Front End for HomeSeer 2.x based system

RandyKnight

Active Member
Been working on my HA system with HomeSeer 2 / Elk M1G as the back-end engine for about a year now ... finally getting around to the front-end. Interested in input / what others are doing and/or pointers to threads I may have missed. My goal here is to do this on the cheap with used tablets, touchscreens, etc. from eBay and so forth. So I'm not too interested in the M1 Touchscreen, etc.

Hardware
Audrey
I've got an Audrey on the way from ebay. I know it's pretty limited but for $50 I thought it woudl be worth playing with.

Fujitsu Stylistic
Bidding on a 3400 right now.

Also have an old TabletPC and a few laptop laying around that could be used.

Others I should try to get my hands on? I was thinking of grabbing an AirPanel off of eBay as well.

Software
MainLobby
I am currently trialing MainLobb/MLServer/MLHSPlugin and I am very impressed. My only concern is price point. $240 is quite a bit for something I'm really only using for the front end as I don't envision using MLServer for anything other than the MLHSPlugin. Plus I may end up with over 5 clients so that drives the price up even higher.

Maestro
Don't like the lack of customization. Seems designed for non power-users IMO.

TouchPad, Rover, HS Web Pages, etc.
I could do this but it's a lot of coding. Would prefer somthing in between this and Maestro (like MainLobby).

NetRemote
Plan to trial this but wondering it it's robust enough for larger screens like the fuji, etc.?

XLobby
Have barely scrateched the surface reading on this but interested in how it compares to MainLobby, HomeSeer integration, etc.

CQC
No interest in this due to price and it seem more like a HS competitor rather than complementary.


The bottom line is I'm looking for something like the MainLobb/MLServer/MLHSPlugin combination but maybe without ALL the bells and whistels of MLServer since it's really only being used for a front-end. Would XLobby fit the bill on this?
 
Been working on my HA system with HomeSeer 2 / Elk M1G as the back-end engine for about a year now ... finally getting around to the front-end. Interested in input / what others are doing and/or pointers to threads I may have missed. My goal here is to do this on the cheap with used tablets, touchscreens, etc. from eBay and so forth. So I'm not too interested in the M1 Touchscreen, etc.


Fujitsu Stylistic
Bidding on a 3400 right now.


NetRemote
Plan to trial this but wondering it it's robust enough for larger screens like the fuji, etc.?

My Now Playing was running on a 3400 using Netremote for years. Actually NR runs very well on the 3400 whereas some of the other packages listed might require a bit more horsepower. As for using HS there is a free Girder look alike plugin called hsGirder that makes NR a very nice GUi front end to HS. Check the hsGirder section on HST forum and check out some of the screenshots from people using it. I now use Netremote 2 and Girder 5 for all my HA needs. There is a new Elk plugin being written for Girder 5 that I am testing right now and have to say I am quite happy with it.

John


Here is a new Netremote 2 GUI interface I am working on right now.
 
Randy, you can come over to my place sometime to look at the little things that I have done, if you like. Maybe we can do NTHAUG at my house.

I also have an Audrey, but never use it for touch interface purposes. Technically, I've got the HS Touchpad running for it, but again, never interface with it.

I also have a Fujitsu stylistic tablet at my bedside. I had been using it as a speaker host for HS until the speaker got fried for some unknown reason.

I did try out Maestro as well and was also turned off by the complete lack of customization.

I use Rover for my cell phone only.

The main thing I am using for interface now is jon00's touchpad interface. I use it for informational purposes on the Fujitsu at my bedside (weather, status, etc.) and control using a nokia N800 as well as on my laptop in the living room. Furthermore, I can use my N800 as a remote control (through global cache plug-in) using the same interface. The main thread for the interface just got accidentally wiped out on the HS boards (Rupp!!), but things will slowly start to appear again on the thread including interfaces. Alternatively, if we have another meeting over at AO, i can bring it up on an N800 there or one of their computers.

I'm biding my time for HSTouch to compare it with jon00's script as I understand it has much of the same functionality, but with much shorter setup times (no hand editing ini files). However, it can only run on Windows-based platforms (no n800) while jon00's was specifically designed for his nokia... plenty of things to consider.
 
Randy, you can come over to my place sometime to look at the little things that I have done, if you like. Maybe we can do NTHAUG at my house.

