Dean Roddey
Senior Member
I don't have a laptop, so I can't use a USB stick and software based primary controller. It needs to be a remote control.
Automation Speed Install (a multi-room solution in 12 minutes)
- Thread starter Dean Roddey
- Start date
i didn't realize that ZWave required them to be that close together...
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
For security reasons the dis/enrollment is a low power operation. Otherwise it could be a pretty big security concern, and also an issue for people in apartment buildings I guess.
ddennerline
Active Member
Unfortunately, you will need a laptop for Leviton VRUSB and VRC0P+3 solution for configuring and tuning network. The older Leviton handheld controller does not support security class. Trying to mix primary and secondary controllers can be sketchy. Z-Wave alliance claims cross-vendor compatibility, but each vendor only has to implement minimal profile support. On the ControlThink forums, there were multiple posts relating to controller interoperability problem. When these kinds of problems happen, it's difficult to isolate the non-conforming party.
For a Z-Wave network that has only contains devices supporting association or hail command class, polling is not required. As with any wireless technology, packets do get dropped, serial receive buffers may overflow, and routes can change. To maintain 100% accuracy, polling is suggested – albeit at much lower priority. The problem with aggressive polling is the constant querying generates so much traffic that it interferes with controller updates.
In terms of VRC0P, you cannot treat it as a big thick command queue pipe. You have to space out transmissions, check return codes, possibly retry commands multiple times. I played around with it using Hyperterminal and didn’t experience any severe problems.
[…A used IBM ThinkPad T40 can be purchase for $80 - good laptop]
For a Z-Wave network that has only contains devices supporting association or hail command class, polling is not required. As with any wireless technology, packets do get dropped, serial receive buffers may overflow, and routes can change. To maintain 100% accuracy, polling is suggested – albeit at much lower priority. The problem with aggressive polling is the constant querying generates so much traffic that it interferes with controller updates.
In terms of VRC0P, you cannot treat it as a big thick command queue pipe. You have to space out transmissions, check return codes, possibly retry commands multiple times. I played around with it using Hyperterminal and didn’t experience any severe problems.
[…A used IBM ThinkPad T40 can be purchase for $80 - good laptop]
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Yeh, I've done a native Z-wave driver, and you do have to be careful about usage of the network. It's frustrating because it comes at the expense of latency, which everyone dislikes and which makes an automation system seem sluggish. Our native driver allows you to set polling interval on a per-module basis so you can let the really important ones (that don't do reporting) go a bit faster, and let the others do it more relaxed style. Even that used to be an issue, since back then when it was first done there wasn't an async notification mechanism really, and lots of folks still have those older modules that don't support it even now.
I'm assuming that, if I do this one, that I'll implement the queue myself and spool out commands, making commands from CQC clients async. That kind of sucks since you don't get the feedback that something worked or not. But given that Z-Wave is already pretty slow and we are adding yet another layer, that's probably the most practical scheme. And it'll allow me to do things like short circuit commands that have become meaningless because subsequent commands have already arrived. The command already in the queue can just be updated with new info.
I'm assuming that, if I do this one, that I'll implement the queue myself and spool out commands, making commands from CQC clients async. That kind of sucks since you don't get the feedback that something worked or not. But given that Z-Wave is already pretty slow and we are adding yet another layer, that's probably the most practical scheme. And it'll allow me to do things like short circuit commands that have become meaningless because subsequent commands have already arrived. The command already in the queue can just be updated with new info.
Just as a heads up.. I'm not certain as to the layout of your home but using a ControlThink ThinkStick I can stand in the middle floor of my 2000 sq-ft home, click enrol and run upstairs and tap a switch and it WILL enrol. I have a couple dozen Zwave devices and have NEVER gone the route of moving within X inches and pressing include..
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
So here is a video that demonstrates the other aspect of CQC, the ability to heavily customize the product, and basically develop slick and interactive applications without writing a single line of code. What I've done in this one is to go back and add a screen to control a sprinkler schedule. Actually all of what I've done here will be things that the next iteration of the auto-generation will be able to do for you, but it's a good example to use so I went with it. As before it's not intended to teach, but just to demonstrate.
