Reminder: CQC Webex this Sunday 8:30am PST

[IVB]

Posted in another thread initially. Friendlty reminder to folks that this is happening this Sunday, 8:30am. Given that my work life is going to be very hectic come Monday, I can't guarantee any more before the price goes up.

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If anyone here wants to learn about how to DIY an HA system, I just arranged to have a "How to setup Home Automation webex" this weekend, 8:30am Sunday for some folks over on avs who are deciding whether to get CQC before the price goes up on 12/10 (from $495 for a full license to $895).

if you're interested in attending, PM me with your email address i'll send you the login details. There's only enough room for probably 8ish people left, but I might be able to do a 2nd one if there's adequate interest.

Here's the sample agenda I put forth.
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Sample topics could be a subset of the following (too much for a single session, you wouldn't absorb it):

BTW, Dean has a set of video tutorials he's building now. You'll get a lot more out of this if you're able to watch those videos and also read through the written tutorial on the CQC site. I know that Elk put up 2 long videos on the cocoontech site, but they're pretty long, and I haven't watched them myself, so that could be overkill at this time.

"Intro"
- CQC Overview (30 mins)
- ElkRP Overview (5ish mins)

"Theory of CQC"
- CQC Interface Building (strictly front-end type stuff)
- CQC Event Engine (scheduled events like HVAC, triggered events like IR receipt and security system armed/disarmed)
- CQC State Engine (Hide or disable GUI widgets based on some set of rules. For example, don't show the disarm button on your security screen if the system is in disarm mode)
- CQC Media Repository Engine (aka CDs and DVDs)
- Building Drivers inside CQC

"Theory of Elk"
- Setting up an Elk
- Setting up Automation rules inside the Elk

"Applied Theory"
- Getting the Elk and CQC to work together to accomplish something
- Media Mgmt from within CQC
- HA from within CQC
- etc.

 

[Digger]

I just PM'd you and of course I didnt follow directions and forgot to give you my email address

It looks like you are covering a lot of material (I know it wont be to in depth) and it will probably be a tremenedous help.

Do you feel CQC 2.0 is at a point that someone without any programming knowledge can use to a reasonable level of its potential? Basically to work with the ELK M1, Sage, and the Insteon interface in devleopment?

I would also like it to someday make announcements to remind my kids of certian things etc (feed the dog, bedtime etc).

 

[IVB]

In my personal opinion, absolutely. We have some VERY non-technical folks who can use this whole thing without any programming required. Esp in V2.0, with all the point&click.

However, what you think is "programming" might be different than what I think is "programming". I've actually had that experience in both directions - some folks are startled by the "lack of programming needed", some folks by "point&click is still programming because you have to add the commands in the right order via point&click".

What Squintz & I hope to accomplish by doing this webex is to give people a short, live overview of how to do what, so they can "get it". I know with Girder, it took 6 hours of mucking with the program before it clicked, and I was off to the races. With CQC, it was a little more given that it does much more and there weren't a ton of folks other than Dean to help out. (obviously now that's not an issue )

The upside of having both Squintz&I there is that we speak very different languages, so if you cannot understand my explanation, just say so and he'll jump in with a different one.

This also allows folks to get a taste of what it can do before they install the trial, then stare at their PC and wonder "ok, it's on my machine. Now what do I do?" Hopefully this 60-90 minutes saves hours upon hours of ramp-up time, allowing you to get much more out of the 30 day trial (or now->12/10 timeframe).

 

[Steve]

Do you feel CQC 2.0 is at a point that someone without any programming knowledge can use to a reasonable level of its potential? Basically to work with the ELK M1, Sage, and the Insteon interface in devleopment?

There seems to be perception that CQC is this big monster to learn and program, like something like Crestron. I can tell you I have used CQC for over a year and the hardest thing to learn is just the concept or paradigm of how it all fits together and a few annoying idiosyncrasies in the UI. Once you understand the distributed nature and configuring widgets in the designer and running it in the viewer, the rest is pretty easy. And even at that, I personally found it much more intuitive than some of the other products. Version 2 takes it to a whole new level of power and ease of use. If you can setup an M1 and write rules, then you will be able to setup interfaces in CQC.

 

[Digger]

If you can setup an M1 and write rules, then you will be able to setup interfaces in CQC.

