Re: Comfort an Homevision inputs

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

Eamon,

Others far more knowledgable than me will no doubt chime in with much more
detail, but here are my thoughts...

Incidentally, I don't have a HV, I do have Comfort, and I do also run a HA
PC (Homeseer) for the HA controller in lieu of Homevision, so I have had
similar thoughts about where "best" to place various
sensors/intelligence,
such as you describe.

Right now, I have no analog or digital IO capability on my HA PC, (I'm
thinking of maybe getting an Ocelot, but who knows, perhaps I'll be able to
persuade SWMBO to spring for a HV one day?). therefore I have no choice: it
has to be Comfort for all the sensors. Currently I communicate between
Comfort and Homeseer via X10 signals only. This is OK as far as it goes, -
and when I bought my Comfort panel it was more or less the only choice, as
the UCM module had not been invented yet!

If I were purchasing a new comfort now, I would definately use a UCM in
Comfort to provide a serial communication channel between Comfort and
Homevision. As I understand it, comfort can have a number of UCM modules
fitted, (16?), to provide dedicated serial channels for devices such as HA
controllers, touchscreens, LCD displays, and so on... If there is a problem
with insufficient serial ports in HV (I don't know how many it has/can
have), then I believe Dan Hoenen's ACE software can resolve that issue.

I would therefore be inclined to connect all sensors that you need for
security directly to Comfort, - up to the limit of the number of Inputs
that
you have, or Comfort's ability to power them. Sensors that you are putting
in primarily fo HA could connect directly to HV's inputs, but the main
thing
is that each device is made aware of the status of all sensors no matter
where they are connected. X10 isn't very satisfactory for that, as it is
slow and (can be) unreliable. I'd therefore definately connect the the two
together with a serial connection, either directly, from a UCM to a HV
serial port, or via an intermediate PC running both the HV software, and
ACE. (You may not want to have a PC in the equation, which is fair enough!)

An alternative method would be to signal events between them by using
either
device's digital IO ports, - IE Comfort outputs could be connected directly
to HV inputs, or vice-versa, however, then you are obviously limited to the
number of free IO ports that you have on either device.

As and when I get both the time (and money), I plan to relace my old CSX
serial module with a new UCM (or two?) and connect comfort to a PC running
ACE. then I just need ACE to directly support Homeseer and I'll be
laughing!
(although as Homeseer does support serial comms, it should be possible to
communicate directly between Comfort and Homeseer without any additional
software in between, but I do believe ACE will bring some value-add to the
equation. (I don't actually >have< a copy of ACE yet, but I do follow
the
ACE egroup, so I have had some exposure to it's abilities).

HTH

Paul G.



>From: Eamon O'Gorman <eamonogorman@xxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>To: "'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'" <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: [ukha_d] Comfort an Homevision inputs
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 22:29:30 +0100
>
>
>I am just about to embark on wiring my new house for homevision and
comfort
>and I have a query for those of you who have done this already. My
problem
>is that I want to use the a mixture of inputs from homevision and
comfort
>for my PIR's and door contacts to do both my motion sensing for
automated
>lights and security system. Seeing as homevision does not have 9/12v dc
to
>power my PIR's I will have to use the 12v outputs which comfort
provides to
>power the PIR's. I reckon altogether I will have 24 separate inputs
>available (16 from hv and 8 from comfort) to mix and match. I think I
will
>need about 13 PIR's first of all, and six door contacts.. Can I power
all
>of these PIR's from comfort ? While I can only use 8 inputs to comfort,
I
>could still use the power from comfort to supply the other 5 PIR's ? Or
is
>there a limit to the load on the 12v outputs from Comfort limiting the
>number of PIR's I can power. What I am trying to do is avoid having to
>purchase additional power supplies for this.
>
>   Secondly, can I common outputs from a single PIR to both comfort and
>homevision ?. Ideally, I would like to have door contacts wired to
comfort
>for the security aspect of things, but it may be better to wire these
to
>hv, as they do not require power. Any ideas or advice on how anyone
mixed
>and matched these would be appreciated.
>
>  Finally, what is the idea of having a resistor on the end of contacts
for
>PIR's etc, I thought a simple N/O N/C contact would be all that was
>required. Also, having been spoilt by homevision, anyone have any
>suggestions on good guides to programming comfort, the manuals are
pretty
>unfriendly, or maybe my mind is just getting lazy?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Eamon
>

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