Re: Insteon RF SDK

["Brad" <bsnedek@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wow Dave,

   Yaa, the SitePlayer people kinda pissed me off awhile back. I love
the web part of site player. I had mine setup to broadcast UDP packets
to my HomeSeer. It worked well then the SitePlayer would stop talking.
At first I thought it was my circuit or code. Then after reading on the
SItePlayer forum I found that the issue was with SitePlayer code. Well
I didn't feel doing hardware resets every few minutes was a good
option. So I just use my SitePlayers for Web access to different parts
of my house.

   I purchased an Xport, and behind that a 16f628 and hit hits every
time. As a matter of fact Since I completed the first circuit and
powered it up, I have yet to have to reset the unit. Very stable.

   Now I am building an Xport with a 16f877 behind it for my RF
sprinkler system. A friend of mine who is a solor power expert is
building the power source. So next spring I hope to have 3 small, 4
station sprinkler headers that are solor powered and commanded by RF. I
own a small ranch in Nevada and irrigation of my property can take
quite a while to get done, by hand.

   Its nice to connect up with someone working on the same ideas and
issues. I looked at your Tibbo EM202. It looks like a nice unit,  TCP,
UDP are my big buzz words right now. I don't really want any of my
internal ip devices exposed off of my lan right now. My HomeSeer is
exposed but nothing else is allowed off of my intranet.

   Besides its bad enough when my servers at work call me on my cell,
to tell me they are having issues. But having some device at home
sending me emails, ("I don't think so") I am the master, I know were
the power buttons are.

   I also played around with that X10 Rf protocol for a while. I found
it to be alittle bulky and long as far as a serial stream goes. All I
send for example is "128, 128, 128" for syncing then "House, Unit,
Data" then let the receiver do all of the conversions to
"hs.setdevice(house,unit,data)" and then send it to homeseer via my
ethernet. I am very impressed with the exicution speeds I get over my
lan compared to X10, and collisions on X10 are a thing of the past.

   The 5v supply on the Tibbo EM202 is a real nice touch. 3.3v, well a
couple of well placed zeners and a new regulator on my boards wasen't
to bad. But I think I may try one of the Tibbo EM202s and see what I
can do with it. If I get in a jam, I hope youll be around..

Ta Da
   Brad

On Oct 21, 8:05 am, nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I've been doing the same thing for a long time although I bought special
> order 310MHz transmitter modules direct from the manufacturer in Taiwan (the
> same one that Laipac uses) so I could monitor temperature, pressure,
> humidity, light level etc. using the same devices (BX24-AHT, roZetta) that I
> use for most of my HA, using an extension to the X10 RF protocol. I designed
> a small PCB with battery holder, PIC12F675 and opamp buffer that can be used
> with almost any 0-5V sensor.
>
> I find SitePlayer too limiting and XPort needs 3.3V conversion plus it
> cannot send email beyond the LAN. I'm using the Tibbo EM202 which costs a
> wee bit more but is 5V, more flexible and user programmable in Basic.
>
>      http://www.tibbo.com/em202.php
>
>
>
> "Brad" <bsne...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Good Day All,
>
> >   Dave I have to agree, though I don't use the Insteon protocol.
>
> >   All of the temperature monitoring in my home is done with RF. Its
> >simple, clean and not connected to any specific protocol. In the end it
> >does tie to my Homeseer server, but thats not hard to convert.
>
> >   There are a great deal of nice simple transceivers on the market for
> >people to experiment with. And of course if you don't need two way
> >communications, it gets easier still. My temperature circuits don't
> >need two way comms so I used the simple little Laipac units.
>
> >   If you did want some sort of central control point to control
> >remotely an RF modem would do the job. You can expand that to an
> >ethernet wireless type connection and really have a good old time. More
> >and more of my friends and family are installing, or having me install
> >wireless hubs and routers in their homes.
>
> >   This makes for a solid foundation for home automation. Units like
> >SitePlayer, and Xport to name a few make the transistion less costly
> >and save a great amount of development time and money. My experiments
> >in RF, and ehternet controlls is slow but I have made some good
> >progress in shaping my world.
>
> > Ta Da
> >    Brad
>
> >On Oct 20, 2:16 pm, nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
> >> Smarthome has announced release of a $500 RF Development Kit for Insteon.
>
> >>      http://www.smarthome.com/insteon/hdk2600rf.html
>
> >> Given that the RF protocol is fully specified in published documentation, I
> >> think a $23 programmable Radiotronix 902-928MHz FSK transceiver (Mouser
> >> 509-WIM900X) and the MCU of your choice can probably do the same thing while
> >> avoiding the inane restrictions of their license.http://www.davehouston.nethttp://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
> roZetta-subscr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx