My Christmas wishlist

[murphy]

Now it's becoming Christmas-time. Here is my wishlist for the ELK-system.

Maybe you all feels other priorities or having other needs. I would appreciate the following points:

1. If you are selecting the military time format and the metric system, it would be great, if the rules expressing also these measuring system only. So the rules becoming easier to overview.

2. The voicelist 0.8 should become a new extended version with some more usual words. Until now, I missed these words:
car - counter - irrigation - rain -
basic colors as: red - green - yellow - blue - white - black -
orange - pink - brown - gray - violett - dark - light
and maybe some timezones: GMT - ET - EDT - CT - CDT...
as dimensions: Celsius - Fahrenheit
and -as a joke- the baby should be able to speak: mama - and his name: ELK !

3. The voice-menues, are generally using a fall back in menues by (a timer or) the star-button.
Except when in menue 7=listen in. Here you are using 9 9 to exit.
That should be changed also to the star-button.

4. When listen in, by phone, and there is some backgroundnoise (even low level fans or so) than the system is not recognizing button-commands (as 7=extend time). Now the incoming and the outgoing sound is coming via diffent wires and therefore it should be possible for the voice-responding systen to listen only to the phoneline for commands.

5. The ELK-RP-programm has a good option: showing the status. But only for the state of the zones, the inputs. It would be great if you can see the state of other things as: outputs, lights, counters, troubles, temperatures ...

6. The voice-responding subsystem can tell you the state of every light, zone, output, temperature-sensor etc. Wouldn't it be nice, having a menue point where the system is telling you also the counters, as
"counter twenty-seven is eight three six".
At least for me, this is useful for checking conditions and events.

7. The rules are rather powerfull.
For a trigger you can compare temp-sensors with counters. But you can't compare two counters (, which are not defined as temp-sensors). I hope, this option is becoming possible with the next version of ELK-RP.
Also as an action it is not possible adding an amount from a counter to another counter.
When using the ELK for a security task, that is maybe not too important,
when using the ELK-system for HA it will be comfortable.

8. You can send a text to a port as to a keypad. But it would be nice also sending a text to the logfile. Where the text is noted with a timestamp. For easy testing and reporting etc..

IMHO all these are usefull improvements making the ELK even more
powerfull and more flexible and more userfriendly.
And all this should be easy to realize.

Any other ideas or suggestions or needs improving the ELK ?

 

[kccustom]

Sending a text to the logfile. Where the text is noted with a timestamp. For easy testing and reporting etc. Sounds awesome, I wish for that too!

My other wish would be an easy way to add sound files, ie doorbell sounds and the like. (since I some how hosed some of my sounds and can't get them back)

 

[Lagerhead]

Murphy, you caught me not quite ready for this. I have a long list but will take some time to remember it all. Off the top of my head --

0. Ditto your suggestions.

1. Additional words: count, counter, drain, evening, flow, selected, supervise, septic, sewer, timer, times

1a. Or better yet -- the announcer Elk used, send her phone number. Also a picture.

2. Install new sounds via WAV or other common format

3. Better comparison of counters and "custom settings" and more flexibility in their use in rules

4. Rules to trigger alarms and reset alarms

5. Option to change M1XEP ports 80 and 26

EDIT: A comment by Spanky reminded me of #5; added.

 

[tmbrown97]

And Fill and Valve voice commands... The best I could come up with was Pool Water On!

And I'll second, third, fourth, and fifth the custom voice commands - through the computer interface...

And, The ability to set volume with the announcement - like Announce "Garage Door is Open" at volume 5 (while leaving door chimes at volume 3)...

And, more built in sounds and tones... For everyday things like doors and doorbells, I like a very simple tone... but different enough tones so I can tell one door from the next... As it is, I'll be able to do this with an Elk124, but that seems like it should be avoidable.

Then in rules... a way to systematically trigger an alarm action has been a recent request.

And I'd love it outputs had default max times. Something like a garage door output should never be on for more than a second - but as it is, I either have to set a rule to turn it off if turned on, or create a task. For pool fill, I'd want a max time on of 20 mins. Etc...

And sequential rules - like Turn out 10 on for two mins, then turn out 3 on for 10 mins, then turn out 4 on for 10 mins... and a setting or way to tell it to do them sequentially or at the same time (like it does now). Would make the rules easier...

Don't get me wrong - I love the system and I'm getting by with workarounds, but I'm seeing my rules memory decrease quickly, and I haven't even touched lighting - so I'm nervous... and it seems like I shouldn't always have to use outputs to keep track of everything. And I'd love a lot more control over the sounds.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi Todd


Im assuming your using the sequential turning on of outputs for garden irrigation ..??? if so another option would be to connect a serial module to your ELK and build one of Gerrys Sprinkler controllers which allows what you want to do.....

http://www.rgbled.org/sprinkler/index.html

HTH
Frank

And Fill and Valve voice commands... The best I could come up with was Pool Water On!

