Newby help with audio automation

[dooger54]

Hi Everyone-

Just found this forum after searching for a long time over the weekend. I've been looking for help on setting up HA in our home using UPB and couldn't find much help until I stumbled onto this site via Google. Thank goodness!

My current setup is as follows:

1) HAI Omni Pro II, using PC Access to program
2) Nuvo Concerto audio system
3) UPB devices, minimal at this point, using UPSTART to program

Thinking about buying MainLobby to integrate it all together with a nice GUI, not sure if that's the best way. Comments requested!

One of the first things I'd like to do is have the ability to get audio output through the NUVO system, and I'm not at all sure how to go about that. Sure, I have the NUVO keypads and also the interface that connects HAI to NUVO with the HAI touchpanel. But I currently have no automation with that.

I'd love to do things like-

1) Turn the NUVO system on automatically with various conditions, like opening an entry door in a ARRIVING scene
2) Announce events, reminders through NUVO
3) Put timers in so, for example, in our master bedroom I could activate the bedroom zone to turn on and then off again at a certain time, or after so many minutes, then turn on again in the morning as a gentle wake-up reminder


Not sure if these things are possible, looking for advice.

Thanks so much in advance!

Doug

 

[Steve]

Hi Doug - Welcome to CocoonTech!

I'm not that familiar with HAI, so don't know how much direct communication you can have between The Omni and Concerto. I know HAI has HiFi which is built by Nuvo, so there may be something there. Usually this is handled by some piece of software, like Mainlobby as you mentioned. The software will have drivers for both the HAI and Concerto and can do things like sense an event on the HAI side and then perform an action on the Concerto side.

Also I'm guessing the HAI and/or your softwares audio output would need to be a source in the Concerto and that will need to be controlled via a driver or IR. The Grand Concerto has a built in paging system that uses Source 6, but the regular Concerto does not have a built in paging feature so you would have to simulate it yourself.

I think a 'middleware' piece of software is a great idea to handle all of the 'complementary' functions, like GUI's, TTS and anything else the panel does not easily do. While ML is a nice package, I would encourage you to also evaluate Charmed Quark Controller (CQC) before you make any decisions.

So, yes, your things of 'like to do' can be done, I just don't know if you can do it without some software in there as well. Perhaps AO-Brandon or someone who knows HAI better can answer a little better.

I have an Elk M1G, Nuvo Grand Concerto and CQC and I do all of that and it works great. CQC does all of the direct interaction with the Nuvo with the Nuvo driver and I take advantage of the paging on the GC. All of my announcements, etc come from CQC in the form of Text To Speech (TTS).

 

[DavidL]

Hi dooger54,
What you are looking to do is very doable in MainLobby.
There are already custom plugins for the Nuvo Concerto (and GrandConcerto and others), the HAI and UPB.

The logic can be within MLServer software, or pieces of the logic can be in HAI (depending on how you wire things).

Here is a list of Concerto commands supported
http://www.cinemaronlineforums.com/wiki/in...Concerto_Plugin

You will not that there is Macro support, which means a button pressed on the Nuvo keypad can be mapped to "do things" within MainLobby Server.

There is also supported the means to send text to that same keypad so MainLobby3 Server can communicate via text.

To Steve's point, there is also the "MLSpeak" text to speech availability in MainLobby as well that can "tell" you the status of the system, who's calling, or whatever you configure the system to do.

When the HAI zone opens, MainLobby Server gets that update and then MainLobbyServer's event processing kicks in to do whatever you want it to do...turn on the Nuvo, change it's source, its volume on a given zone, or whatever.

 

[dooger54]

David-

I am planning on downloading a trial version of ML and giving it a go. One concern I do have is the the HAI plugin uses the serial connection on my HAI board, instead of wireless ethernet TCP/IP. I saw where the ethernet version was being discussed, but I don't see if it was ever developed. Can you confirm that?

The ethernet connection would be faster and more convenient. We are also limited on the number of serial ports on the HAI, I already have my NUVO connected to one.

 

[dooger54]

Steve-

I had looked at CQC about a year ago, and never did go ahead. Looking at it again raises a few questions-

1) On their site I didn't see any support for "generic" UPB. That would be a deal breaker.

2) CQC seems like it might be more difficult to initially set up than MainLobby. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who could speak to that.

Doug

 

[Steve]

Doug,

1. Not quite sure what you mean by 'generic' UPB, but there are currently 2 ways to use UPB within CQC. I would dare to say 'most' people (myself included) who have hardware panels like HAI and Elk tend to put lighting thru that. With the Elk or HAI driver in CQC you can easily control your panel attached UPB devices. If for some reason you prefer to have direct software control over your devices, there is a UPB driver in Beta (that you can easily use in a trial) that seems like it has been very stable and working fine. It will probably go into the next release. I have not even tried it yet as I have my PIM on my panel and thats been working great for me well over a year. You can read about the driver here.

2. I'm sure you'll hear shortly from Vivek (IVB) who has been very generous with him time and doing web conferences on getting started. There are also some tutorials on the CQC site that are probably new since you looked. Like I always tell people - everyone learns differently and different methods are more or less intuitive to different people. To me, personally, as much as I think ML is a good product, it was difficult for me to understand. It took me a rather long time to figure out how to make a button turn a light bulb on/off. Everything in the ML designer is a 'button' which also did not make alot of sense to me. In the CQC designer, there are dedicated widgets for every interface type. Like an image is an image widget, a button is a button widget, etc. That just made alot more sense to me along with being able to click on drivers, devices and fields I want rather than having to know what they are or look them up and type them into a long non intuitive string. I also like the architecture of CQC better. CQC however is not without it's weaknesses. One of them related to your question are the dialog boxes. Dean has pretty much built them himself and they do not follow 'standard' windows design. So it is a little clumsier to get around some of the dialogs at first, but you kind of get over that with use. Plus he is going to address some of that in upcoming releases.

