Couple Ocelot Question

[jls944]

I was originally going to purchase the ir543 to have my remote communicate with lighting and thermostat but I am now thinking of going with the ocelot. Before I do, I have a couple questions about its versatility.

1. Can the ocelot use all of the house codes of x10 (similar to the ir543ah)?

2. Why would you need to purchase more than 1 ocelot, thereby using slaves?

3. Do Insteon switches (in x10 mode) work well with the Ocelot?

4. Do I need to buy anything else other than the ocelot to get it up and running with lighting, thermostat reading and control and working with my remote? I see that the ocelot has a bunch of add-on's such as lighting and temperature modules...what are these for?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

1: Yes, the Ocelot can send and receive on all house and unit codes.

2: Having more the one Ocelot is rare. This might be used in a situation where you would want multiple IR inputs that operate independantly. Even in that case, a cheaper alternative would be a Xantech or Buffalo IR distribution system to receive IR from different locations and then send them to the Ocelot using a stick on emitter over its IR receiver window.

3: X10 is X10, so it should work ok (no reported problems). The only thing that has been discovered with Insteon's X10 mode is that multiple module addressing doesn't work, so you can't send A/1, A/2, A/On and have both lights turn on together...only the last addressed on will work.

4: With the Ocelot itself you can send and receive X10, send and receive IR and send serial data (and accept serial data according to a fixed protocol). For thermostats, it has built in support for the RCS TX15B thermostat, which uses X10 to communicate.

 

[jls944]

The only thing that has been discovered with Insteon's X10 mode is that multiple module addressing doesn't work, so you can't send A/1, A/2, A/On and have both lights turn on together...only the last addressed on will work.

What does this mean in the end? Will I just have to program each light to turn on instead of an all on command?

One other question. Can my remote (TSU 3000) use the macros that are programed in the ocelot or does it still have to create its own? i.e. Turn on hall light 50%, recessed lights 20%, put thermostat to 68 degrees.

Thanks again.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

The X10 All Lights ON command should probably work, although I have not tested this myself (mybe someone else who has could tell us). Other then that, you would need to send each switch its own command pair, and you would see them turn on one after the other.

For your remote question: if you're asking whether a single IR command received by the Ocelot could then trigger a macro as you described then yes, it can do that just fine.

 

[jls944]

What if I was to buy the scene capable insteon switches? Wouldn't that allow all the lights to turn on at the same time rather than one triggering after another?

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Probably. I don't have any of the V2 Switchlincs that support X10 scenes (the Icons don't support X10 scenes) but I don't see why it couldn't work.

 

[jls944]

Thanks Guy.

 

[elcano]

and accept serial data according to a fixed protocol

Can you expand? Is there any restriction about sending serial commands to the Ocelot via the serial port? I was planning to have rules in the M1 trigger actions in the Ocelot via a string sent serially form the M1 to the Ocelot. Actually, I was planning two way communications. I want to use the Ocelot as the M1's IR two-way gateway.

 

[electron]

That's how I am using the Ocelot (with the Elk M1EZ8). There are some restrictions tho. Example: you can only send one ASCII string per rule (but nothing stops you from inserting several commands into one ASCII string).

 

[Guy Lavoie]

You can send simple commands to the Ocelot serially, such as +V000102 to set variable #1 to a value of 2. You could have the Elk send commands this way. For output, you can write pretty well any ASCII string or binary data (128 strings of up to 32 characters each) that the Elk could then receive and act upon.

 

[elcano]

But, can I define macro strings? I mean, any random string that when received by the Ocelot would trigger a bunch of Ocelot commands?

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Yes, in a way. You could use a serial string to change the value of a variable like I mentioned in my last post and then code in C-Max:

IF Variable #1 becomes = 2 //look for variable getting set as trigger
THEN Transmit X10... //do your macro
THEN Transmit IR...
THEN Variable #1 = 0 //and reset variable for next trigger

 

[elcano]

OK. So instead of random string you have to send specific strings to request a change in a variable, and then this will trigger the commands.

This works too.
Thanks.