Reference Home Automation and Security implementation

[asrman]

I have been sitting on the fence with LinuxMCE installed on my spare laptop for the past 5 months without having done anything useful yet with it. Well the time has come and I would like to request some help from the community.

I have a 900 Sqfoot home in a "up and coming" neighborhood. My plan is to put together a high degree of automation in the home as well as security. Insteon looks like a good option for automation, but looks like the support for Insteon is underway in the Linux MCE per wiki. (looks like link is not allowed ).

Is there a reference implementation of Linux MCE with a DIY guide for a semi technical and handy person like me? ( I have technical background, coded for 8 years but have been away from engineering for 5+ years now.).

If such a DIY reference implementation does not exist yet and there is interest in the community to have someone put together such a reference implementation, I would love to have that opportunity if I can get support from the community to put a good system together. I.e. I will document the detailed installation in the wiki for future use of others.

Thank you in advance for your help

[l3mce]

We will help in any way we can, assuming you understand that you cannot sell this system.

Having coded for a good while, we could use your help too. We have a lot of users, not a lot of contributors. If you want to make something do a thing... we will bend over backwards, devote countless hours to helping you help the community. I like helping people, and have a strong understanding of the system... so even if you don't help us, I will help you. But if you want to get into the deep end of the pool, the core devs will give you any level of brain dump you need to "do" stuff.

Welcome btw

[Armor Gnome]

I will also volunteer my time to assist you.   I have z-wave currently and am just needing to pick up a CM for x-10.  Insteon didn't impress me much with the exception of their recent wireless lightbulb.

Yeah! The bulb itself is networked, not the fixture!

I am a gadget guy though and love to make old hardware hum in new ways.  A zwave window blind is awesome, but so is custom wiring a step motor to one in the wall that pulls a chain hidden in the curtain rod.  Welcome aboard and let me know if you need anything.

[tschak909]

I will say, honestly, of the options you can realistically use in the US, you can use:

* Z-Wave .. lots of vendors.. fairly standardized command classes, can do Lighting, Climate, and Security
* Insteon .. One main vendor.. Inexpensive...can do Lighting and some sensors
* KNX .. KNX is _the_ gold standard for automation (itself descended from the European Installation Bus EIB), few vendors in the US, (Element Controls being one), but a high degree of redundancy and reliability. Can handle lighting, climate, and security.
* 1-wire can provide various sensors that can be read and reacted to via events.
* a GC-100 can provide a connection point for contact closure sensors and infra-red, as well as 1 or 2 RS-232 ports, and relays.

And of course, drivers can be written very quickly to support more and more devices, either directly, or through an interface.

-Thom

[asrman]

We will help in any way we can, assuming you understand that you cannot sell this system.

Having coded for a good while, we could use your help too. We have a lot of users, not a lot of contributors. If you want to make something do a thing... we will bend over backwards, devote countless hours to helping you help the community. I like helping people, and have a strong understanding of the system... so even if you don't help us, I will help you. But if you want to get into the deep end of the pool, the core devs will give you any level of brain dump you need to "do" stuff.

Welcome btw

Thanks for the offer to help, I will take you on up it. For now it is time to get digging and understand how things work.

No plans to sell anything at all, I personally think its pretty silly when people try to sell freely developed stuff, and I am being polite in this statement.  Looking forward to being part of the community.

[asrman]

I will also volunteer my time to assist you.   I have z-wave currently and am just needing to pick up a CM for x-10.  Insteon didn't impress me much with the exception of their recent wireless lightbulb.

Yeah! The bulb itself is networked, not the fixture!

I am a gadget guy though and love to make old hardware hum in new ways.  A zwave window blind is awesome, but so is custom wiring a step motor to one in the wall that pulls a chain hidden in the curtain rod.  Welcome aboard and let me know if you need anything.

Thank you Armor for the welcome and the offer to help. I am beginging on the learning part, what I like about Insteon is the two way communication and ablity to program in java with the kit. The INSTEON-Compatible-Elk-M1-Gold-Kit-and-ISY-994i-with-Dual-Band-INSTEON-Interface looked attractive ( I cannot post links, but its on the smart home website), but looks like a bit too much to spend just on back end to control a relatively small setup like mine. Any suggestions on what should be the backbone of the home automation that can be paried with a laptop running LinuxMCE? My primary intention is to be able to do the following tasks:

1) Control flood lights at four corners
2) Have wifi external video camears controlled through linuxMCE
3) Abilty to control 4-5 different appliances (mostly light bulbs) inside the home

nest thermostat would have been a great option for HVAC but I currently have a old school split system which I cannot automate at this point (manual on / of switch on the two split unit).

[asrman]

Thom thank you the suggestions. I want to limit the cost of the whole project to be under 2k and given my criteria above, what would be your suggestions on the setup?

I will say, honestly, of the options you can realistically use in the US, you can use:

* Z-Wave .. lots of vendors.. fairly standardized command classes, can do Lighting, Climate, and Security
* Insteon .. One main vendor.. Inexpensive...can do Lighting and some sensors
* KNX .. KNX is _the_ gold standard for automation (itself descended from the European Installation Bus EIB), few vendors in the US, (Element Controls being one), but a high degree of redundancy and reliability. Can handle lighting, climate, and security.
* 1-wire can provide various sensors that can be read and reacted to via events.
* a GC-100 can provide a connection point for contact closure sensors and infra-red, as well as 1 or 2 RS-232 ports, and relays.

And of course, drivers can be written very quickly to support more and more devices, either directly, or through an interface.

-Thom

[Techstyle]

Asram,

I use X10 (cheap - lights, outlets and PIR) and 1-wire (very cheap - temp and soon Humidity).  Do you own your condo? meaning are you willing to run structured wiring? Cat5e/6 around

Armor Gnome,
I don't use Nest but do use a Filtrete 3M-50 that I am trying to add support for  (it is cheaper and not as Apple-esque).

Anderson01,
What would you fit if you were just buying a normal alarm system?  think of what you would want to cover then apply that to LMCE.  PIR's, window/door sensors are all readily available in LMCE.  Add camera's, sirens, alerts via email and phone

In general, I like the ability to use sensors for multiple things - for instance PIR's are used for security and to trigger lighting.  Temp sensors help with heating system and (hopefully - when I work this out) fire alarms (if the sensor is over a certain temperature - FIRE!!!)

[WhateverFits]

I don't use Nest but do use a Filtrete 3M-50 that I am trying to add support for  (it is cheaper and not as Apple-esque).

Check out template #2254 for that 3M-50 you speak of. I'm actively developing the driver and fixing little problems here and there.

[Techstyle]

Have you checked the template in or is it just 2254 in your setup?

Take a look at #2235, this is the template I created with Tschak's help, but since then I have been talking to Aviator.  See the wiki page http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Radio_Thermostat for some code snipets

[WhateverFits]

It is checked in but I don't know if the system changed the number or not. Sorry. I'll PM you my code. Somewhat of a hack since I couldn't figure out how to import JSON libraries into the built in processor.