Omni Pro II Questions

[upstatemike]

I see from the recent polls that at least a couple of people are using HAI Omni Pro II controllers and I was wondering if somebody could give me a little info on their setup? Some things I'm curious about are:

Are you doing any IR stuff with it and if so what hardware are you using?

Are you using any PC based HA software with it and if so what? HAI only "officially" lists Omnipotence ECS but I think some folks use CQC or Homeseer with OmniPro panels?

Are you using the HAI touch screens? Third party touch screens? No touch screens?

Most of the forums I have looked at on HAI stuff are either low traffic or kind of lightweight on topics discussed. Is there a good in-depth and active group of HAI users somplace?

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Hi Mike,

I'll try to address some of these. For more technical answers, please feel free to call Jim in our office. We do have 2 HAI PRO II panels here and Jim actually is teaching training classes for HAI.

The HAI panels will work with most major HA software packages including HS & HAL and I'm sure a few more.

Jim is currently experimenting now with IR control. He is working with the Global Cache devices and then seeing how they can function with the HAI and the Elk panels.

Not sure what your question is about touch panels. Did you have a specific question? The current HAI offerings are the 3.9" touchscreens that come in 2 versions - with and without video. HAI will also be releasing a couple of larger touchscreen models shortly.

Is there a good in-depth and active group of HAI users somplace?

If there is, please let us know. I haven't found one. I suspect that there isn't though since most HAI panels are installed by professional installers.

 

[WayneW]

Most of the forums I have looked at on HAI stuff are either low traffic or kind of lightweight on topics discussed. Is there a good in-depth and active group of HAI users somplace?

http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/hai-users is semi active

 

[upstatemike]

Thanks Martin. I guess the touchscreen question is at the heart of my interest, along with details on the rules engine.

I assume the rules engine is pretty basic in the OmniPro II so that was my reason for asking about a supplemental PC platform. Does anybody know where I can download an Omni Pro programming manual?

I was exploring PC based touch screens in another thread and was not thrilled with PC hardware and cabling requirements for implementing a solution of that type. I was spoiled by the prospect of a simple Plug and Play cat5 touch screen for my Stargate but now that RCS is having trouble producing the things (with no known availability date) I am looking for an alternative solution.

So I am sifting through some ideas:

Move to an HAI platform and get the same plug and play simplicity.

Wait to see what the camera version of Elk touch screen has to offer.

Revert to a PC solution with MainLobby or CQC. (As I said, I am not yet comfortable with the hardware side of this solution).

I could go:
HAI + MainLobby + Homeseer
or
Elk + MainLobby + Homeseer
or
HAI + CQC
or
Elk + CQC
or
Elk + MisterHouse
(But I need to hear from some MisterHouse folks who are using touch screens to get an idea of how that would work)

 

[Dean Roddey]

CQC works quite nicely with either the Elk or Omni Pro II. The Omni is obviously more 'upscale' and more expensive, and I'm sure that their various advocates could argue their finer points for days, but whichever you chose would work just fine with CQC.

BTW, here's a guy who is doing Omni based systems and he has some quite slick CQC interfaces he's created for that:

http://www.5280automation.com/

 

[upstatemike]

Very nice! They seem to prefer the touch screens that are full PCs though. Kind of expensive! (I like their touch screen server PC though).

I unfortunately don't have the ability to design nice interfaces like that nor the resources to pay someone else to do it. That is another reason I keep getting drawn back to the hardware "plug and play" type screens. At this early stage though I don't know what the best path would be.

 

[DavidL]

Mike,
The MainLobby 3 MLHAI plugin is very close to beta. So, you could also:
Mainlobby 3 client(s) <> MLServer 3 <> HAI (serial and ethernet connect options).
And, the scenes that ship with MainLobby 3 will directly be usable with the HAI, so no need to be a graphic artist to make great looking, functional scenes.

 

[upstatemike]

Mike,
The MainLobby 3 MLHAI plugin is very close to beta. So, you could also:
Mainlobby 3 client(s) <> MLServer 3 <> HAI (serial and ethernet connect options).
And, the scenes that ship with MainLobby 3 will directly be usable with the HAI, so no need to be a graphic artist to make great looking, functional scenes.

That's good to know. I'm still skittish about the touchscreen hardware for this kind of setup. We are still talking 8 pc based touchscreens (which are obsolete as soon as you take them out of the box with no upgrade path for the motherboard) OR 8 UTMA screens driven by 1 or more back room PCs but how many PCs would you need to support 8 screens? I also want to do my auto switch to a camera when the doorbell rings scenario. Can MainLobby handle that?

 

[Dean Roddey]

With devices like the Elk and Omni, given that they can have many different things plugged into them, I really don't see how a canned interface would be of much use beyond the 'happy clappy demo' stage. Once you really want to start creating a real automation system around it, you are gonig to want to have specific interfaces to control specifical aspects of these flexible devices that work the way you want your particular solution to work.

