Email notifier board vs CQC

[cestor]

I am considering the email notifier board but it occurs to me that the same can be achieved with CQC although with a steeper learning curve. Given that I have an always-on server that could run CQC, is there anything I am missing here?

 

[Frunple]

Price?

 

[JimS]

Don't know to much about the capabilities but it seems like a $35 Raspberry Pi could do this and more or a $10 Arduino on a USB port with some scripting. I am going the Arduino route.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Well, I doubt many folks would buy CQC is that's all they wanted to do. The point of CQC is that it'll do the e-mails plus a thousand other things you might also want to do, all in the same product. If you want to do those many other things, then buy CQC, and a nice side effect is that you don't have to make a decision about the board.

 

[pete_c]

Here I have suggested to HAI OPII folks to purchase the device for a simple means of getting emails from the HAI OPII board.  It is a nice feature to have making the OPII board a bit more "solid state". 
 
Over the years have utilized Homeseer (even in a crippled OPII plugin state) to provide status; but it did mean using software and some means of redundancy to the "box". 
 
Now though personally playing with simple communications / status running on PC's and taking it to the little device powered by the board methodology of simple status. 
 
Impressed with that whole miniaturization thing of using a very simple micro router with multiple means of network connectivity (wireless 802.11N, 3G/4G and an IN/Out Nic) and serial connectivity in a tiny powered by the OPII board microrouter.  Mostly here I have little space in the HAI OPII can to do much of anything these days.  I do also have a subpanel in use though. 
 
Just really a personal challenge these days to see if it can done; that and I am trying to break it.  (a couple of days ago installed some metric measuring tools on it for graphing - really don't need it but curious about it).
 

 
I do the tickle email/text thing with the alarm service provider while concurrently doing my own thing and compare transaction speeds.  
 
Yup; software (CQC) will let you go beyond the basics of the simple OPII combo security automation panel and or integrate some other means of hardware for security.  
 
That said most / many folks want to keep it simple and basic these days.  (many only care about remote control with the cell phones using cloud based applications - easy button automation)
 
IE: basic lighting scheduling and events on the panel work fine for me while
 
here wanting a bit more than a timer/simple rules of my irrigation I took it to software (and made it sort of solid state running a piece of software on a tiny arm based CPU "computer" that fits inside of my old Rainbird box.  I did leave another irrigation setup utilizing the Rainbird system even though I do have an OPII board there; it works other than the sand clogging up the sprinkler heads or solenoids or lightning blowing the fuse on the Rainbird system.

 

[tigers]

Don't know to much about the capabilities but it seems like a $35 Raspberry Pi could do this and more or a $10 Arduino on a USB port with some scripting. I am going the Arduino route.

I already did this with an arduino connected via serial to the OPII. it's much cheaper than the official board and I can do much more with it (smart energy meter, remote temperature and humidity sensors, weather forecast to set sprinkler operations, etc).
It still need some tuning, but I can give you the most recent code if you want.

Using all original parts you can build a simple "HAIduino" for 40 €/50$, internet connection and all. Using Chinese clones with exactly the same capability you can stay under 20€/25$, for a basic mailing only system even less.

 

[pete_c]

Here, here Tigers!
 
I learned from you on my little OpenWrt endeavor.   Thank-you.
 
Treading slowly here (age thing).
 
There is a place though for the HAI OPII Mail board; its plug n play for those not wanting to experiment in hardware / software with their expensive combo security panel.
 
Too; there is a place for the Wintel software CQC for similiar reasons relating to familiarity with OS and software automation.
 
With the software automation interplay (whatever OS) I can add more hardware and manage the OPII with a bit more granularity. 
 
IE: current software has some 20 plus hardware connections (serial and USB and network). 
 
Having a look now at my legacy software automation and have the following plugins / hardware connected.  I've pushed it a bit and its been doing fine.