HST Releases PRO-100 Home Automation Controller

[Skibum]

I don't agree. There is no way to know the various hardware drivers and other stuff that Ski (and the rest of us) add to a PC. An XPe solution all of this are part of a known configuration.

So David, are you suggesting that a driver or piece of hardware changed magically when I formatted my machine which had a working copy of Homeseer 1.7?
Yes you must be right, I've taken an existing machine with no issues that ran Homeseer 1.7 with no issues, and now by osmosis I have hardware issues that cause Homeseer 2 to error out, to crash, to become non-responsive, to fill the log with thousands of lines of error mesages. :unsure:
What do you think it was? Martians that changed my hardware while I wasnt looking?

Silly me for thinking a lot of it might be errors introduced with the last released build.

 

[Rupp]

Ski,
Are you still having problems getting HS2 run? I thought you got that straightened out? What plugins are you using? My HS install is on day 23 without a shutdown. I now have to get busy rewriting my personal plugins so I can get these moved over as well.

I'd really like one of these Pro-100's but they are a bit too expensive for my Irish blood.

 

[Skibum]

Hi Rupp

The reason for my original post was to try to understand exactly what about this PC in disguise that is so stable. Still no valid explaination.

Yes, Rupp amazingly enough I am still having the same issues that I started having after build 2014 along with a few minor ones from before. Could it be because there has been NO UPDATE?

 

[WayneW]

I'd really like one of these Pro-100's but they are a bit too expensive for my Irish blood.

If you already have a good functioning HS2 system, what benefit do you see in yourself changing to a Pro100? Are there features in the Pro model that you need?

 

[Rupp]

I'd really like one of these Pro-100's but they are a bit too expensive for my Irish blood.

If you already have a good functioning HS2 system, what benefit do you see in yourself changing to a Pro100? Are there features in the Pro model that you need?

Wayne,
These units use so little power and have such a small foot print that they would be perfect for my small wiring closet. I have 3 always on PC's and I can tell it when I get my utility bill.

 

[Rupp]

Hi Rupp

The reason for my original post was to try to understand exactly what about this PC in disguise that is so stable. Still no valid explaination.

Yes, Rupp amazingly enough I am still having the same issues that I started having after build 2014 along with a few minor ones from before. Could it be because there has been NO UPDATE?

I would suggest updating to the latest version of 2032.

ftp://homeSeer.com/updates/hs2/HomeSeerUpdate2032.exe

 

[Skibum]

I would suggest that you sugest to Homeseer to actually release an update, and not hide updates on an FTP site, where you KNOW that if anything bad happens after an update from there the first thing that you and they will say is that "you downloaded and tried an unreleased beta version"

I really dont know how many more times I can plead for a release to fix the last release.

 

[Rupp]

Ski,
They aren't hiding them. The ftp link is from this post fom Rich.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=109151

 

[Skibum]

...and where might one find a speaker client to use?

Thanks

 

[deranged]

If it is not, then why does HST offer these "offending" plug-ins? For fun? I was wholly against pay for plug-ins. Homeseer provided this avenue, and now needs to apply ways to mitigate problems that a renegade plug-in may cause. This is NOT and end users job.

Not that I am intending to argue the point or even have an opinion in any direction.

I just thought I would point out that if microsoft could do this, then I would be out of a job.

Expecting HS to do it, Well that would just be amazing.

StevenE

 

[Rupp]

...and where might one find a speaker client to use?

Thanks

Ski,
It's like Ragu, It's in there.

 

[Skibum]

Rupp

Please do tell.. how do I update the speaker client on the machine that runs it?
(Not my Homeseer box)

Thanks

 

[DavidL]

Ski, with most of the updates, you just update and it does it's thing. A quick relaunch and you are back in business. Some of them ask what you want to do. I think the post build 14 are just mini interm releases. Keep in mind that in software development, there are numerous releases with fixes, feature updates that occur before a public release. The act of publishing a What's New is another task that is easier to put together once several things are fixed or upgraded or added. That's I am sure why there hasn't been a formal announcement.

Yeah, I know, they can take the 5 minutes to do it....

Not sure what you mean about your 1.7 install...
Bottom line - XPe allows HST to make sure things work. Any other PC adds other dimensions to it that are hard to account for in their entirety. Things get better generally with each learned lesson.

 

[rjh]

I just want to mention that HST has no plans to exit the DIY market, or stop offering our software.

You all mentioned the reliability features of the PRO-100, a little more details:

* OS is XP Embedded, built by us with only the components we need, so its a lot smaller and runs less services than full XP
* Controlled environment, we know the system will run reliabily out of the box
* The OS is totally write protected. You cannot corrupt the OS or any file on the system flash drive. If any corruption does happen, you can simply re-boot the unit
* HS is the system shell, so Explorer is not even running.
* Only uses 15 watts of power. We have brackets that allow it to be mounted on a wall or in a structured wiring cabinet

Hope this clears up any confusion.

-Rich

 

[ChrisWalker]

Not that I am intending to argue the point or even have an opinion in any direction.

I just thought I would point out that if microsoft could do this, then I would be out of a job.

Expecting HS to do it, Well that would just be amazing.

StevenE

StevenE,

You bring up an excellent point. And actually, to Microsoft's credit, they have done a lot in the last few years to protect the user from rogue code. .NET has built in security policies which can restrict code's permissions. It's possible to monitor and shut down threads or processes that consume extraordinary resources. And with Vista, software runs in low-privelege mode, and the OS will ask for a password before something too dramatic can happen--letting the user know that something's up.

As system get more complex, it can become harder and harder to write code to protect plugins from themselves. We actually have a toolkit we're working on in the lab (which uses the Z-Wave PC SDK) which will allow plugins. But it also runs them under special security models, can monitor their resources, and can quarantine them if things go really awry. For embedded systems, this is ugly stuff to have to do, but it really is necessary. Luckily, Microsoft has provided an amazing number of tools on Windows XP (and XPe) to help take care of this.

And you're right--these types of protections can only go so far in the end. Whenever foreign code is running on a machine, there is some potential for disaster.

Chris