LinuxMCE Forums

AgoControl => Users => Topic started by: hari on October 24, 2012, 11:07:49 pm

Title: Welcome
Post by: hari on October 24, 2012, 11:07:49 pm
Welcome to the ago control user forum. Feel free to discuss topics related to ago control here.

There is a new forum for ago control here: http://agocontrol.com/forum
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: Crawtech on October 25, 2012, 05:04:33 am
Hi Hari
What is ago control  ???

Chris
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on October 25, 2012, 09:07:19 pm
ago control is an open source home automation system. It was inspired by LinuxMCE, but uses enterprise components like an AMQP message broker to implement messaging (data, commands, events).
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: buckle on October 26, 2012, 12:23:46 am
Where is the source?
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: rages on October 26, 2012, 09:31:05 am
HI,

very interesting, we are eager to know more details.

Emanuele
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: bongowongo on October 29, 2012, 08:37:17 am
Hey Hari,

You really keep us in suspense.
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on October 30, 2012, 08:03:49 pm
I'm searching alpha testers with a debian wheezy installation and a z-wave dongle.
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: rages on October 30, 2012, 08:35:46 pm
I have an raspberry with debian and knx installation.
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on October 31, 2012, 06:48:24 pm
I'll prepare current raspberry packages. Catch me on IRC tomorrow.
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on November 05, 2012, 06:26:51 pm
packages are on the mirror, more details can be found on www.agocontrol.com
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: microbrain on November 10, 2012, 06:44:35 am
As a newbeeeee to LMCE, could you take a minute and explain here what the major difference is between LMCE & Ago (if any)  and why I would want to use it.


Thanks
microbrain
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on November 10, 2012, 11:04:59 am
ago control is written from scratch, so it currently lacks a lot of the features offered by LinuxMCE. This is the major drawback right now. On the win side, there is the following from a "core" perspective:

- much easier to understand code base with modern architecture
- does not use DCE/DCERouter for messaging but the AMQP protocol via the apache qpid daemon. This provides enterprise class messaging with things like authentication, fail over (high availability), encryption, very easy integration into many languages like c++, python, Java and more. Messages use english language like 'message["command"] = "on"'. So you don't need to know that command id 192 means on like in DCE. Do you know the parameter number for set level? In ago control it is 'message["level"] = ..'
- loose coupling between components, so no central database with ugly things like sqlCVS or sql2cpp. If you restart a single component, you don't have to restart everything (like when quick reloading the DCERouter in LinuxMCE). Device schema is held in a yaml structure so user interfaces know easily what controls to provide to the user. No hard dependencies on components and easy replacement of them. No need for "plugins" that share the DCERouter memory space, everything is just another daemon. You don't have to rely on services like the "resolver", it is just helpful to map device UUID to name and such.
- very leightweight, runs on many embedded systems like the raspberry or a plug computer
- cloud features, you can log in to the ago control cloud and control your devices even when you're not at home. Without any complex VPN configuration

In my dreams this will become LinuxMCE 3.0. It has the potential. Of course there is a huge amount of work to do to get feature parity with the current LMCE 2.0. Currently there is no such thing as an orbiter, the user interface options are:

1) Web admin
2) access via cloud
3) simple android app, much work needs to be done in this area, but it allows on/off control of devices and scenarios
4) meloware iphone app

On the home automation side there is a scenario handler and an event handler. So you can make "command groups" via scenarios, and also add delay in between commands. You can respond to events like sunset, device level change or do timed events. They can be edited via the web admin. Needs some polishing but basic functionality is there. Next step will be enrichment of event criteria, like states of other devices and "global" state like day/night.

On the device support side the things are improving daily. Z-Wave support via OpenZWave (much cleaner design than the LinuxMCE driver, better support for enhanced protocol features), KNX support will be ready in a few days (via eibd, so running in parallel with lmce works fine), EnOcean is under construction, about 50% done. 1wire works fine for temp, humidity, brigthness and I/O sensors. Chromoflex USP3 is also supported. Onkyo EISCP just needs a few more lines of code to implement more than on/off.

There also exists a bridge from LinuxMCE to agocontrol. It still needs some work to automatically announce devices to LinuxMCE and support more commands than on/off/setlevel. This will allow you to run LinuxMCE and agocontrol in concert. You might ask yourself "why?" - e.g. you could use ago control for basic automation and only power on your LinuxMCE system when you need media. This will save a lot of energy when you're running ago control on a low power ARM computer.

So much for a short overview. Volunteers for coding, testing, and using? ;=)
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: Randall on November 10, 2012, 03:30:01 pm
A few basic questions:
- Is an AgoControl 'core' expected to act as a router/firewall as in the LMCE 'core' sense or is it just another network device?
- What do you envision its role in media delivery to be? In fact, what functions/services do you expect an AgoControl 'core' to provide? A big-picture overview would be helpful.
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on November 10, 2012, 08:25:45 pm
it is just another networked device. For multimedia it will control existing players like XBMC, WD TV Live and other UPnP players and probably squeezeboxes. For TV the plan is to support the VDR remote control protocol and set top boxes running enigma (Dreambox, ..). More devices might come in the future but we have to start somewhere :-)
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: jgalak on December 21, 2012, 03:01:41 am
What about X10/Insteon support?
Title: Re: Welcome
Post by: hari on December 21, 2012, 02:40:30 pm
please go to http://agocontrol.com/forum