A canned solution is generally like the 'remote control on the screen', i.e. it's just a basic pass-through of commands to the device. Though this is often neat when you first use it, if you want to create a system that anyone can use and insure that that use stays within parameters that you want, then you are usually going to get into creating automation logic and specific interfaces to invoke that logic. There's no way a canned solution can automatically figure out that in this room I want only these features available and to have these three buttons that invoke specific functions for this room.

 

[upstatemike]

With devices like the Elk and Omni, given that they can have many different things plugged into them, I really don't see how a canned interface would be of much use beyond the 'happy clappy demo' stage. Once you really want to start creating a real automation system around it, you are gonig to want to have specific interfaces to control specifical aspects of these flexible devices that work the way you want your particular solution to work.

I understand that argument but to make a fair evaluation I would need to start with the base offerings of the HAI screen and identify some shortcomings. Right now I haven't thought of anything the HAI screen does not do that I might wish for...

Maybe open a browser to view a news or weather site directly? Maybe some more extensive transport controls than those offered via the Russound RNET interface? This is where I need an Omni Pro expert to chime in and explain the features and limitations of the OmniTouch with Video touch screen.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Right now I haven't thought of anything the HAI screen does not do that I might wish for...

The easy answer to that one is, anything that the HAI doesn't control The big benefit you get by going with a general purpose automation system and touch screen is lack of limitations. If you want to add media management or home theater control or fancy text to speach or weather data feeds and all those things that lie outside of the realm of the Omni, then you would need to have something that works at a higher level.

In terms of what I was getting at above though, it's not what you can do, but how you can do it. The 'remote control on the screen' thing will generally allow you to do anything, if it's basically just giving you a straight one to one graphical control of each aspect of the device. But that's usally not really how you want a true whole home automation system to work. You would generally want it to be more 'activity oriented', and working at a much higher level of abstraction.

If you look most of the serious automation solutions created with CQC or Cestron or AMX, it's always an execise in reducing the options and getting it down to a set of interfaces that anybody can use easily. Unless a touch screen solution provides that ability, it's hard to create a system that any user can operate safely and with little or no training.

Anyway, that's my view of it, take it for what it's worth.

 

[DavidL]

Mike, just added some things to my MainLobby interface:
A flash based calendar to view Outlook appts. Even sends a reminder that can be spoken or acted upon programatically.

Horoscope page for the family members
Stocks I track

A scene to view all PCs and servers on the LAN for uptime, ram, hard drive, cpu utilization

Games like poker, slot machine, blackjack. Lots o fun with a crowd in the theater room.

Custom floorplan of MY house (and barn/shop) and it's lighting and controllable device.

Including a view of my MainLobby controlled and timed irrigation system. I can see from a cloud's view of what sprinkler zones are watering. My ELK motion sensors turn off a sprinkler zone when people are walking by to keep them from getting wet.

Full multizone media control - distributed video, audio, callerID, announcments.

Camera views on all PCs that view on event (like a security breech). Yes, properly setup and hardware equipped, this is very capable with MainLobby to answer your question.

My scenes will be posted in a few weeks to all Cinemar customers to use. They are based on the standard Library 0019 that comes with MainLobby 3.

These are the things you cannot do with a off the shelf, non configurable system.

 

[Steve]

I unfortunately don't have the ability to design nice interfaces like that nor the resources to pay someone else to do it. That is another reason I keep getting drawn back to the hardware "plug and play" type screens. At this early stage though I don't know what the best path would be.

Mike,

This is one of those things where you just need to try each of the products yourself. Personally, to me, the whole idea of getting one of these packages is to design custom UI's so in that respect I don't think a built in interface serves any purpose other than a sample of how things can be done. The real satisfaction is building an interface with the things you want and the look you want. The beauty of these tools is they include lots of canned graphics to built a custom screen however you want. If you are not a graphic artist, simply use built in graphics instead of creating your own. Or there are many folks that will either give you their stuff or even do a custom image for you. What you really need to decide is what tool is easier for you to put these screens together.

I have tried both and while they are both powerful and nice packages, I find CQC more intuitive and easier to setup a screen to access and control stuff. All you have to do is conceptualize what you want your screen to look like and place the right widgets with the right image and move it around the screen.

Bottom line, don't sell yourself short. I have the artistic ability of a zucchini but yet I can still create some decent looking screens.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Here's the the PRO II Owner's manual - http://www.homeauto.com/Downloads/Products...R00-2_V2-11.pdf

 

[upstatemike]

Thanks! The logic options look a bit limited but they do have that the part where the door camera gets displayed when the doorbell rings... I'll study it in more detail to see if I can draw any conclusions.