And I'll second, third, fourth, and fifth the custom voice commands - through the computer interface...

And, The ability to set volume with the announcement - like Announce "Garage Door is Open" at volume 5 (while leaving door chimes at volume 3)...

And, more built in sounds and tones... For everyday things like doors and doorbells, I like a very simple tone... but different enough tones so I can tell one door from the next... As it is, I'll be able to do this with an Elk124, but that seems like it should be avoidable.

Then in rules... a way to systematically trigger an alarm action has been a recent request.

And I'd love it outputs had default max times. Something like a garage door output should never be on for more than a second - but as it is, I either have to set a rule to turn it off if turned on, or create a task. For pool fill, I'd want a max time on of 20 mins. Etc...

And sequential rules - like Turn out 10 on for two mins, then turn out 3 on for 10 mins, then turn out 4 on for 10 mins... and a setting or way to tell it to do them sequentially or at the same time (like it does now). Would make the rules easier...

Don't get me wrong - I love the system and I'm getting by with workarounds, but I'm seeing my rules memory decrease quickly, and I haven't even touched lighting - so I'm nervous... and it seems like I shouldn't always have to use outputs to keep track of everything. And I'd love a lot more control over the sounds.

 

[123]

I'd like to see enhancements to the M1's ASCII Protocol.

The "sd" command should work as was documented in the manual. My post here describes how it actually works and its not ideal for anyone trying to create a driver.

There should be a command to discover which resources (areas, zones, lights, outputs, etc) are used. Currently, there's no reliable way to discover what is used/unused.

A command to trigger a fire, medical, or police alarm.

A command to trigger a zone.

 

[robolo]

One more word to add --- Still . As in "The garage door is still open"

 

[tmbrown97]

Hi Todd


Im assuming your using the sequential turning on of outputs for garden irrigation ..??? if so another option would be to connect a serial module to your ELK and build one of Gerrys Sprinkler controllers which allows what you want to do.....

http://www.rgbled.org/sprinkler/index.html

HTH
Frank

Interesting concept... but I'm a lazy man, and my system works as is... The one thing I do like is the manual control over each valve when I actually want it - at least for now while I'm still screwing with my landscaping. For now I just set up a rule so that as each zone turns off, it starts the next one - each time checking to see if out208 is turned on first (which is set by the flag and turned off by the last zone) so I know if I'm running under the task or manually.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi Todd

>Interesting concept... but I'm a lazy man, and my system works as is...

No Problem....

Im using Homevision to control my irrigation (4 zones plus pond refill) similiar to what your doing....I can manually control the irrigation using an RF remote along with the W800 ....

But for my vegie garden irrigation which currently will have 6 zones im going to use Gerrys Sprinkler system as i can expand if needed easily ....At this stage i,ll either use xPL to interface to it or maybe my ir to serial interface and then just use Homevision to send ir....Im also working on a moisture sensor and im thinking if possible trying to connect it to a ds10 sensor so that i dont have to run any wires.......ds10 devices are pretty cheap in the US but here in Oz quite expensive...

Frank

 

[tmbrown97]

(not to hijack the thread... We should be done here)
Frank,

Makes sense... If I were using any other components, I may feel different... but as things stand now, the only thing that may someday make me expand is rules space. I even think I can accomplish 99.9% of my wishlist with the elk, but i'm seeing my rules space decrease quickly.

For my current system, the place came with 10 zones. On .27 acres, that's just absurd... so as I re-lanscape sections, my zone count should go down if anything. When wiring the house, I ran a Cat5 to the garage, and put an M1XOV and M1RB in the garage giving me 16 nice relay outputs, so that takes care of the 10 sprinklers, 2 garage doors, pool fill, strobe output, and still leaves 2 empty relays...

As for the DS10's, if it's any better to buy US and ship, PM me... I'm a small dealer, so it's no big deal to me as long as it's cost effective for you - I just don't know pricing off hand for shipping.

 

[sharby]

Now it's becoming Christmas-time. Here is my wishlist for the ELK-system.

Maybe you all feels other priorities or having other needs. I would appreciate the following points:

1. If you are selecting the military time format and the metric system, it would be great, if the rules expressing also these measuring system only. So the rules becoming easier to overview.

