Lumina Pro and OP2 connected together in one system

Hi All,
 
Does anyone have experience with adding a Lumina Pro to an existing OP2 system?
 
I am running an OP2 in my home and running out of serial ports. I also have a new uninstalled Lumina Pro. I would like to add and integrate the new controller to my current system for expanding my options and perhaps, for redundancy. So, the following questions come to mind, as I can't find any information on this topic
 
1. Is it possible to have two controllers on the same system?
2. If so, how are these boards communicating with each other?
3. Can the controllers share the same resources and devices?
4. Can the two controllers be streamlined and optimized in parallel with each other?
5. If so, other than my application, what are the other advantages and disadvantages of such setup?   
 
Thanks

I don't think they can be directly connected... curious what others on the forum think...
 
Why are you running out of serial ports?  Maybe describing what you want to do and what you have connected already will give us an idea of what you need to be able to make the main OP2 do what you want.
 
You can run them individually, and then perform some synchronization between them.  But they can't really share the same resources and devices easily, I don't think.  Some can be controlled from two or more different controllers, but you may have issues with status return of the devices, depending on the type of control interface.

cobra said:

I don't think they can be directly connected... curious what others on the forum think...
 
Why are you running out of serial ports?  Maybe describing what you want to do and what you have connected already will give us an idea of what you need to be able to make the main OP2 do what you want.
 
You can run them individually, and then perform some synchronization between them.  But they can't really share the same resources and devices easily, I don't think.  Some can be controlled from two or more different controllers, but you may have issues with status return of the devices, depending on the type of control interface.

Click to expand...

Hi cobra,
 
I have the old OP2 with 3 serial ports, not the flash version. I have the PIM/Vizia/Jetsteam bridge and X10 connected to the OP2. I also have some Lutron RadioRa2 devices which I'm trying to utilize with this system, along with some other devices that I would want to add in the near future. Lumina Pro has the same hardware features as the OP2 flash version (5 serial ports), so I was hoping for an integration of the two, which will be a great benefit to me.
 
Yes, it will be interesting what feedback and ideas the community has to offer, if any!

Ah, good point, I forgot you had an older OP2.  Are you using the security features?  One option would be to migrate automation to the Lumina Pro and use security on the OP2, however I think you would lose some integration going this route.

cobra said:

Ah, good point, I forgot you had an older OP2.  Are you using the security features?  One option would be to migrate automation to the Lumina Pro and use security on the OP2, however I think you would lose some integration going this route.

Click to expand...

Yes, I am using the security features of the OP2. I agree that if there is no other alternative to integration of the two controllers, it would be wise in moving the automation part to the Lumina controller. However, I will need to somehow integrate the monitoring and communication features of the two. I do have the HIFI2 and the voice module connected to the OP2.

There is no way to connect the 2 HAI controllers natively, but you can do a lot of integration via programming. I also ran out of serial ports on my OP2, using all 6, and was looking into adding another OP2. It depends on what functionality you would want shared between the 2 boards. For example, to add RA2 to you setup, you can configure a Pro-Link port on each board and send messages over the link between the 2 controllers. You will have to give up one of the ports you are currently using on your OP2, and transfer the existing functionality to Lumina. You can use HAI triggers to inform the other system of a status change, and custom messages to convey commands to control units on the other system. Unfortunately there are only 127 HAI triggers, that will limit how many units you can monitor

Thanks Picta for the insightful information!
 
Can you share a bit of info on the control devices (i.e. touch panels & HIFI volume remote controllers etc) interaction between the controllers via the Pro-Link protocol. Will these be specific and unique to the controller attached to them, or there is some shared control interaction between the controllers? Do you have any insight of how the Pro-Link protocol works with the omnitouch panels, since these are ip based?

Pro-Link protocol does not interact with peripherals, it is strictly for ASCII messages. You would have to have all touch panels attached to one of the controllers that would interact with your Hi-Fi. Say it is the OP2. You would connect HiFi and touch panels to it, that would allow you control of security and music, as well as one of the lighting protocols. You would then put the rest of the units onto Lumina, and control/view the Lumina unit status via flags on OP2. Suppose you have configured Port1 on Lumina and OP2 as Pro-Link.
 
For example, if you have a zwave unit in lumina, you'll create a flag in OP2 called ZU1 (or whatever). In Lumina you'll have a program
 
WHEN Unit1 ON
THEN send [HAI1] out serial 1
 
IN OP2 you have:
 
WHEN HAI1 Triggered
THEN ZU1 ON

in that case I don't know if it will make sense to add another controller to expand on my current system. Perhaps, Homeseer will be a more appropriate addition, by giving me some exposure to integrating new technologies in the future. I've noticed that some more experienced users already took this approach.
 
