Is UPB able to be queried? Like Lutron

[Ranger Digital]

A: That is good plug for TC.  You could advertise for them.
 
B: Are you unhappy that the TC interface isn't getting the status from the UPB fast enough or not at all?
 
C: Maybe TC should ask Bob to rewrite a new interface to UPB?
 
Or
 
D: Tell your customers that TC doesn't work UPB.

 The red print I added.
 
A: Why thank you. I would love to be paid for being a Total Control fanboy lol. 
B: The TC interface doesnt get the status at all, thus the crux of my posting here. To see if possible and how. 
C: Would love to see that happen! Couple ways it can. Work with Web Mountain to develop it. Work with Dash OS to develop it. URC could be partnered to make it happen but I would say the first two options would be a MUCH faster process and a much more profitable route. 
D: Yes, thats one answer. However, it does work with TC its just very limited. And its not just TC its limited with. Its every third party control system in regards to what I would like to see it be able to do. The options are to find a way to make it work or go the Lutron route which is pretty much flawless and can do anything and everything I want it to do. That said, its a very costly route. I would like to see UPB grow and have more flexibility. 
 
I certainly understand that toes can be stepped on when someone says that the product that they chose to use and install is not the best solution available. Thats just the human psyche and they way are. That said, I choose HAI and UPB sometimes and I just want it to be better! lol. However, I never chose JUST those products, I always couple it with a control system. I would love to see the day when UPB can come out of the shadows of the mostly DIY crowd, have the stigma of "old 80's x10 technology" removed and be accepted as a viable option in the custom installation world. Until it can be queried and more useful, along with some cosmetic updates, it will not be. And I hate that because I really like UPB! Lutron needs a real competitor at a much lower costs. UPB COULD BE the answer. Just needs someone with more know-how than me to figure it out lol. Simply Automated, PCS and Web Mountain would also love to see it happen. 

 

[Ranger Digital]

I think you have something misconfigured.  I can send a command from a phone, across the network, through an HAI controller, to a UPB device in under a second.  "It's almost instant", as you would say.
 
(edit)  I see others have similar behavior...

Ya, I need to figure out what the issue is. The programming couldnt be simpler: when HAI12 is received, turn on light 7 (or whatever). Not really more complicated than that. 

 

[Dean Roddey]

A good lighting system (or any system that has more than a fairly small amount of information to expose) lets the automation system initially query the state of the system (quickly), then it reports to the automation system (reliably) any time anything changes. This makes it as close to instant as is really practical. The automation system doesn't have to poll, it just passively waits to be told something changed (async notification.)
 
Radio RA2 does that well. It's not the fanciest control protocol out there, but it's reliable and provides what is required for fast and robust integration. 
 
UPB, Z-Wave, Insteon, they are all considerably more painful to support. Insteon provides good async notification and does so automatically. Z-Wave can, if the modules support it and many don't. But, even if they do, it's a lot of work to get it set up correctly, and it's easy to break that setup which cause things to go awry. UPB is the most grungy of them. I know the least about UPB since the only one of these I've not personally written a driver for. But I've looked at our existing driver and it looks pretty messy. RA2, by comparison, it super-simple and clean. Z-Wave is stupidly complex to support, and arguably the least reliable of all in general.
 
I would also argue that the automation system knowing the current state of the system accurately is very important. Any given person might not need this or that to be always accurate, but across all the users of a given technology, everything will be needed by someone. The degree to which the automation system is out of sync with the real world is the degree to which it cannot react accurately.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Well Said Dean. 

 

[JonW]

Ya, I need to figure out what the issue is. The programming couldnt be simpler: when HAI12 is received, turn on light 7 (or whatever). Not really more complicated than that. 

 
Slow downs in HAI can be from other non-related lines of code as the system continually scans & conditionally executes the programming.  There could be something else that is slowing down the loop time and thus delaying execution of your simple HAI12 > Light 7 command.

 

[JonW]

UPB is the most grungy of them. I know the least about UPB since the only one of these I've not personally written a driver for.

 
Define grungy.   Long before I was using HAI OPII, I had full UPB control and tracking with a HomeVision system with nothing more than parsing serial commands from the UPB PIM.  It was really straight forward.

 

[pete_c]

Would love to see that happen!
 
Really then the onus should be on TC to write an interface to UPB that provides what the customer is looking for.  
 
Dean is able to sell more software because it supports more mechanism of automation.
 
Here I utilize UPB, X10, Z-Wave and Zigbee and software (Homeseer) as an addendum to my OmniPro 2 panel(s).
 
Looking quickly at the TC website there is only a mention of the URC proprietary line and Z-Wave.
 
Personally if I were TC I wouldn't narrow it down to deciding on Lutron or UPB.
 
Rather I would include both of the above and add more stuff. (more protocol support)
 
Unrelated to UPB looking at TCs sales numbers they have done well but not as expected which is a telling story.
 

