Re: Question re X10 module (a bit long!)

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

>Do you have a PIR in your room?  I am starting to get somewhere with
having
>lights coming on based on movement (although this is not suitable for
every
>room).
>

Yes, I do have a PIR in just about every room (except the downstairs loo!),
but as you say, PIR operated lighting is not suitable for certain rooms,
and
in my case, the living room certainly falls into that category! - I
regularly lie on the couch watching TV, and the PIR won't trigger for
hours!
- I notice that during these times, it does not "see" minor
movements, but
only triggers if I stand up... Also, the entry door to the room obsures the
doorway from PIR when its open, so although it's fine for security (it can
see 95% of the room), not great for lighting, as it wouldn't see a person
entering the room until they were about 1 metre in.

Also, shall we say that my wife does not share quite the same enthusiasm as
me for putting in all this stuff! - PIR operated lights would freak her
out!
- Unlikely to be a viable option for me I'm afraid, but I am nonetheless
still interested in occupancy detection, so do please keep us apprised on
how you fare with this...

Ironic isn't it - the ONLY room where she would probably accept it is the
downstairs loo!....   :-((

>I am currently beta testing the Comfort Web Interface and it has made
comms
>between Comfort and HomeVision a real gift.  When a PIR fires ACE knows
>right away.  Then ACE can communicate (via DDE) with HomeVision to kick
off
>a macro.
>

Hmm.. I've been following this, but to be honest, the price of the new
RS232
module required seems a bit steep (£110). Although I dont doubt that I will
get one sooner or later, (it will probably be later), it is an unfortunate
reality that wonga is finite, and in the last few months I've kinda
splurged
bigtime! (Expecting a new S-VHS video to arrive tomorrow, oh and I ordered
one of those colour cameras from QVC as well), so It will take a few months
for my flexible friend to recover!

>This all takes about a second (including the time taken to send the X10
>command to turn the light on).  Also with this method HV knows which
lights
>are on.

I would never be allowed to do away with local control from a
"normal"
switch in the normal place. (My wife thinks I'm not normal anyway) -
Although I did think about putting in one of those "secret
switches" as a
joke, right next to the real switch... Then as she reaches out to operate
the real switch, the secret switch turns the light on before her hand
reaches it!! - wouldn't that be a laugh!   :-))

>
>BTW...ACE has built in support for Winamp enabling you to use your
Comfort
>Keypads round the house to control your MP3 Jukebox!  Look out for the
>Comfort Web InterfACE review (nearly ready).
>

This interests me, as I have spent some considerable effort lately getting
Homeseer to control Winamp. - the difficult part being that they are on
different PC's. I presume ACE can do this easily because of its modular
client/server architecture? - Not so simple with Homeseer though! - I've
got
it doing pretty much everything I want it to though, by using a serial port
plugin for Winamp, and connecting the two PC's together with a Null modem
cable. - The plugin can send user-configurable status information out the
serial port, which Homeseer can read, and Homeseer can control Winamp
functions. There is ONE thing that I cannot get it to do, (because the
serial port plugin only supports a predefined selection of winamp
commands),
which is to randomise the playlist (CTRL-SHIFT-R) - it would be easy if
they
were on the same machine.. (hs.keys). However, I think I may have found a
solution to that as well now, in the form of another plugin for winamp:
NETSYNCH - this allows two PC's both running winamp to have both winamps
synchronise with each other over a LAN - whatever happens in one winamp
also
happens in the other. - The audio is also synchronised, so this may have
potential uses in whole-house audio applications. I reckon I could have
Homeseer run a local copy of winamp, synchronise it with the one on my MP3
machine, and then use hs.keys to send a CTRL-SHIFT-R to the local instance,
which should then be replicated in the remote winamp. (hopefully)

Also, I don't currently run ACE - I may well do at some point, if there is
a
compelling reason to. However, I am conscious that as the number of
disparate components in a HA system increase, so the problems inherent in
getting them to interoperate increase exponentially! Also, I don't have any
touchscreens, ACE doesn't support the CM12U (does it?), and I hope that
Homeseer will do everything that I want. (which with the upcoming TAPI
support, it may well do)

Cheers.

Paul G.


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