Frustrated with home automation software

[pete_c]

Yeah here purchased a Pronto Remote for my wife one day for Valentine's Day many many years ago. 
 
LOW WAF.  Never did anything like that again.  That said though did here also have a Philips Pronto remote a few years back.
 
Here relating to Homeseer; its that whole teaching an old dog new tricks mostly because I have used Homeseer for some 16 years.  The migration to HS2 from HS1 was tumultuous for me and I was younger.
 
This discussion and Deane and Dean bringing up stuff about automation can be like baby boomer's automation needs today versus what the yut want today relating to automation.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Every year that I've been on Cocoontech (thanks to everyone who contributes) has been the year that HA comes to the masses. It's been inching closer, but there still is no mortar better than CQC, and I doubt there won't be any better anytime soon.

 
Some folks might remember back to the 'this is going to be the year of the LAN' era. It seems almost laughable these days (when probably people in igloos have a LAN), but it was going to happen any day now for quite a while before it really happened. And there were various alternatives as well. Even with Ethernet, I remember when plugging in another workstation meant taking a coring tool, drilling a hole into the side of a quarter inch thick cable, and strapping a tap into the cable to run off to the new machine. Hard to even imagine today.

 

[LarrylLix]

I started and wired my last house for 10base2. What a PITA that was. Somebody always bumped the 75 Ohm termination resistor and I spent more time sleuthing than using.  My kids, wife and I all  had access to a single, shared, massive 20 MB harddrive!. An old computer worked as a proxy server to dial up modem. It got real slow until I found my son participating in SETI and other scams and I learned about firewalls to stop it.
 
This was analogous to slowly shutting off the hot water valve to stop the 60 minute shower meditations. hmmmm... must have run the tank dry???

 

[Neurorad]

Since we're playing the way back game, thought I'd chime in...
 
I was psyched when I upgraded to 32K, on my TRS-80 III.  Never upgraded to a floppy, though.  Adventure, Bedlam, Compuserve, good times.

 

[JonW]

I remember being stoked when I figured out I could punch a hole in my 5-1/4" floppies to be able to flip them over and use the back side for storage on my Apple ][.

 

[ano]

However, I've changed my outlook on such things and decided I didn't need a high end solution any longer. I can live without some of the functionality I thought I had to have. One of the toughest problems I faced with any of the programs is drivers for new gear. I don't want to use IR. I have IP control for almost everything except my old plasma which doesn't support it. Trying to get any of the vendors to provide new drivers is very difficult although CQC was better than all of them in this respect.

I am with you on this one.  I have used CQC and Homeseer in the past, and they certainly are powerful, in fact they are too powerful.  You can spend 1000's of hours getting it running, but because they are PC based, it also seems like there are constant updates, backups, PC failures, etc.  I had a very elaborate system the reality is I think simplicity and reliability is the way to go.  With mobile device access and great programs like HAIku and HAIku Helper, I can access and control anything in my house from anywhere when i need too.  For automation control, the program space in a HAI/Leviton or ELK panel can be pretty powerful, and recently added hardware like the HAI/Leviton e-mail adapter fills in for more of what I used CQC for. I can automate locks, thermostats, lights, drapes, audio and many other things today with just the built-in capability of a HAI/Leviton panel and no extra software required. 

 

[mikefamig]

Anyone here own an Atari 800 or Bally game system? I taught myself to program simple games in a very limited BASIC language on the Bally which led to a career in IT. Apple II, IBM PC, PC AT. I vaguely remember the Osborne computer with CP/M operating system which competed with Microsoft DOS. I even remember what a big deal it was to take a portable PC home for work when it was as big as a suitcase.
 
Mike.

 

[pete_c]

No Atari 800 here; but have a box next the hobby bench here with my original Atari 2600 and a box o games. 
 
Somewhere here have the Magnovox Odessy with overlays for the TV.
 
Here played a bit with ML on the C-64; then the Amiga stuff.  Remember also running Helios on the Amiga.
 
I did have one of those AT&T made in Italy '286 machines running DOS mostly stuff.  Heavy metal.
 
