ELK M1 / Omnistat 2

[artifice]

Hey all,

I'm about to purchase an initial ELK M1 for my new house. I'm looking at using Omnistat's for the two HVAC zones, but had a few questions:

1) Does anyone know if the Omnistat 2's are compatible with ELK via the same serial communication as the original omnistats?

2) Can the ELK actually set the tempatures, view the current temps, and make changes? I was going to buy a bunch of the 7" touchscreens, which have temp controls, but if the Omni's can't be controlled to that degree, there's no point.

3) I want to have Misterhouse along with ELK in my system. Is there a way with the Omni's to link/control them from more than one source??? The new Omnistat 2 appears to have wireless functions as well, any ideas/info?

--David

 

[123]

Just shooting from the hip here, but what if you added a serial-to-Ethernet adapter to the Omnistat? For example, the Lantronix UDS10 (available on eBay) handles RS-232 and RS-485 and is configurable via a built-in web-server.

An Ethernet-addressable thermostat should be fair game for any HA application. I haven't used any thermostats with my ELK M1 so I'll leave it to others to explain how to handle that part. I guess another serial-to-Ethernet adapter connected to an ELK M1XSP? I don't believe the M1 knows how to handle thermostats via an M1XEP.



FWIW, Premise has an Omnistat driver with full source code. Unless the Omnistat 2 uses a wildly different protocol, a few tweaks should get the driver in good shape for the "2". Ethernet support is there as well. Premise, like MisterHouse, is free. My ELK M1 driver for Premise gives you full control of the M1.

 

[gcimmino]

David, welcome aboard.

Looking at the HAI Oministat2 installation manuals, they do seem to use the same RS-232 interface. So you would connect them to an M1 via the XSP.

The question becomes, as 123 points out, is the protocol the same? For that you should either ask HAI directly or a dealer, like AutomatedOutlet.

Via an M1, you can control only those functions of a 'stat that the M1's programming allows for:

For example, you can set the desired temps, change the mode and the fan control. You can also read the current temp. You typically can not do things like read external/outside temps, read run-time meters, set 'stat configuration, etc. There is talk of a new version of the XSP firmware, but not yet clear if that will allow general read/write or just specific new functions with specific stats.

One of Elk's great features is the ability to add functions with firmware updates.

I've hooked up both RCS and HAI stats to the Elk and within the limited range of functions, the interface works well.

I have not hooked up a solution with an attached HA system, but you will certainly find threads here from those that have.

 

[123]

This is what I had in mind:

 

[bmil]

Someone on the Homeseer board already checked into using the Omnistat2's with an M1/XSP expander...

"I asked my HAI contact about this, the new OmniStat 2's are compilable with the old protocol. So it should work fine. It does have some additional features in the rs232 protocol, but it's extending the current protocol rather than changing it."

Elk has indicated they have an Omnistat2 and are playing around with adding access to some of the new features with new XSP firmware...

 

[Spanky]

ELK is expanding the RS-232 ASCII data bus protocol commands through the M1 so that the OMNISTAT 2 can be controlled and programmed through ASCII serial commands.