Messages

I just thought I would add to this regarding the Doorbell, in case anyone else can't get their doorbell event working.

Make sure you have set whatever "sensor" your using as your doorbell to act as a doorbell in the Active Sensors page, otherwise your doorbell event will never get fired.

Cheers

No, no gyration. I have a suspicion it's my Yamaha receiver which has a number of child zones attached to it. I was just curious if there was some sort of built in trail I could follow to see exactly what device was flagging the system as needing a reload.

Cheers

The Doorbell event works fine for me (in 8.10, just about to test it in 10.04). I have a "Doorbell" which is just a motion sensor connected to a GC100 as a "Doorbell (button)" (TemplateID: 1624).

I added a Doorbell event that pauses my media and runs a scenario. It works fine. I've actually got a few doorbell events for different house modes, or times of the day and they all work fine. I set all my events up via the advanced events, using the Doorbell event under Security. I assume that's the same as choosing the "Someone rings a doorbell" event from the wizard.

Cheers
Phil

Hi All

I had a problem in 8.10 that has now also come about in 10.04. Whenever an orbiter loads it tells me that it wants to reload the router because I have recently added/removed a device. I say "Yes, do it now" and as soon as the orbiter opens back up, it wants to reload again. It doesn't matter what orbiter, I load, the first thing it says is that it wants to reload the router.

Is there any way I can find out what is triggering the reload? Could it be that whatever flags the system as needing a reload isn't being cleared?

Is there some extra logging that I can turn on to see when the request to reload is being set, if so, which log file do I watch...DCERouter.log? If I can see when it is happening, I may be able to work out what device is causing it.

Or is there something I can lookup in MySQL to see what device is requesting a reload?

I was hoping for something a bit less brute-force than removing devices until it stops, but if I have to, I'll give that a go.

Thanks
Phil

I have a similar thing for my setup:

* Analog Cam in door connected through video capture board to Motion in LMCE.
* Motion detector setup through GC100 as "Doorbell" (gives me advanced warning that someone is approaching the door)
* Analog phone connected through ATA with ext 994 (wiki says to use 994...whats 996 for?)

In my setup, when someone approaches the door, my media is paused on the MD's and it goes to the camera screen for the door cam. I use the "Goto Screen" command for an orbiter, PK_Screen is 15 (don't know if thats the same for everyone, I just watched the log when I open a camera on an orbiter to see what the command should be) and the PK_Device is set to the camera device ID. I also set it to interrupt and turn on the associated devices (eg tv). I also call  the "Go Back" command after 60 seconds so that my orbiters don't sit there showing the camera all day.

At the same time, a call is initiated to one of my phone extensions I didn't want it going to the mobile orbiter. I use the "Make Call" command in the telecom plug-in to make the call from my home office phone(Gigaset IP Phone) to the doorphone on ext 994. This serves two purposes...firstly the ringing phone is my audible doorbell and I can tell it's the door because of the caller ID on the phone, secondly I can answer it if I want to talk to the person.

The tricky part was getting the door phone to answer since the person at the door isn't actually pressing anything. For this, I used a relay on the GC100 as the on/off-hook switch on the analog phone and I have an event set up so that any incoming call to the door phone is automatically answered by switching the relay and automatically hangs up with another end call event.

So when someone walks up to my door, the phone rings and I can either check the camera by pulling up my nearest orbiter, or I can wander into the living room where the TV will have been turned on with the orbiter showing the front door camera. Or if I'm watching tv at the time, my media will be paused and the camera will come up.

Then after all that when I see it is someone with a clip-board wanting me to change electricity/phone/gas provider...I can ignore them. 

Cheers

I discovered the high overall power usage with a CurrentCost meter hooked into the lighting circuit, and then tested the plugin modules with a plugin meter. And then tested a few in-wall modules individually with both the CurrentCost and the plugin meter which both gave the same reading. I then tested a few Z-Wave modules which didn't even register on either power meter.

I was just curious if anyone else had experienced this. I don't think it would just be a bad batch as I purchased them at different times over a 2 year period.

Just wondering from those running PLCBUS if anyone has tested their "standby" power usage. They say "<1W" on the modules, but I found my in-wall light controllers were drawing 9W each, the 2-light controllers 17W, plug-in power controllers around 20W. I only noticed when I got a power meter and it showed my lighting circuit was using up around 270W with all the lights off.