Are there any other ways of adding serial ports to the OP2? What I'm thinking is that OP2 has the IP option built-in, so maybe integrating serial over ip will be an idea, if it can be accomplished . I guess, in the end, it's in the controller's firmware and features.  

Here only way with HS2 or HS3 two controller chit chat has been two HS2 or HS3 boxes running.  You can communicate variables between the two boxes. 
 
HS2 was using the serial interface / polling with a last revision of the plugin using dot net.  New HS3 Homeseer Omni Plugin uses the network interface.  The network interface on the Omnipro 2 is a very old design.  Newest Omni firmware works better.  That said when taxing the network interface it directly affected the Omni serial bus.  (for me it was time, Omnitouch old and new, thermostat).  Didn't notice anything on the Russound stuff but mostly utilize the Russound keypads.  I did put a micro serial server on the Russound zoned amp to be able to manage the Russound amps via the OmniPro and Homeseer and it did work.  I do not know if this micro serial server is still being sold today.
 
So here went to an autonmous set up using two tabletop touchscreens.  One locally connected and one connected via a VPN IPSec tunnel.
 
Put them next to each other which worked for me but got old.
 
I think you can add one serial port to the OP2 and one serial port to ethernet device.  Such that the ethernet interface would be using a serial transport for communications.  You can DIY this cheaper today with a RPi or microrouter but utilizing an existing serial port which would not work in your case.
 
Today I have a NeXX microrouter (tiny thing) connected to my newer OmniPro 2.  It communicates to the OP2 via ethernet or serial port.
 
It is using an OpenWRT base OS.  I have seen LUA code written up for the OmniPro 2 to work on OpenWRT base OS automation software.  Thing was that you have to compile the code on a different computer then install it on the OpenWRT box as space is very limited.  But you can just also run Lua code on the OpenWRT OS by typing lua whatever.  It is a simple C+ stuff.
 
Over here rsw686 wrote up a piece of software originally posted here called HAILogger which was Microsoft based.  Newest version communicates to the Samsung hub, works in mono on Wheezy or Jessie or Ubuntu.  I have been tinkering with this software and it works fine except for recently it doesn't do email alerts.  That said you can just do the email alerts via the Samsung hub (but you are then connected to the cloud).  I have connected my Samsung hub to another automators OP2 panel...thinking it sort of worked and never tried two OP2 connections to one Samsung hub.
 
Relating to the Homeseer 3 plugin which was in beta is now set for final production release as of a few days ago.  It works fine and I have not had issues with it.  It is different than the Homeseer 2 plugin which relied on a serial connection and polling.
 
In Homeseer 3 now there are plugins which talk to more than one of the same controller via USB, Serial or Network.
 
That said it has been a few years that I requested a script / plugin add of a secondary weather server connection.
 
That was one plugin with two distinctly named weather servers and configured with two names.
 
The plugin read two delimited text files with the two sets of variables and it was just a read of dynamic values one way.
 
Current implementation of the networked Omni plugin is to one OmniPanel device.

Trying to run two panels in some linked fashion is going to be a kludge and likely a nightmare for maintenance.
 
Why not just buy a new OPII with 5 serial ports?  Selling the original OPII and Lumina should cover it.

I agree with Jon relating to the creating a kludge and just purchasing a new Leviton OmniPro 2 panel with 5 serial ports.
 
 
Personally have always enjoyed playing with the hardware aspects of the OmniPro 2 panel old and new.
 
I was so thrilled here when I got my first newer OmniPro 2 panel I wanted to test it right away on a workbench.  I so confident that I could power up the panel blindfolded I connected it without my work light and was off a screw tab and immediately created a crash and burn.  Toasted it.
 
I sent it back to HAI and they fixed it and sent it back to me sans any fees which really was nice of them.
 
After that went really slow (baby steps doing any adds or changes to the hardware in the OmniPro 2).
 
Really didn't need the newer OmniPro 2 panel and personally I just wanted it.  I did expand it but it was more relating to tinkering and learning than needing it. 
 
IE: adding sensors to interior doors, multiple PIRs per room, UPB, X10, Zigbee and ZWave really are not necessary).  Adding 4-wire smokes was a learning experience and I probably wouldn't ever do it again.  Doing the follow me around the house automation was very low on the WAF many many years ago.  She did get used to the voices and sounds over time; and then I reduced the number of events generating the voices and sounds and shifted a bit more to the old department store dings methodology.
 
