BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
I attended the ISC 2006 Security Expo held at the Sand's Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV on April 5. During that time I visited many booths and spoke with a variety of technical and sales people. This information was quickly taken down and will be (hopefully) correctly presented in these review postings. Please be aware that there may be inaccuracies in some details including pricing information. So please, take all this information as a "quick first look" only!
Honeywell
I visited the Honeywell Booth and spoke mainly with Daren Orth. Daren is actually with in2networks but was showing his company's product which interfaces to Honeywell devices.
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Honeywell Products Display
In2networks provides a product that interfaces the proprietary Honeywell protocalls to a common networked interface environment. This interface unit is shown below.
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
In2networks Interface Product for Honeywell Devices
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
In2networks Interface Product (Close-up)
Basically this unit has three interfaces. One to the "keypad" bus of the Honeywell device, one to an RS-232 Honeywell device, and one RJ-45 network interface. So basically to interface say an older Honeywell keypad to your network you would just wire in the keypad bus to this unit and plug the RJ-45 jack into your hub.
Not only that, but these interface units include an imbedded web server that is compatible with the MCE operating system! Also, this unit will work with a lot of different Honeywell devices such as their thermostat line. The interface units can even talk between each other and exchange information between devices.
For instance the Honeywell thermostat would know when the system was armed and could turn the temperature down. When the system was disarmed it could turn the temperature back up.
The "logic" needed for each of these units is programmed via a user interface (also in a web HTML interface display) and uses "wizards" to set this all up. So basically you point to the IP address of the unit and go into either the installer interface to set up the device or the user interface to view the device features. The wizards for the installer interface include a variety of "what if " conditional logic options.
There is no "master" controller in this scheme. The interface units have enough logic power and control to talk to other interface units and will just share the information needed via the network.
The best part, these interface units will only run around a C-Note. Of course you need one interface unit per Honeywell device. But, this gives a user who may own Honeywell products a LOT of modern capability that was not previously available.
Shown below are some screen shots of the MCE interface that is included in the embedded web server of these devices. Future capabilites will include IP cameras as well as lighting interface units for UPB, ZWave, X-10, and Insteon! They also have a touch screen that can talk to these units as well (via Internet Explorer on a CE operating system).
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Currently this interface unit is available for Honeywell devices only.
I must say I think this was "the" find of the ISC 2006 West Expo! (They were at the recent Florida show, but I guess nobody noticed them?!?! )
Honeywell
I visited the Honeywell Booth and spoke mainly with Daren Orth. Daren is actually with in2networks but was showing his company's product which interfaces to Honeywell devices.
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Honeywell Products Display
In2networks provides a product that interfaces the proprietary Honeywell protocalls to a common networked interface environment. This interface unit is shown below.
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
In2networks Interface Product for Honeywell Devices
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
In2networks Interface Product (Close-up)
Basically this unit has three interfaces. One to the "keypad" bus of the Honeywell device, one to an RS-232 Honeywell device, and one RJ-45 network interface. So basically to interface say an older Honeywell keypad to your network you would just wire in the keypad bus to this unit and plug the RJ-45 jack into your hub.
Not only that, but these interface units include an imbedded web server that is compatible with the MCE operating system! Also, this unit will work with a lot of different Honeywell devices such as their thermostat line. The interface units can even talk between each other and exchange information between devices.
For instance the Honeywell thermostat would know when the system was armed and could turn the temperature down. When the system was disarmed it could turn the temperature back up.
The "logic" needed for each of these units is programmed via a user interface (also in a web HTML interface display) and uses "wizards" to set this all up. So basically you point to the IP address of the unit and go into either the installer interface to set up the device or the user interface to view the device features. The wizards for the installer interface include a variety of "what if " conditional logic options.
There is no "master" controller in this scheme. The interface units have enough logic power and control to talk to other interface units and will just share the information needed via the network.
The best part, these interface units will only run around a C-Note. Of course you need one interface unit per Honeywell device. But, this gives a user who may own Honeywell products a LOT of modern capability that was not previously available.
Shown below are some screen shots of the MCE interface that is included in the embedded web server of these devices. Future capabilites will include IP cameras as well as lighting interface units for UPB, ZWave, X-10, and Insteon! They also have a touch screen that can talk to these units as well (via Internet Explorer on a CE operating system).
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Currently this interface unit is available for Honeywell devices only.
I must say I think this was "the" find of the ISC 2006 West Expo! (They were at the recent Florida show, but I guess nobody noticed them?!?! )