I liked PLCBUS, but changing to Z-Wave because I'll have saved enough to pay for the Z-Wave in a couple of years.

Thanks Thom

My phone is Android so I don't actually have any "Mobile Orbiters" to get it to ring. I though I might be able to get around it by putting an extension into the "Other Notifications" section of the "Cellphone Notifications" page, but I still didn't get any Doorbell events firing when it initiated a call to that extension.

I also just worked out that I can set the EK_AlertType on my door camera to 6, which makes camera movement my doorbell, and I can then configure it in the "Active Sensors", but sadly I have a bit too much background movement for it to be useful.

So I decided to just get a GC-100 to set up a doorbell properly.

Cheers
Phil

I've been trying to set up an analogue telephone adapter as a doorphone/doorbell as per this page in the wiki:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Doorbell

I haven't been able to get the Doorbell event to trigger. What I don't understand is this line:

"After this is done, whenever the extension is triggered, it will ring mobile orbiters and any cell phone orbiters listed in the webadmin. "

How does an extension "trigger". Is this just the analog phone going off-hook? A call being initiated? A certain code being dialed? I've tried a few things but have never been able to get a Doorbell event. It doesn't appear in the logs and I tried adding a "Respond to Event" for Doorbell, but the action never gets executed.

Is anyone doing this successfully in 8.10 with an ATA on extension 994? If so, how does a phone extension "trigger".

Thanks

Hi Hari

I wasn't aware that those features were available, bearing in mind that in Australia we have a grand total of 7 devices available to us, Not including the 4 controllers and the documentation is fairly poor. Is it possible to change fade rates and scenes through LMCE with just the USB controller, or do I need some other sort of controller like a remote or Home Server?

I've seen the Capabilities list for the device (38,49,50,39,112,133,130,114,134) but I can't find where these classes are defined and what commands and parameters are available. Is there any way to find this info out? I thought maybe a parameter can be set to define the fade rate, but have no idea what the parameter would be.

Cheers
Phil

Hi Josh

I have both PLCBUS and Z-Wave running (I'm in brisbane). If the PLCBUS devices are turned on or off from a wall switch, then they won't transmit anything to say that the light has turned on or off. I had to modify the PLCBUS GSD code to poll the devices using the GET_ON_ID command which then updated LMCE with the lights that were on and off. Having said that, some of my PLCBUS units didn't respond to it at all and all the lights pulsed every time the command was sent, so I only had it going every 5 min. If you install the PLCBUS scene controllers, then they are sending out a signal whenever the switch is turned on or off, but then you don't have local dimming by holding the switch down (with momentary switches). It means you then need the scene controllers for the switches and the lighting module for the lights. I have used a couple of momentary switches to get local dimming and a couple of scene controllers. The rest are just wired into standard on/off rocker switches.

Z-Wave on the other hand will notify LMCE when a device has turned on and off locally, so the change is reflected in a few seconds on the orbiter. Which makes it much better for setting up events in LMCE.

I am in the process of changing over to Z-Wave because I seem to have a strong ripple control signal at my place (the signal energex sends out to turn tariff relays on and off among other things) so my lights flickered (more of a strobe really) quite badly whenever the signal comes through, which was on the hour almost every hour and sometimes on the half hour. Occasionally it would even turn a light on or off...doesn't exactly help the WAF. Not sure if that would be an issue for you, but you might want to test a lighting controller out before filling your house with them. My Z-Wave lights only flicker when they are dimmed below about 70% and not nearly as badly as the PLCBUS devices.

It is a shame that Z-Wave is so sparse in Oz at the moment. As far as I know, smarthome are the only ones selling...and not cheaply either. I'm waiting for a few more modules to come out here before I go over completely. Like scene controllers and motion detectors.

PLCBUS did have some features that I liked, like being able to set the fade rate on the fly, All Lights/Units On and Off, multiple scene addresses per module, etc.

One slight difference with the way the switches work (normal switches, not momentary switches). With PLCBUS, change the state of the switch and the light will change. So if the switch is in the Off position and the light is On, turning the switch On will turn the light Off. Which is what they said in the reply, but this DOESN'T send a signal out to say that the light has gone on or off, so LMCE won't know about it. With Z-Wave, if the switch is Off and the light is On, turning the switch on will do nothing, but a signal is always sent out so LMCE will know that the switch was switched.