The M1 was the easiet panel I have setup. I barely had to read directions to use the RP and the rules are extremely easy to use. It was all well thought out and to me very user friendly.

If its as easy as the M1 I wont have any problems then I guess.

 

[Steve]

Well maybe that was a bad example for a security pro . But for someone that has to understand the components/terminology, etc of an alarm panel and put it all together I think it is a better comparison. But you need to decide for yourself, so download the trial, play for a few hours and join the webex.

 

[IVB]

BTW, i'm writing up my journey in a case-study/how-to doc that i'm keeping here. You may also find some value in doing a quick scan of that before the webex.

I'll move it out of that location once done, but that already has some screenshots in it for you to check out. Everything after Chapter 1 was done back in V1.6 timeframe, i'll update it as I find the time.

 

[Acoba]

IVB,

Could you send me the login details for the Sunday webex. I downloaded the software today to test drive. Sent you a PM.
Thanks

 

[IVB]

haven't gotten the PM yet - can you resend with your email address? I'm sending the emails out to everyone late tonight.

 

[Digger]

I downloded the the beta CQC and I am reading up on it now. I was able to install it and the ELK Driver but I dont know how to make it do anything yet

 

[Steve]

Yup, like I said, the hardest part is just figuring out where to start. In a quick nutshell, to at least get you looking at your Elk:

1. Load the Admin interface
2. Go into Server drivers (icon that looks like 3 computers)
3. Choose the host/server (probably just that local pc you loaded it on)
4. Click Add a driver
5. In driver list, select Elk M1 Panel (Ethernet) (I am assuming you have an XEP)
6. Enter a moniker/id like 'Elk' or 'M1'
7. Enter the ip addy of the XEP (Continue until driver loaded)
8. Hopefully the driver state will be 'Connected to Device' which means the driver is loaded and talking to the XEP.
9. Now go into client drivers (icon that looks like a monitor)
10. Click add, then you should see the Elk in the list, click it and then Load
11. You should now see the Elk driver screen
12. Double click all the items you wish to poll, you will get green arrow
13. Send changes, green arrows turn to red check marks
14. Note, on the PLC units, each double click will toggle between on/off and dimmer
15. When you have red checks next to your items, CQC can see those things in the Elk
16. To verify, open the field browser (icon that looks like gears), click on elk driver on left
17. On the right side you will see 'real time' values for the elk, so for example, look at a zone. Now open a door or window and notice that zone will change in the field browser

Now CQC is talking to you Elk properly. Now you would go to the Interface Editor and create a screen, then open that screen in the Interface viewer.

A real quick example

1. open the Interface editor
2. On the background right click, Hover over New and choose the Enumerate Image widget. You will have a blank white image on the background
3. Double click the widget
4. On the field tab, select the M1 driver on left and one of the Physical Zones on the right
5. Click on the images Tab, you will see the 5 zones states in the Elk on the left, select Normal
6. On the right, click on the image area (checkerboard), navigate to the system\led\glass2\round directory and choose say dark green small led
7. Select another state like Violated and repeat above but choose Dark Red small led
8. Click on Basic tab and check the transparent bgn checkbox
9. Click done
10. Right click the image and choose size to contents
11. Save this template

You now have an LED that represents the states of the zone. So go to the Interface Viewer and load that template. You should see hopefully a Green LED if the zone is Normal. Open that door/window to violate the zone and the LED should immediately turn red.

You have now connected CQC to you Elk and create a simple interface. For sophisticated screens its all the same but using different widgets and images.

Hopefully that will tide you over till Sunday...

lol, I just realized you already had the Elk driver loaded! So just follow the last set of steps...

 

[Digger]

Cool............. I already had gotten to step 8 by myself and got stuck.

THANK YOU FOR THE DETAILED HELP I will give it a try!!!!!

 

[IVB]

I just put kids down, going to get on chat anyhow to help acoba out with some stuff. If you want, ask away over there too.

 

[Digger]

OK up to Step 17 and so far so good. Seems like I have a lot to learn and then this will be pretty cool.

I think I need to learn to walk with this first since its different than anything I have ever done and then try and run.

 

[Steve]

The part you just did normally is just done once - just setting up the drivers to talk to your equipment. Building the interfaces is really the fun part!