I think any new piece of software as complex as these, that do as much as these do will have some learning curve, but for me CQC was much more intuitive. At the end of they day its really personal as we all see things differently. There are lots of people that feel ML is easy and lots more that feel like I do. Only you can decide for yourself by trying both. But also look at the user forums for both. While I do not frequent the ML forums, I can say the support for CQC is some of the best I have seen and there is a real sense of community. CQC's popularity has skyrocketed this past year. So give them both a try and post questions along the way, Good luck...

 

[dooger54]

Doug,

1. Not quite sure what you mean by 'generic' UPB, but there are currently 2 ways to use UPB within CQC. I would dare to say 'most' people (myself included) who have hardware panels like HAI and Elk tend to put lighting thru that. With the Elk or HAI driver in CQC you can easily control your panel attached UPB devices. If for some reason you prefer to have direct software control over your devices, there is a UPB driver in Beta (that you can easily use in a trial) that seems like it has been very stable and working fine. It will probably go into the next release. I have not even tried it yet as I have my PIM on my panel and thats been working great for me well over a year. You can read about the driver here.

Steve-

I guess I didn't explain what I meant by 'generic" UPB. I currently use the HAI Omni Pro II panel and interface with that using their PC Dealer Access software. That is how I currently set up the programs to run my lighting via UPB. I use UPSTART software to actually set up the UPB switches, etc. So, I guess I am doing what you say about going through the hardware panel via HAI. I guess I would not need direct software control either. Unless I'm missing something...

Your insights into CQC are helpful, I just wasn't sure how intuitive it would be. Guess maybe I'll need to download trial versions of both and see what happens.

 

[Steve]

Yep, you are doing the typical setup. Configure devices via UPStart, set them up in your panel and write rules or events to control them. Either ML or CQC will allow you to control them via the HAI driver. The HAI driver in CQC is ethernet btw...

 

[ellisr63]

Steve-

I had looked at CQC about a year ago, and never did go ahead. Looking at it again raises a few questions-

1) On their site I didn't see any support for "generic" UPB. That would be a deal breaker.

2) CQC seems like it might be more difficult to initially set up than MainLobby. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who could speak to that.

Doug

I use CQC to control my ELK and alsomy UPB lights. I use the beta UPB driverformylights and the ELK for security.

 

[DavidL]

The HAI plugin is having ethernet added now.

We are continually refining the installation of MainLobby. The installation will be very easy in the next few days as we put some new features in place to make the initial install super quick. Once it's installed, then you can learn from that default installation and figure out how to customize it galore with help on our very active forum. Most all questions get addressed very promptly by either a user, a dealer or Cinemar direct.

 

[dooger54]

The HAI plugin is having ethernet added now.

We are continually refining the installation of MainLobby. The installation will be very easy in the next few days as we put some new features in place to make the initial install super quick. Once it's installed, then you can learn from that default installation and figure out how to customize it galore with help on our very active forum. Most all questions get addressed very promptly by either a user, a dealer or Cinemar direct.

DavidL-

If the ethernet plugin is being added now, that is great. FYI, I went onto the HAI forum at the MainLobby website and found quite a thread about this plugin. Seems Cinemar has been promising since the first of 2007 to have the ethernet plugin done, to no avail. Hope what you say is correct.

 

[DavidL]

The HAI plugin is having ethernet added now.

We are continually refining the installation of MainLobby. The installation will be very easy in the next few days as we put some new features in place to make the initial install super quick. Once it's installed, then you can learn from that default installation and figure out how to customize it galore with help on our very active forum. Most all questions get addressed very promptly by either a user, a dealer or Cinemar direct.

DavidL-

If the ethernet plugin is being added now, that is great. FYI, I went onto the HAI forum at the MainLobby website and found quite a thread about this plugin. Seems Cinemar has been promising since the first of 2007 to have the ethernet plugin done, to no avail. Hope what you say is correct.

We have ethernet working well now. We are still working on a significant update to the core plugin. There are a few projects being worked on in parallel, but we would really like to get this one finished up.

 

[IVB]

2. I'm sure you'll hear shortly from Vivek (IVB) who has been very generous with him time and doing web conferences on getting started.

Sorry for the delay, after months of no travel i've had to do daytrips to LA on M/W/F of this week.

dooger, looks like many of your questions were answered, post anywhere if you have more. The link in my sig is a walkthrough of one of the webinars - it will give you a decent overview of CQC. You'll have to download & install the gotomeeting.com codec from www.gotomeeting.com/codec first.

I wouldn't sweat the startup time of CQC - there's plenty of folks to help you get up to speed, besides in a few months you'll be happier you have such a powerful package and can do what you want.

 

[Sendero]

Dooger,
the only thing to worry about with CQC is that it can do so much. I got it to just handle some basic things and it went great for that. But, knowing that it could do so much more, and reading about what others are doing with it, I just can't stop adding stuff on At first it was just simple lights/alarm/thermostat and handheld remotes for that stuff. Now it's branching out into whole house audio using a Nuvo Grand Concerto, e-mail alerts/notifications for certain events, integration of home security cameras, convenience automation, and more. It's addictive.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Mainlobby and CQC are both powerful programs. I am not sure one is easier than the other and BOTH have a healthy learning curve. I am using mainlobby and am FAR from being an expert. But you sure can make it purdy! LOL