 
Julie Jacobson · June 2, 2015 wrote:
 
 
With mass-market home automation coming on strong last year, it’s not surprising that Control4 thrived vis-à-vis its historically higher-end competitors.
 
In fact, Control4’s mindshare among the CE Pro 100 has steadily climbed over the past five years as the industry in general has seen a shift to more affordable systems.
 
Control4’s (and Crestron’s) dip in 2014 was largely due to the establishment of URC in the whole-home automation category in 2013, after years of being known for its namesake universal remote controls.
 
URC’s new whole-house solution Total Control began shipping in 2011, with aggressive sales and training beginning in 2012. So 2013 would have been the year that a noticeable numbers of dealers adopted URC for home control.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Would love to see that happen!
 
Really then the onus should be on TC to write an interface to UPB that provides what the customer is looking for.  

Oh so true, but they are not none for being speedy or for even being able to right good two way drivers lol. 

 

[BobS0327]

Define grungy.   Long before I was using HAI OPII, I had full UPB control and tracking with a HomeVision system with nothing more than parsing serial commands from the UPB PIM.  It was really straight forward.

 
I have to agree with JonW.  I have found the UPB protocol documentation to be very simple, clear and concise, making it very easy to understand.  Thus, the actual implementation of the UPB protocol was essentially a "piece of cake".  I certainly didn't encounter any real problems with implementing the protocol.  But I did have a couple of questions.  Fortunately, I was able to contact PCS Lighting tech support.  Those tech support  folks will "bend over backwards" to help you in any way. 
 
IMHO, the overall complexity of this project would probably be on the level of a second semester college sophomore programming assignment.  There really wasn't any type of "rocket science" programming involved.
 
As JonW says, it really is straightforward.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Sounds like Bob is going to write a UPB module! LOL

 

[Dean Roddey]

As I said, UPB is the one I know least, and I was just going by the third party CQC driver that was done. Maybe it's just overly gnarly or something, but it looked a lot messier than what you guys are describing. Of course I don't know what level of control and latency you guys were going for relative to what he was trying to achieve. CQC needs to know the state of everything all the time, and also needs positive feedback on all operations if at all possible.

 

[fcwilt]

As I said, UPB is the one I know least, and I was just going by the third party CQC driver that was done. Maybe it's just overly gnarly or something, but it looked a lot messier than what you guys are describing. Of course I don't know what level of control and latency you guys were going for relative to what he was trying to achieve. CQC needs to know the state of everything all the time, and also needs positive feedback on all operations if at all possible.

 
A good CQC driver for UPB should be fairly straight forward. I would have a lot more faith that you could write a clean one then many of these "3rd party" coders. 
 
Is this existing driver available to QCQ customers like myself? I would like to take a look at it.
 
Thanks.

 

[Ranger Digital]

As I said, UPB is the one I know least, and I was just going by the third party CQC driver that was done. Maybe it's just overly gnarly or something, but it looked a lot messier than what you guys are describing. Of course I don't know what level of control and latency you guys were going for relative to what he was trying to achieve. CQC needs to know the state of everything all the time, and also needs positive feedback on all operations if at all possible.

While Im happy to hear some say how easy this should be, it makes me wonder if so easy, why cant Web Mountain make it happen?? It would be VERY beneficial to them. UPB sales are stagnate. The manufacturers will tell you this themselves : its not growing. 

 

[pete_c]

UPB drivers for automation software / firmware can be totally unique based on the OS and Hardware. 

Historically the UPB PIM has been a stand alone device with a serial port (or USB) for communications based on whatever firmware was inside of the controller.

They partnered up with Digi and built a new network based controller with a little web interface; well and some intelligence.

This opens the doors to having the software / firmware software talking UPB via a network interface.

Today here one of my UPB floaters sits on a serial server which I can access from wherever.
 
The widget builder (UPB) provides the means to achieve this. 
 
CQC is automation program that runs in Windows.  The drivers are proprietary to CQC.
 
I am currently running my automation software in Linux that originally was running in Wintel.  This is happening mostly due to a resurgence in Mono. (cross platform dot net stuff). 
 
Many folks are running their automation in iOS.

 

[BobS0327]

While Im happy to hear some say how easy this should be, it makes me wonder if so easy, why cant Web Mountain make it happen?? It would be VERY beneficial to them. UPB sales are stagnate. The manufacturers will tell you this themselves : its not growing. 

Well, WM does have a Remote UPB Controller that can probably be easily modified to interface with TC.  Here's a link to the hardware http://cache-m2.smarthome.com/manuals/22201.pdf
 
It maintains the last fifteen commands issued on the powerline.  So, with some minimal modification, it can meet your needs.
 
I really don't think it's a programming or technical hurdle that's preventing them from taking on this project.  It might be that they don't feel the ROI is there for the project.  Just my 2 cents.