Re: suggestions for air temperature measurement

[Marc F Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 20:33:27 -0400, "Dennis Brothers"
<mysurname@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message  <3salisFm98cuU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>"Marc F Hult" <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:si00m1tnhuml6vnv6dp9lvhjsaq0q6blqi@xxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Most home automation software is not well suited for logging analog
>> (continuously variable) data. I'd be interested in learning about
>> event-driven
>> HA software that also manages analog data validation, manipulation,
>> statistical
>> analysis, storage, retrieval and graphical presentation _well_ (before I
>> reinvent the wheel yet again ..)
>>
>> HTH ... Marc
>> Marc_F_Hult
>> www.ECOntrol.org
>
>You might check out HomeSeer and the mcs Temperature plug-in - it does most
>of what you want; dunno if it meets your criteria of doing it _well_.
>
>I'm about to put a 1-wire temperature sensor in each room of my house, then
>use mcs Temperature to gather data aimed at characterizing and optimizing
>my  heating system (I've also purchased five communicating thermostats that
>will be controlled by HomeSeer).

Thanks for the suggestion. The mcs plug-in seems intrinsically very capable
from what I could tell.

But I poked around the Homeseer site longer than I had patience for without
finding a manual or any actual description. Did I miss it? And no url for a
mcs web site.  Apparently I have to download Homeseer (yet again), install
it (yet again) and then download the plug-in on a trial basis in order to
see the manual? What I did find was lots of discussions of problems and bugs
in the forum. That's what has discouraged me from pursuing HomeSeer. For
example, it took forever to get the NAPCO security working and IIRC, in the
end they ditched the original 3rd party plug-in.

Some folks thunk what HomeSeer v2 would improve things, but that hasn't been
the case as far as I can tell...

Monitoring with undependable/intermittent data system can be very tedious.
Manual cleanup/bridging of the data set can unexpectedly consume the lion's
share of the effort. That's part of why I discontinued using 1-wire. Early
versions of the temperature sensors were flakey. Apparently they've
improved, and the problems acknowledged, so I may give them another whirl.

Out of curiosity, what thermostats are you using? I've been happy with
Enerzone/Statnet/Aprilaire which uses a straight-forward ASCII command set
that could be adapted to homebrew devices.

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org