Embedded vs PC vs embedded PC for HA controller

[johndoe74]

I built myself an 'embedded HA controller'. It consists of an Intel G201GLY2 miniITX board+CPU, with a picoPSU 60w power supply. I didn't even bother buying a case for it as I am planning on sticking the motherboard itself directly inside the wiring closet. The system itself uses about 30w of power when idles, and the CPU heatsink is fanless.

I've been running Homeseer2 on a stripped down version of XP SP2 for a couple of months without a single crash. I have ELK M1 doing the security stuff, and HS2 doing all the X10, Insteon and RFXCOM stuff.

 

[IVB]

The PICO needs a 2.5mm DC power adapter, right? What did you use for that?

 

[SethP]

What software are you running on the unit? I'm running Homeseer plus some of my own stuff, and I've been looking into embedded PCs. I never thought about the thin clients like this, and for $100, it's hard to go wrong. At this price, they'd also make great touch-screen drivers, with full browsing and other PC capabilities.

Seth

Scratch that. $1000 to buy the MS tools to build an XPe device.

I thought it might be cheaper to buy and build ones own system, but this is not the case. And after poking around on ebay/hp/wyse, it reminded me of what I did when I swapped out my PC for an HP thin XPe device.

I purchased HP t5700 with 1.0Ghz and 256 RAM and 256 flash, upgraded the RAM and Flash to 512, downloaded XPe from HP and booted from USB and installed it.

The t5700 terms are less than $100 on ebay.

I did a quick check on Wyse terms too. You can download their XPe for their terminals no problem.

So it's really now worth it build your own XPe system. Just buy a product that allows you to reflash your XPe onto your device.

Tim

 

[roussell]

What software are you running on the unit?

He's running HouseBot.

Terry

 

[Timoh]

Yeah... The support on the HP units are pretty great. When I got the unit I was concerned about the ability to reflash it. But the download from HP was straightforward as well as good instructions on how to make a bootable usb and get XPe onto the device.

As Terry said, I'm running HouseBot. I switched from Homeseer due to plugin issues and the desire to have a nice touchscreen GUI. HouseBot (HB) gives you the ability to design your own.

Performance currently shows 315MB available out 512 MB and 144MB free on my 512MB disk. So the system is really not taxed at all. I had no problem loading drivers for my USB to com port driver. Those are the only drivers I have loaded.

I'm very happy with my setup.

What I'm pondering is moving some "critical" functions off my Ocelot onto my existing or new 2nd XPe setup. Things like automatically closing the garage door if my alarm is armed. Or do an x10/Insteon "all on" in the event of an burglar alarm or fire alarm. Or turning off the water valve if a leak is detected.

Tim

 

[applecake]

Ive worked with XP embedded, it is XP, with the ability to remove bits to make a small customized operating system to ship with your embedded product.
If you can get the operating system down to 100 meg, then your doing well.

I have also used 'puppy linux', it is 50Meg, runs entirely in ram, boots up off a CD or usb stick, has a full GUI, office applications, web browser and games.

Just some food for thought.