This is purely customization so it's not as simple as the other one but, as I mention in the video, keep in perspective that we are creating a really nice, interactive application, point and click, in about 13 minutes. And of course, also as mentioned, once you've done such a screen, you could reuse it again and again as well.
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/Video%20Tutorials/Demos/SpeedInstallCust.wmv
Someone may say, why would I do 'all that' to set a sprinkler schedule, why not have a screen to set the schedule. It's because there are many such things you may want to do, and we can't forsee them all, and we can't forsee how you'd like them look and act. This sort of full customization capability takes a little more time to learn, but it means you can do anything you want pretty much, and add your own value to the solution.
This is purely customization so it's not as simple as the other one but, as I mention in the video, keep in perspective that we are creating a really nice, interactive application, point and click, in about 13 minutes. And of course, also as mentioned, once you've done such a screen, you could reuse it again and again as well.
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/Video%20Tutorials/Demos/SpeedInstallCust.wmv
Someone may say, why would I do 'all that' to set a sprinkler schedule, why not have a screen to set the schedule. It's because there are many such things you may want to do, and we can't forsee them all, and we can't forsee how you'd like them look and act. This sort of full customization capability takes a little more time to learn, but it means you can do anything you want pretty much, and add your own value to the solution.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Versoin 4.1 is out now if you want to play around with this new stuff.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Someone sent me a Sonos box to play around with, so I'll be seeing what I can get going.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
OK, I have a working Sonos driver now. I'll get it up in the next beta drop, probably in a day or so. We already had a generic UPnP media renderer framework, but it just neeed a little more flexibiltiy in order to work with the Sonos. This is a standard CQC media renderer driver, so it's not going to understand any Sonos specific stuff. It treats the Sonos box like a passive audio player and just spools out tracks to it as required. We can look at a more Sonos specific driver later, but this level of control was relative cheap to get going because it's all standard UPnP Renderer/AVTransport stuff.
Wow dean that's a pretty big step. A lot of people have been wanting that Sonos capability.
Curious, what was your opinion of their software and capabilities of the system? I have to tell you I thought the ability to link two zones on the fly for a L and R stereo was ingenious. And there is something about their software interface that my wife loves. WHo would think she would suddenly love 1920's radio coming from England!
Curious, what was your opinion of their software and capabilities of the system? I have to tell you I thought the ability to link two zones on the fly for a L and R stereo was ingenious. And there is something about their software interface that my wife loves. WHo would think she would suddenly love 1920's radio coming from England!
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
I haven't really used their software much. When you use it in the way that this driver works, you wouldn't use their software really, though you could use to play radio while CQC isn't trying to do anything with it, presumably. It's really treating the box as a passive audio player for music, and nothing else. There's no Sonos-specific bits to it, since it's working through a generic UPnP media renderer driver that has to stick to the basic stuff that media renderers support.
I'll have to look at something more Sonos specific after taking care of a couple other things. It'll require allowing drivers to extend the basic media renderer functionality while still remaining compatible with all of the standard media player functionality in CQC. But the benefit of it being a standard renderer driver is that it's fully integrated into CQC, and works with the auto-generation stuff and all the standard user interface media widgets and such.
I'll have to look at something more Sonos specific after taking care of a couple other things. It'll require allowing drivers to extend the basic media renderer functionality while still remaining compatible with all of the standard media player functionality in CQC. But the benefit of it being a standard renderer driver is that it's fully integrated into CQC, and works with the auto-generation stuff and all the standard user interface media widgets and such.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Just to follow up on this thread, we now have two Sonos drivers. One uses the Sonos as a passive player driven by our standard media architecture (mentioned above), and a new one that has just been released in the latest betas that is a native Sonos driver for folks who mainly want to use the Sonos as it's own device but interact with it via CQC:
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/ExtCont_4_x/Drivers/MediaPlayers/SonosZPProp.htm
More functionality will be added to it, but it's already pretty nice.
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/ExtCont_4_x/Drivers/MediaPlayers/SonosZPProp.htm
More functionality will be added to it, but it's already pretty nice.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
I just started last night exploring the Leviton controller. We do have our native driver of course already. But, assuming the Leviton can be made reliable, we'll be switching over to a driver based on it.
Similar threads
- Article