2. The voicelist 0.8 should become a new extended version with some more usual words. Until now, I missed these words:
car - counter - irrigation - rain -
basic colors as: red - green - yellow - blue - white - black -
orange - pink - brown - gray - violett - dark - light
and maybe some timezones: GMT - ET - EDT - CT - CDT...
as dimensions: Celsius - Fahrenheit
and -as a joke- the baby should be able to speak: mama - and his name: ELK !

3. The voice-menues, are generally using a fall back in menues by (a timer or) the star-button.
Except when in menue 7=listen in. Here you are using 9 9 to exit.
That should be changed also to the star-button.

4. When listen in, by phone, and there is some backgroundnoise (even low level fans or so) than the system is not recognizing button-commands (as 7=extend time). Now the incoming and the outgoing sound is coming via diffent wires and therefore it should be possible for the voice-responding systen to listen only to the phoneline for commands.

5. The ELK-RP-programm has a good option: showing the status. But only for the state of the zones, the inputs. It would be great if you can see the state of other things as: outputs, lights, counters, troubles, temperatures ...

6. The voice-responding subsystem can tell you the state of every light, zone, output, temperature-sensor etc. Wouldn't it be nice, having a menue point where the system is telling you also the counters, as
"counter twenty-seven is eight three six".
At least for me, this is useful for checking conditions and events.

7. The rules are rather powerfull.
For a trigger you can compare temp-sensors with counters. But you can't compare two counters (, which are not defined as temp-sensors). I hope, this option is becoming possible with the next version of ELK-RP.
Also as an action it is not possible adding an amount from a counter to another counter.
When using the ELK for a security task, that is maybe not too important,
when using the ELK-system for HA it will be comfortable.

8. You can send a text to a port as to a keypad. But it would be nice also sending a text to the logfile. Where the text is noted with a timestamp. For easy testing and reporting etc..

IMHO all these are usefull improvements making the ELK even more
powerfull and more flexible and more userfriendly.
And all this should be easy to realize.

Any other ideas or suggestions or needs improving the ELK ?

#7 and #8 can be done today with PowerHome. UPB support was just released recently as well and works great. I have some triggers set up so if any device (ELK, Stargate, or a UPB switch) sends a "turn-on" command, Powerhome will send out a "Get Status" command to make sure the device actually turns on AND updates all setting counters on the lighting control. It's a nice feature that improves accuracy.


-=*Sharby*=-

 

[wuench]

My other wish would be an easy way to add sound files, ie doorbell sounds and the like...
Install new sounds via WAV or other common format...
And I'll second, third, fourth, and fifth the custom voice commands - through the computer interface......
etc, etc, ...

I like the other suggestions, but I absolutely want the computer sound interface above all else. I don't care how it's done, I don't care if it is a bolt on, I don't care how much it costs, I don't care if I have to replace my whole Elk M1G to get it, I don't even care if it is made of green eggs and ham...

I WILL BUY IT.!!!!

 

[Steve]

Well, I guess I am going to go against the grain a bit. Personally I believe Elk should focus on the core and make things like the rules more robust, etc. Let's not forget what the M1 is at heart, a security panel with automation features. For sound, why don't you simply add a pc with some automation software? The M1 will NEVER meet everyone's needs and do everything a PC can. With CQC (my choice but use whatever you want - even free software) I can play any wav files, I can play any speech via Text To Speech, etc. I promise you will never, ever, ever cram all the words people want in there and all you are doing is taking up valuable ROM space. So I say focus on the core stuff like the logic, times, rules, etc. Make the rules programming more powerful and use a pc for the fluffy stuff like sounds, etc. Just my $.02

 

[jwilson56]

My other wish would be an easy way to add sound files, ie doorbell sounds and the like...
Install new sounds via WAV or other common format...
And I'll second, third, fourth, and fifth the custom voice commands - through the computer interface......
etc, etc, ...

I like the other suggestions, but I absolutely want the computer sound interface above all else. I don't care how it's done, I don't care if it is a bolt on, I don't care how much it costs, I don't care if I have to replace my whole Elk M1G to get it, I don't even care if it is made of green eggs and ham...

I WILL BUY IT.!!!!

Well if you use a PC with a home automation software package you can pretty much do all that now. I use Girder 5 with the Elk plugin and have all kinds of voice messages announced and that is with a M1EZ8. I like how you can send a 'text' to the 'output' then have Girder 5 event do anything you want.

 

[123]

" if you use a PC with a home automation software package you can pretty much do all that now"

I think there will always be ELK installers/customers who prefer to perform automation functions using an M1 exclusively.

Many of the enhancements listed so far are valuable firmware additions and others could be incorporated into additional hardware. Although I use an HA app to augment my M1's functionality, I do want ELK to continue to improve its product line.