I changed home automation systems this last year and moved to the HAI OmniPro II line. While the HAI panels have pretty good 3rd party support of devices, one of the areas that frustrated me was its lack of serial interfacing to non-native supported devices. For what I wanted to do with my Jandy Pool/Spa system, the built-in 128 text messages just was not going to cut it. I really wanted a way to read and set temperatures as well as control of the individual devices connected to the system. With a lot of text messages, I could have achieved the device control, but never the temperature control as there just are not enough text slots available. There was also no place to really display and control the temperatures in an intuitive manner. After much research and code testing, I came to the conclusion that the best way for me to get temperature data into and out of the HAI system was to emulate the Zwave thermostats. I then added all the pool devices as emulated Zwave "units". My custom interface/emulator gateway is a small black box device that sits between the Jandy serial interface and the HAI serial interface. The HAI system thinks that it is controlling and getting feedback from Zwave devices. This allows a two-way real-time method of not only controlling the pool system, but for getting feedback and keeping devices (HAI "units") as well as thermostats up to date with the correct system status. This also then lets you use automation rules within the HAI to do things like making an announcement when the spa temperature is ready.
You can adjust pool & spa temperatures by going to the appropriate HAI thermostat and changing the setpoint. You can then turn heating on or off from the thermostat control as well as see the current pool/spa temperatures. Within the pool and spa "Rooms" that are in the "units" setup, you can control individual pool/spa accessories or even enable/disable the heat from there. Turning the pool or spa heat on/off from the "units" control also turns the thermostat on/off as well. The bi-directional control works from all HAI supported interfaces (web, iphone, snaplink, keypad, etc.). There is absolutely no code in the HAI system involved. All that is necessary to set it up within HAI is to create the thermostats & units and assign their appropriate Zwave ID's.
Does anyone see a potential market for a plug & play device like this? I do have the capability to manufacture and sell the device if there is a demand. While I did do this integration on the HAI system, I see no reason it wouldn't work for the ELK (or other) systems as well. I do not personally use Zwave, so I didn't have to worry about any existing Zwave module compatibility, but it would not be difficult for me to add a 3rd serial port to the device to allow pass-thru of Zwave data to the standard Zwave serial interface.
Here are some sample screens for the Snap-Link control:
You can adjust pool & spa temperatures by going to the appropriate HAI thermostat and changing the setpoint. You can then turn heating on or off from the thermostat control as well as see the current pool/spa temperatures. Within the pool and spa "Rooms" that are in the "units" setup, you can control individual pool/spa accessories or even enable/disable the heat from there. Turning the pool or spa heat on/off from the "units" control also turns the thermostat on/off as well. The bi-directional control works from all HAI supported interfaces (web, iphone, snaplink, keypad, etc.). There is absolutely no code in the HAI system involved. All that is necessary to set it up within HAI is to create the thermostats & units and assign their appropriate Zwave ID's.
Does anyone see a potential market for a plug & play device like this? I do have the capability to manufacture and sell the device if there is a demand. While I did do this integration on the HAI system, I see no reason it wouldn't work for the ELK (or other) systems as well. I do not personally use Zwave, so I didn't have to worry about any existing Zwave module compatibility, but it would not be difficult for me to add a 3rd serial port to the device to allow pass-thru of Zwave data to the standard Zwave serial interface.
Here are some sample screens for the Snap-Link control: