MS13 and ActiveHome macros

Post by **MortenHa** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:39 pm

Hi people!

I just discovered the world of home automation, and have bought several Marmitek modules (CM11, TM13, Lamp & app modules, etc). I only wanted centralized dimming of lights but soon discovered other powerful uses[:D].

So I bought the Motion Sensor MS13 and wanted it to run a macro turning on two lamps and dimming them 50% if the sensor detected motion in the living room at night.

Well, it didn't work as expected. The reason is that the MS13 keeps sending the House/unit code (Which is coupled to a fast macro that does as described above) and the macro executes again and again. The result is that the lamps won't be dimmed properly (using either relative or absolute dimming in the macro).

So wondered how to get past this problem: Is there a way to make the software ignore subsequent MS13 transmissions after the initial one.

Something tells me I need software that supports conditional programming. But that excludes the use of fast macros stored in the CM11 unit.

How far off the mark am I?

Morten
Vardø, Norway
"They are fresh out of the box

"

Post by **Snelvuur** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:49 pm

Well most programs have the problem that if you turn on a macro, if the same signal is received it runs it again instead of extending the time period. (meaning it will do the whole thing again) i'am not familair with active home. Homeseer also gave me the same problems, but there where work arounds. What could help is putting the macro in the post too, perhaps its logic and we can think of a solution

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Bwired** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:48 pm

Please tell us which software you use. I'm not exactly sure anymore how standard Homeseer handles these multiple transmissions. It's always possible to make a script in Homeseer where every received command goes through. You can the easily check the current status of a device, and if the new received command has the same status you just do not process it. For Bwired I go a step further, I filter all the double received commands (within a second) at device driver level. I do that for X10 and RXFcom. This way your system runs more faster and stable because it doesn't have to process all the received commands multiple times.

Post by **Snelvuur** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:30 pm

Subject says "activehome"

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Bwired** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:36 pm

right! not awake yet.
Trow it away and use something else.

Post by **MortenHa** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:38 pm

Thanks for your suggestions Bwired. I pretty much knew that would be the answer. But I haven't been able to find any (free) replacement yet. Not interested in buying applications like Homeseer, Girder or AH Pro. It would be an overkill. I tried to use X10Controller, but it shuts down because it can't find the CM11 on any com ports (stupid program, why won't it let my try to change the COM port).

Any suggestions?

And does the CM11 support conditional programming with macros stored on the device?

"They are fresh out of the box

"

Post by **b_weijenberg** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:50 pm

Check the free software:
MisterHouse
xPL
xAP
Heyu

and others: http://www.rfxcom.com/supported_sw.htm

Bert

Post by **MortenHa** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:11 pm

Thanx Bert

I'll check it out tomorrow

"They are fresh out of the box

"

Post by **MortenHa** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:22 am

Seems like Misterhouse is the way to go. Powerful and free. Need to look at Perl though, Haven't been programming in ages. But that is like never forgetting how to ride a bike right[^].
If I'm lucky I'll have my first line of code working by the end of the week.

Thanx a lot for your help people

but I still wonder if I'm wrong about my plans:
A PIC controller has all the features needed to run conditional code. but looking at the serial interface protocol functions for transmitting data to Cm11, it seem like it only understand simple commands supported by the x10 protocol. There's an extended function to transmit 16 bytes of data, any data as far as I could understand, but I don't think I'm barking up the right tree anyway. Thus my plans to write some code/macro/function that will ignore MS13 transmissions using only the CM11 (PC not connected) are dead in the water anyway?

In short, do I need a dedicated PC for the task? As I drag my laptop around everywhere.

I have another question, but I'll start another thread instead, it's little off-topic in this thread.

"They are fresh out of the box

"

Post by **Snelvuur** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:20 pm

i liked misterhouse too, but i dont like the look and feel and it takes a lot of time to figure it out / make it correct.

I'am going with xpl-perl and zenah (zenah is pretty new) but it has a lot of potential, is small, compact and easy to understand (at least i found it more easier) and it has an active base, compared with misterhouse i dont see any new updates coming.

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Erwin** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:47 pm

Hello Eric,

Would you be so nice to post the url of Zenah?
I'm intrested....

Thanks

Post by **MortenHa** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:13 pm

Erwin

This might help http://wiki.xplproject.org.uk/index.php/Main_Page, just found it, so don't know if the site has specific zenah info.

Checking it out now...

"They are fresh out of the box

"

Post by **Snelvuur** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:28 pm

Zenah "which is easy in my eyes" but its if you have debian. I'll be making a small installation document, but it will take some time though

just so that you know.

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Erwin** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:05 pm

Thanks for the URL Mortenha, have red some pages and will look further in the weekend, it looks interesting.
btw, I'm als investigating http://www.mono-project.com/ for support of many languages Basic, C, C++, Perl, PHP etc. etc in one package.

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell, the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Erwin

Post by **RDNZL** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 1:03 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Erwin
 Thanks for the URL Mortenha, have red some pages and will look further in the weekend, it looks interesting.
btw, I'm als investigating http://www.mono-project.com/ for support of many languages Basic, C, C++, Perl, PHP etc. etc in one package.

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell, the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Erwin
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Make sure that you have rpm packages available to install Mono, as it depends on very many others, which makes it very difficult to install by hand.