Yeah I need to get back involved ... I was so burned out on all of this stuff (not just HA but anything extra in general) after GC'ing my house I kind of took a year off. :) Last summer Rick was asking to have a meeting at my house to show the stuff I've done as well .... depends on if people feel like driving halfway to Louisiana. ;)
 
Been working on my HA system with HomeSeer 2 / Elk M1G as the back-end engine for about a year now ... finally getting around to the front-end.
Hardware
Audrey
I've got an Audrey on the way from ebay. I know it's pretty limited but for $50 I thought it woudl be worth playing with.

Fujitsu Stylistic
Bidding on a 3400 right now.

Also have an old TabletPC and a few laptop laying around that could be used.

Others I should try to get my hands on? I was thinking of grabbing an AirPanel off of eBay as well.

I like the Fujitsu Stylistic LT series better(8.4" screen) than my Stylistic 3400, I have a LT C-500 and a LT P-600 that I bought from J&K sales.
http://www.jksalesinc.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=26
 
Yeah I need to get back involved ... I was so burned out on all of this stuff (not just HA but anything extra in general) after GC'ing my house I kind of took a year off. :) Last summer Rick was asking to have a meeting at my house to show the stuff I've done as well .... depends on if people feel like driving halfway to Louisiana. ;)

why not... AO is halfway to Oklahoma for me anyways...
 
Software
MainLobby
I am currently trialing MainLobb/MLServer/MLHSPlugin and I am very impressed. My only concern is price point. $240 is quite a bit for something I'm really only using for the front end as I don't envision using MLServer for anything other than the MLHSPlugin. Plus I may end up with over 5 clients so that drives the price up even higher.

TouchPad, Rover, HS Web Pages, etc.
I could do this but it's a lot of coding. Would prefer somthing in between this and Maestro (like MainLobby).

NetRemote
Plan to trial this but wondering it it's robust enough for larger screens like the fuji, etc.?

XLobby
Have barely scrateched the surface reading on this but interested in how it compares to MainLobby, HomeSeer integration, etc.


The bottom line is I'm looking for something like the MainLobb/MLServer/MLHSPlugin combination but maybe without ALL the bells and whistels of MLServer since it's really only being used for a front-end. Would XLobby fit the bill on this?

So I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend with some of the software listed.

MainLobby and the MLHSPlugin.
On one hand, I really like the software. The plugin is rock solid and MainLobby is a beautiful interface. However, after spending about 10 hours with it, I came to the conclusion that it was not for me for the following reasons:

1. Perhaps it's because I've been developing in Windows since it was new and I know .NET, Visual Studio, etc. but I find the MainLobby UI designer incredibly painful and tedious. A Visual Studio style designer where you could have multiple MLS files open, a toolbox, bigger code windows for ML and MLServeCommands, etc. would make it much more useful. Again, this may be based on my development background and the way it is now may be great for non-developers.

2. Given the above and the fact that I do have extensive software development experience in .NET, I really think I can build my own custom web pages and/or Windows Forms apps to do the same thing ML would do for me in the same (or even less) amount of time. And it's free.

I am of course interested in any comments on the above from seasoned MainLobby users.

NetRemote
Had trouble getting this going. The plugin was freezing up my HomeSeer, etc. Fought with it for about an hour and moved on. One thing I disliked about both this and the MLHSPlugin were that they are the older HomeSeer 1.x COM interface vs the new .NET architecture. While they do play with HomeSeer 2, they can't be as stable / secure/ performant as the .NET ones.

XLobby
Given the recent commercialization of this software and the move to hardware OEM's etc. it doesnt seem to make much sense to pursue.

Others
HSTouch does look interesting and they are now saying they are looking at a summer release so we will see.

Jon00's plugin falls in the MainLobby camp for me. If I have to spend all that time configuing .ini files, why not just write the code myself?
 
dude, if you are able to write that kind of code, make a customizable user interface along with a straightforward design tool (that doesn't require you to edit text files), i'd pay for that :rolleyes:

i, on the other hand, don't know .NET and so am stuck with what is existing out there
 
dude, if you are able to write that kind of code, make a customizable user interface along with a straightforward design tool (that doesn't require you to edit text files), i'd pay for that :rolleyes:

i, on the other hand, don't know .NET and so am stuck with what is existing out there

Making it a customizable UI with a design tool is a lot bigger deal than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about just coding my own UI.
 
I realize that, was just thinking it could be something to get you by. Doesn't require a lot of configuring (I believe, have not dealt with it myself) to get some basic functionality.
 
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