OmniLink and OmniLink II and UDP

[mantorok]

My understanding is that the OmniLink protocol is used for communicating with the Omni controller via its serial ports (RS-232 & RS-485) and OmniLink II is used to communicate via its ethernet port using TCP.
However I’ve also read in this forum that UDP over ethernet is also supported but I can find no reference to it in either the OmniLink or OmniLink II documents.
Does anyone know if UDP is supported and if OmniLink or OmniLink II (or both) is used for it? Does it depend on the firmware version of the Omni? If so which versions?
I presume the OmniLink protocol proceeded OmniLink II, does anyone know which firmware version introduced OmniLink II?

 

[pete_c]

Trying to post a message here and it is erroring out....

All of the firmware revisions are listed in the help section of PCA.

Just tested using PCA connecting to my panel with UDP (Omnilink Protocal) and it worked fine. Its either TCP (OmniLink 2) protocal or UDP Omnilink protocal.



I still have old software (Homeseer) connecting serially to the OmniPro 2 panel concurrent with new OmniPro Homeseer plugin Omni using Ethernet.



Not sure if any of the above will help you.

 

[pete_c]

Guessing firmware 3.X for Omnilink II as the old PCA worked only with 2.X firmware OmniLink protocol.

 

[mantorok]

Thanks for that info. I suspect OmniLink II may have been introduced in a late version of 2.X as there's an older version of that document you attached labelled "Rev 2.16". I'm not sure if that number refers to the firmware version or not though. The Rev 3.0 version you attached mentions that status messages were extended in firmware 3.0 which implies there may have been OmniLink II support prior to 3.0.

The reason I wanted to know about UDP is that I'm thinking adding support to my Homebridge plugin for Omni systems that are stuck on older firmware versions (prior to OmniLink II been added)

My own system is on version 4.0b but I've been unsuccessful in getting a response when sending an OmniLink Login request via UDP. It should reply with some sort of Acknowledge message (positive or negative) but I get nothing.

I was wondering if maybe UDP support was removed in later firmware versions but it sounds like it should still work if PC Access can still communicate to the controller using it. I haven't tried that myself so I'll give it a go over the weekend. I need to re-install it as I got a new laptop recently.

 

[pete_c]

Here is the list of firmware revisions from 3.x on...its 28 pages and I couldn't copy and paste here a few days ago...easy to attach as a PDF.

My own system is on version 4.0b but I've been unsuccessful in getting a response when sending an OmniLink Login request via UDP. It should reply with some sort of Acknowledge message (positive or negative) but I get nothing.

I tested this to work saving the network configuration to using UDP then shutting down PCA and reloading configuration file with network changes running on Windows 2016 server (PCA is 32 bit).

Thinking today there is a Homebridge plugin for Home Assistant.

Someone was selling last version chips for the OmniPro panel series 1 last year I think. I have an Eprom burner from the 1990's which used a parallel port. I do not know where it is at right now. My current desktop though does have an added parallel port for my Alps MD5000 printer.

I am thinking that maybe Homeseer Omni and or the OmniLinkBridge app might work with firmware v2.x but not give you full functionality.

 

[mantorok]

I installed PC Access and was able to get it to communicate with my Omni LTe via both TCP (OmniLink II) and UDP (OmniLink). So UDP seems to be working fine.
I'm not sure why I can't programmatically get a response via UDP though. I'm using NodeJS and its "dgram" package which handles UDP comms.
I'm assuming the OmniLink requests don't need to be encrypted with the 16 byte key in the same way that OmniLink II does. There's no mention of it in the OmniLink document.

Someone was selling last version chips for the OmniPro panel series 1 last year I think. I have an Eprom burner from the 1990's which used a parallel port. I do not know where it is at right now. My current desktop though does have an added parallel port for my Alps MD5000 printer.

How hard do you think it is to get these EPROM chips with firmware 4.0b on them? It would save me a lot of work if the person requesting the enhancement to my Homebridge plugin could upgrade their Omni.

 

[pete_c]

How hard do you think it is to get these EPROM chips with firmware 4.0b on them?

Maybe Worthington Distribution has them in stock?

Looks like MY:RO might still have them in stock.

HAI/Leviton Omni Pro II Security & Automation Upgrade Chip (20A04-2UPG) | Myro Control, LLC

www.myrocontrol.com