Learned and played with Tandy TRS-80, Apple IIc, Peanut, et al mostly cuz I was curious at the time.
 
Just busy work to take my mind off of real work stuff (for a break?).
 
Relating to automation have a box here (kept it) running (well that ran) Windows for workgroups and an X10 piece of software.  The box is a tiny '86 point of sale box (Epson) with multiple serial ports and a battery.  On the hardware / firmware side used a security system called Excalibur in the 1980's.  It had text to speech, x10 and some 32-48 zones which talked.  It was well built.  A real PITA to program as it just had numbered buttons and LEDs on it and row of validation of the line by line programming (ML maybe?).  It was about twice the size of my HAI OPII panel board.
 
Yup; first networks at home used coaxial cables and at work played much with IBM twinax stuff and controllers (Ford).  I do recall though having to call IBM for service at 3AM and two guys showing up in white shirts and ties; I was impressed.
 
Had a vampire clamp as a paper weight on my desk. 
 
I really like this discussion.
 
Software does allow me to do much more than the firmware on the HAI Leviton OPII panel.  That said though many folks or newbies also are fine with basic lighting, HVAC, audio, security automation; sans any touching or playing and having remote access while other folks do want to automation everything (and you can today).
 
I do view much of my automation consoles primarily as functional and they get overly complicated with tiny buttons et al; where as my wife likes the simplicity of 5-6 icons and multiple screens.  Here I do see that want for function no matter what it looks like versus the flow of a nice simple interface that doesn't over power the user with complexities.  Playing right now with the Almond +.  It has a tiny little touchscreen with basics.  I see more and more the want of adds to the little touchscreen to a point where it will be most difficult to read.
 
There are benefits to either or using both concurrently.  The more we want though the more layers and complexity is added. 

 

[Deane Johnson]

To close off my original premise for posting, Dean worked with me today, finally logging onto my computer and determined that my VRC0P is providing a faulty performance and not sending some things it needs to when it needs to.  Since it's an old model, I ordered a new +3 today.
 
I think I'm going to like CQC a great deal.  It's classier inside than I was expecting, and requires less programming than I was expecting.  It's mostly multiple choice selection.  My aging memory will be the biggest problem in moving forward.
 
The support from Dean and some forum members is very rewarding. 

 

[Dean Roddey]

The weird thing about his VRCOP is that it sends msgs out of order. When you send a msg to a Z-Wave unit, the order of events is:
 
1. Driver sends a msg to VRCOP, saying send this to unit X.
2. VRCOP says I got your request
3. Then later VRCOP says I have sent the msg to the target unit
4. Then any reply from the target unit that is going to come back comes back.
 
His unit flips 3 and 4. And it's apparently not just some sort of occasional timing glitch, it does it consistently. This just don't make no sense, and it prevents the driver from working. The driver I waiting for #3 to happen, and it does. But, by that time it already saw #4, but since no one was waiting for that response at the time, it just got discarded. Then it starts waiting for #4 and never sees it.
 
I guess maybe that's the way the old ones used to work, though it's not the way the underlying Z-Wave SDK works. #3 comes directly from the VRCOP and should immediately show up. So it would seem to me that the only way they could get flipped is if the VRCOP purposefully flipped them. If so, that would be a major change between the older versions and the new +3 versions.
 
I can't even figure out how his old Elve driver worked, unless it just never bothered to verify the transmission acknowledgement msgs, and therefore it never waited for them. But I don't think that's a good thing to do, since it allows the driver to get ahead of the Z-Wave network.

 

[batwater]

Anyone here own an Atari 800 or Bally game system? I taught myself to program simple games in a very limited BASIC language on the Bally which led to a career in IT. Apple II, IBM PC, PC AT. I vaguely remember the Osborne computer with CP/M operating system which competed with Microsoft DOS. I even remember what a big deal it was to take a portable PC home for work when it was as big as a suitcase.
 
Mike.

