Re: Occupancy detection

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

ben.parees@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>One thing i've considered to help the situation is a product I saw a
>while ago (sorry no link handy right now) which acts as a whole-house
>radio reciever and connects to your PC directly.  This would eliminate
>the "sensors->transceiver->PC" leg of the trip and probably cut the
>response time in half.  You still have the latency of being noticed by
>the sensor and the PLC lag time though.  Incidentally this product has
>a "real" antenna and claims to boost reception ranges significantly.
>I'm sure Dave Houston knows what i'm talking about and knows whether
>those claims are valid.

The BX24-AHT (no longer available) and roZetta (not likely to become
available for a few more months and then without internal RF) are based on
the principal of centralized RF reception. It's fairly simple to design an
efficient antenna (and add a wideband preamp, if needed) to get good RF
reception (200' even with lots of metal and wire lath in the environment).

The only commercial device that I'm aware of is being sold in defiance of
FCC testing requirements so I neither mention its name nor comment on its
quality.

What I will try soon to again make available is a replacement PIC for the
MR26 that allows it to report standard X-10, security X-10, CR14A (Ninja,
Robocam), Chamberlain garage door sensor, Digimax 210 (European RF
thermostat) as well as some protocols of my own for extended dims, preset
dims, and ADC sensors. You can add an antenna (with preamp, if needed) and
accomplish what you want as far as eliminating the powerline leg of the
communications.

I will also try, in the next few weeks, to release a PIC and DIY design for
direct RF input (standard & security X10) to the ADI family of controllers
(CPU-XA, Ocelot, Leopard) for those who would like to eliminate the PC.