RE: Power triggering

["Kenneth Watt" <kennwatt@xxxxxxx>]

Arrgh, see you're getting all complex on me now! ;-)

Basically I do what you want to do but the programming will take a bit
of adjusting to your own personal needs.

I have two settings for shutting the house down at night, one for SWMBO
going to bed alone, used for all the late night drinking sessions and
internet use beyond sociably acceptable hours (for her anyway). The
other one shuts the house down fully. When I am going to bed I simply
push a button on the Pronto, up comes a warning panel asking to confirm
that I want the house in "Night Mode" and that's it! The house
then
shuts down; all the lights dim to preset levels for night operation and
certain appliances do not work. Since almost all the lighting in the
house is occupancy detected this means that when you get up to go to the
loo in the middle of the night you're not blinded by mains halogens, nor
am I kept awake with a noisy bloody bathroom fan (hardly needed at 3am)
:-)

This is very, very simple in theory...complicated in practice depending
on what you want the house to do and when. For me the bedroom AV system
is left out of the loop in all this meaning that it can be used at any
time of the day or night but it is still X10'd up so that HV can read
the status of the AV system and adjust timers, lighting levels and other
operations based on whether the system is on or off.

More or less to achieve what you want to do is simple enough and very,
very easy to use for SWMBO which was the main criteria when I put it all
together.

One thing though, leave her bedside light as a normal lamp ;-(

HTH

K.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: BUTLER, Tony, FM [mailto:tony.butler@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 12 February 2002 16:00
> To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Power triggering
>
> > Stick the amps on an AM12 to be simple.
> > IR signal to HV from the Pronto:
> > Set flag "party mode"
> > At your specified time for shutdown:
> > If
> > 	Flag "party mode" is not set
> > Then
> > 	X10: <Whatever Amp> Off
> > End If
> >
> > Normality returns as part of the nightly shutdown, again IR
> > from Pronto:
> >
> > If
> > 	Flag "party mode" is set
> > Then
> > 	Clear flag "party mode"
> > 	X10: <Whatever Amp> Off
> > End If
>
> Yes I can see this would work.  Not ideal (nothing is) as will have to
set
> 'normally off' time to be late enough not to interfere with the odd
night
> of
> normal late nocturnal activity (I'm referring to staying up to watch
then
> end of some crap movie/extra long DVD before the smut jokes start!!!)
as
> well as party time.  Again, it wouldn't to to be about to find out
> whodunnit
> at 5 past midnite for the system to then cut out!!  Setting the times
then
> to say 1am-7am reduces the savings being made, but still, it's a
> reasonable
> enough compromise.
> I've not played with Homeseer enough yet to know how sophisticated it
is.
>
> > Or too be even simpler you could just tell the amps to
> > shutdown when you
> > start your bedtime routine, assuming you have one, I do this
using a
>
> Nope, not apart from 'brush teeth, hop into bed, lights out' :-)
> I can see the attraction though if I had loads of AM12's to pressing
one
> button and turn off the Tv, the amps, the video (which is so old it
> doesn't
> even have a power save mode!) etc.   Though going too far results in
> situations of turning everything off, but you really wanted to keep
the
> bedroom telly on because of program X which I want to continue to
watch in
> bed.....
>
> Turning on then may be an issue too - or can the IR->10 controller
(not
> got
> one yet) be smart enough that if it receives a TV power on signal
(because
> SWMBO has used original TV remote & not Pronto which she simply
doesn't
> get
> on with) then it will know to send an X10:ON to the relevant AM12?
IE,
> the
> X10 IR jobbie is interpreting a signal originally destined for the TV,
not
> a
> special X10 IR command (which the pronto could easily do) to switch on
a
> particular module.  This would mean I could turn everything OFF at
night
> and
> then in the morning, if I forget, SWMBO can just point remote TV @ TV,
hit
> ON, switching on both the AM12 and the TV (from 'standby') in one fell
> swoop!
>
> SWMBO doesn't get on so well with the pronto because she mixes &
matches
> remotes and everything is not always in a defined state - this is a
> problem
> where I only have toggle codes for power functions etc and someone
presses
> the 'system on' button which ends up turing the TV OFF, VCR on, Amp
OFF
> etc
> instead of turning everything ON.  I wouldn't want the same thing to
> happen
> if I X10-up the power sockets too......
>
>
> > simple IR signal to HV from the Pronto. I assume that you would
not
> > start a bedtime routine whilst a party was going on! You can
initiate
>
> You never know your luck! :O
>
>
> cheers,
>
> Tony
>
>