I liked having audio control via the panel and Omnitouch screens but it is way faster with directly connected Russound keypads.

Personally the shift to Linux for me has been great. But that is me and today I am not wholly dependent on one OS rather multiple OS's each a bit specialized to do the automation.

Thank you for the feedback, Pete and Jon! lots to chew on, before deciding on anything. I am into the electronics field, and like to explore some other options, such as populating the other two serial ports on the old OP2, and/or trying to play with the Lumina Pro by upgrading the software to the new OP2. It appears to have the same hardware and I have on-hand a non functional 5 port OP2 controller.
 
I like Pete's approach, as I can expand my learning and experience with other options out there. I just need the time.

Can you share a bit of info on the control devices (i.e. touch panels & HIFI volume remote controllers etc) interaction between the controllers via the Pro-Link protocol.
 
Three types of touch panels are used here.
 
HAI serial Omnitouch 5.7 and network Omnitouch 5.7e's - these do Russound control.  They are a bit slow.  I never paid attention how they work.  Thinking the old serial Omnitouch screens used embedded Linux and the networked Omnitouch screens used Microsoft CE.  New ones use Android.  Legacy screens have ID numbers like the thermostats.
 
Homeseer 3 Touch designer custom created touchscreens using the Homeseer network OmniPro plugin running on embedded wintel tabletop tablets. (hardware experiement modded to using a ZIF SSD drive, seabios replacing EFI bios, RTC with battery,  Without the modifications these touchscreens are bricks today trying to connect to a cloud application that doesn't exist.  Base original OS was linux and flash embedded on built in 1Gb MMC drive.
 
The Homeseer 3 Russound plugin is separate from the OmniPro plugin.  It communicates to the Russound amps via the serial port using the mini serial serial.
 
Will these be specific and unique to the controller attached to them, or there is some shared control interaction between the controllers?
 
The Homeseer plugin is not device specific and automagically sees the panel.
 
The serial connectivity doesn't require encryption.  It is just text commands which are documented in the OmniLink API document.
 
I have played with it and that is all I did with it.  Never used it.  Here on the forum a user "tiger?" wrote up an arduino image to speak to the panel via the serial port.  He posted his code for anybody to play with.  Specifically Tiger was playing with temperature sensors. 
 
Do you have any insight of how the Pro-Link protocol works with the omnitouch panels, since these are ip based?
 
No but tinkered some with the legacy serial Omnitouch screens.  These used three wires for serial com and 1 wire for an analog video signals for CCTV.
 
Never played much with these.  They just worked.  A bit slow.  Wife prefers these screens over the 5.7e screens cuz of the big buttons.
 
Wife also prefers keypads over touchscreens.  She will not touch my Homeseer screens for fear she will break the house.
 
I also purchased the Omnitouch combo CCTV hub which allowed for easey peasy RJ-45 connectivity to the legacy touchscreens. 
 
Here is a post relating to RS-232 Control of HAI Systemfrom 2007 on remote central dot com.

"Can you share a bit of info on the control devices (i.e. touch panels & HIFI volume remote controllers etc) interaction between the controllers via the Pro-Link protocol.

Will these be specific and unique to the controller attached to them, or there is some shared control interaction between the controllers?

Do you have any insight of how the Pro-Link protocol works with the omnitouch panels, since these are ip based?"
 
 
The system has installed two omnitouch 5.7e and one Coraccess companion 6 (linux). The 8 zone HIFI2 with remote controllers and 4 inputs,were just installed recently, but I can't make use of it just yet. The controller is only at firmware v.3.1 and I'm working in upgrading it.
 
Ideally, if possible, I would like to have everything integrated on one single controller, monitored and controlled with only one app . Also, I support wired based security as much as possible, without wireless devices attached. Let the secure stuff be secured!   The idea of using two Leviton controllers was that, I could move all the automation stuff on one controller, while having the other strictly on security, and perhaps, have them under a centralized control and monitoring. Unfortunately, it looks that that will not be the case. Homeseer appears to some degree, to do just that, via the plugin. I will than, be able to have attached some of the wireless automation devices (i.e. Lutron), and perhaps, have the centralized monitoring on their app. But then again, there will be less control, going only with one app. I suppose when away, one will only need the monitoring feature.
 
I do have some understanding how the omni-link 2 protocol works, not sure about the "Pro-link". Is there a difference?