

I have asked Insteon about what timeframe these products will be released in.
when I get a response back I´ll post it here.

From my personal perspective it seem that Insteon is fare more mature than plcbus. Insteon also feature a lot more bandwith(2kbit-13kbit/s) which make it suitable to do measuring, displays, keypads etc. Plcbus I believe have to low bandwitdth for this purpose (200bit/s) and onle seem to be supported by few companies.

/niz23

[ddamron]

Sweet!

[darrenmason]

Dan,

I realise that you are looking at creating the LMCE device for PLCBUS, but has someone actually got serial communications to work with them under linux? If so, which device is this, I am assuming the Serial port based one rather than the USB one. Is this correct?
Hari, are you the one that has the hardware? Can you add anything?

regards
Darren

[hari]

Hari, are you the one that has the hardware? Can you add anything?

received the hardware today. USB Interface, 2 lamp plugs and an appliance plug. I did a small c program to send plcbus commands and was able to assign addresses to the plugs after short time. Talking to the interface is very easy. I now can control my lava lamp from linux

just playing with the other commands and trying to get feedback from the interface.

EDIT: uses a prolific pl2303:

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

best regards,
Hari

[ddamron]

Darren,

I think Hari answered your question..

We looked at that before he ordered the products.. (to make sure we didn't run into the same problem that the zwave USB is dealing with)

Hari, When you're ready, I'm ready!
Lemme know..

Regards,

Dan

[darrenmason]

received the hardware today. USB Interface, 2 lamp plugs and an appliance plug. I did a small c program to send plcbus commands and was able to assign addresses to the plugs after short time. Talking to the interface is very easy. I now can control my lava lamp from linux

just playing with the other commands and trying to get feedback from the interface.

EDIT: uses a prolific pl2303:
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

Sounds good, I think I will order some stuff as well.

Regards
Darren