 
Oh now there's a blast from my past.  It was 1978, my very first computer/arcade thing was a Bally Arcade Console.  Bought it used, started learning basic on it when not playing games, it burned up after 2 weeks of use.  I went back to the store and got a full credit and came home with a bright shiny Apple ][ that was upgraded to 48k of memory, salesman told me I was wasting my money (it was my grandmothers actually) little did he know. Of course it was kinda goofy at the time to be loading programs from cassette tape into 48k of memory. Had to load floating point basic (Applesoft) from tape as well.That was the beginning of my journey in computers, one that pays the bills and feeds the family to this day.
 
That Apple ][ ran a computer bulletin board in St. Louis called "The Fourth Dimension" from 1979 - 1984 and progressed from a Hayes 300 baud Micro Modem II to a Courier 56k modem (still have the one I got discounted from Courier with the brass plate on the bottom stating it was for BBS use only)  Well, eventually I did migrate from an Apple ][ (upgraded to a ][+ somewhere along the line) with 6 floppy drives to an Apple //e and a 10mb hard drive in the twilight of the bulletin board. I'll never forget the time that the police showed up at the front door of our house, my parents were gone, it was just me, a teenage boy, the police and a 911 call.  Turns out that I had accidentally picked up the phone line when the Micro Modem was dialing "click click click" and accidentally dialled 911. Once I stopped freaking out and figured out what had happened I brought the very skeptical officer inside and showed him the computer setup and how it happened, that was fun. I can also say with a straight face that I met my wife of 29 years on the internet before the internet even existed.  
 
Thanks Grandma for buying this kid a computer when you had no idea what he was talking about or what it would mean to his future!

 

[mikefamig]

Oh now there's a blast from my past.  It was 1978, my very first computer/arcade thing was a Bally Arcade Console.  Bought it used, started learning basic on it when not playing games, it burned up after 2 weeks of use.  I went back to the store and got a full credit and came home with a bright shiny Apple ][ that was upgraded to 48k of memory, salesman told me I was wasting my money (it was my grandmothers actually) little did he know. Of course it was kinda goofy at the time to be loading programs from cassette tape into 48k of memory. Had to load floating point basic (Applesoft) from tape as well.That was the beginning of my journey in computers, one that pays the bills and feeds the family to this day.
 
That Apple ][ ran a computer bulletin board in St. Louis called "The Fourth Dimension" from 1979 - 1984 and progressed from a Hayes 300 baud Micro Modem II to a Courier 56k modem (still have the one I got discounted from Courier with the brass plate on the bottom stating it was for BBS use only)  Well, eventually I did migrate from an Apple ][ (upgraded to a ][+ somewhere along the line) with 6 floppy drives to an Apple //e and a 10mb hard drive in the twilight of the bulletin board. I can say with a straight face that I met my wife of 29 years on the internet before the internet even existed.  
 
Thanks Grandma for buying this kid a computer when you had no idea what he was talking about or what it would mean to his future!

I still remember how proud of myself I was when I flashed the memory on my Courier modem to 56k. I haven't heard the term "bulletin board" referring to computers in so long that I forgot about them and SIG's too. And I still miss nntp newsgroups.
 
I think that the first computer on the net that I ever logged into was a college somewhere in the midwest and I was blown away. I didn't have any good reason to go there but I just was blown away by the fact that I could.
 
Mike.
 
EDIT
 
I forgot to mention that it was probably telnet that I first used on the net. WWW didn't exist back then or at least I hadn't heard of it.

 

[Waynedb]

 I remember in the old days upgrading a computer with a bag a parts and a soldering iron, kids today will never know how easy they have it. I remember seeing a crowd in awe at the local heathkit and a Commodore Pet with 5K of memory.

 

[mikefamig]

More on topic, and I am sure that saying this won't make me very popular but I'm trying very hard to keep it simple with my automation. I'm still happy with the Elk M1togo and ekeypad. I'm very new to home automation and maybe I'll eat my words somewhere down the road but for now I'm good.
 
Mike.

 

[batwater]

Oh yeah, the firmware upgrade on the Courier!  To keep in line, with the running theme, I remember the old days when I would take and reprogram the ROMs on the Apple ][, //e to change stuff.  The best prank pulled was to change the Apple's boot beep to something that sounded like a fart and turn the A upside down. Did this at my high school and freaked the teachers out.