HA Networking

[2parts]

I am trying to get a handle on how all this HA stuff works, so please bear with me as I am completely new to this.

I was reading the chat session you guys had with David of ELK M1. And was wondering how all these components worked together.

So here it goes please correct me when needed. The ELK M1 Keypads are connected to lighting , security and thermostats, for instance, of a particular area/zone of a home. Then these are connected to the ELK M1 control panel via ethernet of some other cable medium. After this, the ELK M1 contol panel is then given instructions/managed via software run on a computer like Meddio?

And walaa you can control your home from a computer!! Ok well prob not that easy..

Thanks for the help..

 

[tech-home]

Welcome to the board not many people on this late.


Your abit off but Ill be glad to help.


The m1 is what is connected to everything the keypads wire back to the m1.



Most would go with Homeseer with the m1 plugin (I just bought this tonight).


There is a link to download the manual for the Elk on the chat without having to login. If you can't find it pm me your email I'll send you one.

After reading the manual you'll have a much better idea of what it can do.

Also goto Homeseer.com
From there you can you can browse the message board and they have a forum for ELK

I maybe wrong but don't think Medio can connect to m1?

ANyways this will give you some food for thought.

 

[2parts]

Thanks Brian.

That did help to clarify some of the basics for me.

 

[Treetop]

Hey 2parts,

I know this is a bit OT, but, do you already use Meedio?

I was thinking that if you used HS as the intermediate, you could have Meedio send HS commands, which then get passed on the the M1.

I do something similiar for my piece-meal set-up (no M1, though)...

 

[2parts]

No, at the moment I do not have anything in my home set-up through HA. Currently, I am trying to learn all I can so I can make an informed decision about what to purchase/use. I work alot with Media Center PC's and want to add some software to mine to help control the home.

I figured it would be neat, to be watching a movie on my HDTV from my PC, have the doorbell ring, minimize the movie, and look on a webpage through a Wireless IP camera and see who it is without ever moving off the couch .


So what you are saying is to use Meedio to send commands to Homeseer which would them send commands to an M1 or a similar device?

 

[Treetop]

I work alot with Media Center PC's and want to add some software to mine to help control the home.

Me too! HTPCs got me into HA

What software are you already using?

I figured it would be neat, to be watching a movie on my HDTV from my PC, have the doorbell ring, minimize the movie, and look on a webpage through a Wireless IP camera and see who it is without ever moving off the couch smile.gif.

There are better ways to do this than minimizing a movie (that can get sloppy pretty quick). It can be done, but... using the PIP function on your tv maybe another route to take. Note: There are several different ways to do something like this.

So what you are saying is to use Meedio to send commands to Homeseer which would them send commands to an M1 or a similar device?

No.
Thats just one way to go about controlling your HA devices via the "10ft Interface" (ie. TV). If you already had Meedio... well, I'd start there... seeing if its even possible. Since you don't have it... well, there are numerous other possibilities to explore

Tree

 

[electron]

No, at the moment I do not have anything in my home set-up through HA. Currently, I am trying to learn all I can so I can make an informed decision about what to purchase/use. I work alot with Media Center PC's and want to add some software to mine to help control the home.

I figured it would be neat, to be watching a movie on my HDTV from my PC, have the doorbell ring, minimize the movie, and look on a webpage through a Wireless IP camera and see who it is without ever moving off the couch .


So what you are saying is to use Meedio to send commands to Homeseer which would them send commands to an M1 or a similar device?

I do similar stuff already. I wrote a custom page for MCE, which shows the camera pictures (it's just html), and when the phone rings etc, it pauses whatever is playing on MCE, and switches to twin view (tv function, split screen instead of Picture In Picture) which shows a the raw camera feed. It shouldn't be too hard to automatically minimize the application to show whatever you want to show, but you might have to use girder.

 

[DavidL]

If you are using Zoom Player as your movie player, Zoom supports full TCPIP control over the player including minimize / maximize. There is a plugin in the works that could work with Homeseer and/or MainLobby. Supports multiple players per PC, and multiple PCs.

The author of MyMovies (MCE plugin) said he would integrate Zoom into MCE (like he did with TheaterTek) if someone would write a MCE remote control plugin for Zoom Player. Just a matter of time before someone does, I think.

Personally, after playing with MCE for quite a few weeks, I'll stick with MainLobby.

 

[2parts]

Currently, I am working with a company that builds Media Center Servers,
and have the oppurtunity to build and configure a variety of different systems.

What software are you already using?

I have worked with both MCE2005 and SageTV software. Here is the case I am working with now X15E it is very sharp, but exspensive as all get out. They have all AMD64 Winchester Core based systems with some cool cases , so it is alot of fun.

I hope we get to add some HA software to the defualt images here later this year.

I wrote a custom page for MCE, which shows the camera pictures (it's just html), and when the phone rings etc, it pauses whatever is playing on MCE, and switches to twin view (tv function, split screen instead of Picture In Picture) which shows a the raw camera feed

Thats's pretty sharp, are those pages hard to do?

 

[electron]

You might want to take a look at mHome, it is designed for use with MCE 2005, and looks pretty good.

As for the pages, it's just HTML stuff, you can download the MCE SDK from the Microsoft website, I just modifed one of the example pages as a start. Once I have some spare time, I will be adding some HA control as well.

 

[2parts]

Thanks, for the tip that looks pretty nice.