Cheers
Phil

Hi Los93sol

Thanks for the tip on setting it to 4:3 in the setup wizard on the phone. It's regenerating now so I'll let you know how it goes shortly.

I just read your message regarding having it send events back to the core. I was wondering if another option would be to link into the Tasker app. It is on most of the "Must Have" apps list for Android and is a very powerful tool for linking in with phone events (locations, gestures, phone status, wifi status, time, incoming calls, sms' etc etc). It seems to have a way of intergrating with other apps in the 3rd Party Action options. It would be great if it could send commands to the core as Actions in Tasker. Even if it was just sending a scenario ID to the Orbiter app to get it to run that scenario, same as "Execute Command Group" command in the web admin.

BTW, it has finished regenerating after setting it to PDA 4:3 (thats the only 4:3 option I have), but after the regenerate and reload, it is still the same with the taps not matching the buttons. It doesn't seem to have updated the UI when I look at the orbiter in the web admin. It still says Normal Horizontal (3:4), which is what I had it set to previously. The size is still set to 720x480. I'll try deleting the orbiter and starting again and let you know how it goes.

Thanks
Phil

Hi Los93sol

The install partially works on my HTC Desire HD. After the initial install and going through the setup, it created the orbiter and generated the orbiter screens with the phone showing the progress.

It then came up with the orbiter and all was looking good, except that my taps on the screen don't match up with the buttons. When I tap buttons on the bottom row (eg Power) it thinks I'm pressing buttons on the seurity row for my cameras. Taps on the camera buttons then call the dial buttons.

For the initial setup, I set the skin to "Basic" and the UI to "Normal Horizontal (16:9)". When I looked at the orbiter in the web admin, the size(PK_Size) is empty, the ScreenWidth is 800 and the Screen Height is 600. The device has a 800x480 screen. The default room and description that was set in the setup wizard also didn't get populated in the orbiter that was created.

I tried manually changing some settings. I tried various combinations of either the 4:3 or 16:9 Normal Horizontal UI's and different screen sizes(by both the PK_Size and the ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth settings), but I couldn't get anything to fix the buttons being off. If I set the screen size to anything that has a dimension larger than the phones screen, I wouldn't get anything, just a blank screen. I've also tried re-doing the setup wizard to create new devices and using different settings, but I always end up with the same result of the buttons not matching.

It looks great though, and even though it isn't hitting the right buttons, it responds quick.

Thanks

My apt-get update is failing because the intrepid distribution seems to have gone from the archives...

I went to au.archive.ubuntu.com, us.archive.ubuntu.com, archive.ubuntu.com and none of them have intrepid showing in the dists list? Have I missed something?

What should my sources.list look like now for 8.10?

Thanks

Hi All

I have just got a yamaha rx-v1900 and thought I'd take the time to do a system reinstall with the latest 8.10 alpha release (2.18). Up until now I have been running an early alpha2 release which has been working great.

When I plugged the receiver into the core it detected it, added the rx-v1x00 device and child devices and jumped into the setup wizard to set it up, which was great. I went through and set it up and all was good. Then about 2 minutes after completing, I noticed the serial detection scripts running again and it jumped back into the setup wizard. It then proceeded to do this continually. Fortunately it wasn't adding a new device each time.

I watched the yamaha device in web admin at various stages through the detect process and noticed that when the detection script ran, it was enabling the device and assigning the serial port correctly (/dev/ttyS0), but as soon as the setup wizard completed it cleared the serial port setting and the device was set to disabled. Then the serial port detection would find the active serial port and do the detection and setup all over again because the serial port wasn't assigned to a device. I also noticed that the correct configuration value wasn't being set, so I modified it to match my device. (R0240 instead of R0177).

I tried manually assigning the serial port and enabling the device before the next detection and this seemed to work. The detection stopped and the device was working. But as soon as I turned the receiver off (manually with the remote) and back on, the detection loop started again.

I assume I don't have to leave the receiver turned on 24/7 just because the core is. And I can understand the core enabling and disabling the device when I turn it on and off, but I thought it would remember my serial port assignment and not go into the setup wizard for every detection. And then not get stuck in a loop of redetecting the device.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be going wrong?

Cheers