Omnistat2 Thermostat questions

[henryz3g]

Hi Guys,
 
New to the forum.  Trying to read up on all of the tutorials but have one question that I wanted to see if someone could answer or point me to the resources to read.
 
I had previously participated in a pilot program with my electric company where they were teamed up with Consert to put in a smart meter, t-stats, and HVAC load controllers.  They ended that pilot and gave me the option to either go back to my old gear or they would swap out what they put in with a couple of Omnistat2s, an HAI MicroControl Companion, and a 15A plug in LCM.  Since it was free, I obviously jumped on it as it seemed like it was a good starting step in to home automation.
 
So my question revolves around controlling the Omnistats remotely via web or phone.  I am looking for a DIY option.  The Lumina and Omni panels were a little more than I want to spend initially.  My list of priorities to control would be Tstats, lighting, sprinklers....in that order.  I have a windows home server that is always on so I am open to software based options however I guess I am missing a box that will talk Zigbee and Zwave that I can control....right.  just looking for something very cost effective, DIY, and somewhat universal.
 
Thanks

 

 

[pete_c]

I am not aware of any devices other that the ones that were included with the testing.
 
I have purchased "a few" of the touch devices which were included in similiar pilot energy programs.  Some came from the west coast and others from the midwest pilot testing.
 
That said there are test Zigbee applications on the devices and I have been able to talk serially command line like to the Zigbee device.  Currently just testing a replacement to the EFI bios with it.  I was also able to load an SDK test program to talk to the serial port which talks to the ZIgbee chip.  Ideally just modifying the application such that it talks to the Omnistat2 (not sure though on the power meter stuff).
 
These came with 2Gb's of internal MMC soldered to the motherboard memory.  The EFI boot flash is 1Gb and also soldered on to the motherboard. I have been able to replace the EFI boot flash with a legacy coreboot/seabios flash.   I have installed XBMC on one of them and it does well.  Little marvel touchscreens.  If you have one of the touchscreens you can repurpose it as easy as running a script such that it doesn't call home and replacing all of the widgets on it providing you with much more stuff.
 
The touchscreen cases are sealed such that you need a special tool to open them.  Inside though there is a mini PCiE slot and combo Wireless N and Bluetooth Broadcom card, Zigbee chip, PATA port traces (which work), MMC Card traces and a SIM card setup. 
 
There is also a second concurrent endeavor same touchscreen interface that has a DECT chip and was utilized as a VOIP "do what" mini kiosk of sorts with phone and internet services using flash widgets.  Primarily it was just a DECT phone hub with a touch screen interface.  There are two of these out there.  One was using a similiar base but much cheaper designed motherboard with an 800Mhz Arm CPU sold by Verizon.