Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Charmed Quark Systems has released version 5.3 of its CQC automation platform.
The big ticket item for this version is a new, from the ground up Z-Wave driver. This is now our third Z-Wave driver, and they haven't gotten more fun to write. Our previous driver was based on the Leviton VRC0P, which works but it's slow and it it provides a very simple wrapper around the native Z-Wave protocol that is extremely limiting.
So, this time around we did a new, native protocol driver based on the Aeotec Gen 5 Z-Stick, currently though other options would be possible moving forward. This is a brutal undertaking because of Z-Wave's complexity and inconsistency and long years of ever more layering on of functionality and new versions of existing functionality. But, we survived the process, and the new driver is a vast improvement over the old one. It's much smarter and more helpful and faster. Here are some videos to demonstrate how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vJ4svXENQ&list=PLJojk5z5q10Q3DfD6uyzHuujiHIm4PmWb
(The forum doesn't take you to the playlist it just plays the initial video. Oh well, just go to our channel from this video and select playlists and there's a playlist for Z-Wave.)
There are plenty of other, smaller improvements that add up to make the configuration slash customization UI more convenient to use, an important thing since that's where you spend most of your time when creating a CQC solution.
We've also made some nice improvements to our new WebRIVA client, introduced in the previous version, which lets you access your CQC touch screen interfaces on any modern browser.
CQC has a 40 day, unencumbered trial. You don't need to connect any hardware to test it or to go through the training videos. We provide simulator drivers that you can use, so you can do it on a laptop while sitting around the pool or whatnot.
Use the Get Started link at the top of our web site, and then the Documentation link at the bottom. Don't sit and read until you overwhelm yourself with details. Start in on the tutorial videos and follow along. It will sink in much quicker that way.
www.charmedquark.com
The big ticket item for this version is a new, from the ground up Z-Wave driver. This is now our third Z-Wave driver, and they haven't gotten more fun to write. Our previous driver was based on the Leviton VRC0P, which works but it's slow and it it provides a very simple wrapper around the native Z-Wave protocol that is extremely limiting.
So, this time around we did a new, native protocol driver based on the Aeotec Gen 5 Z-Stick, currently though other options would be possible moving forward. This is a brutal undertaking because of Z-Wave's complexity and inconsistency and long years of ever more layering on of functionality and new versions of existing functionality. But, we survived the process, and the new driver is a vast improvement over the old one. It's much smarter and more helpful and faster. Here are some videos to demonstrate how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vJ4svXENQ&list=PLJojk5z5q10Q3DfD6uyzHuujiHIm4PmWb
(The forum doesn't take you to the playlist it just plays the initial video. Oh well, just go to our channel from this video and select playlists and there's a playlist for Z-Wave.)
There are plenty of other, smaller improvements that add up to make the configuration slash customization UI more convenient to use, an important thing since that's where you spend most of your time when creating a CQC solution.
We've also made some nice improvements to our new WebRIVA client, introduced in the previous version, which lets you access your CQC touch screen interfaces on any modern browser.
CQC has a 40 day, unencumbered trial. You don't need to connect any hardware to test it or to go through the training videos. We provide simulator drivers that you can use, so you can do it on a laptop while sitting around the pool or whatnot.
Use the Get Started link at the top of our web site, and then the Documentation link at the bottom. Don't sit and read until you overwhelm yourself with details. Start in on the tutorial videos and follow along. It will sink in much quicker that way.
www.charmedquark.com
