upstatemike said:
I have to admit I never thought of combining a Stargate with an OmniPro II. I guess since they are similiar in a lot of areas I just thought of them as either/or, not both. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more details on this this evening!!
Ok so here are more details on my configuration. I've been in my current house for almost 15 years so a lot of this has been around for a while. I'm currently building a new house so *some* of what I talk about is what I will be doing in my new house.
I currently have an HAI OmniPro II with 30 active security sensors (48 configured zones but capable of up to 192, I think). Wireless zones are also supported but I'm not using any.
I don't currently have my smoke detectors connected but I plan to do so in my new house. I also don't have any CO or gas detectors but I plan to have those in the new house as well.
I have 18 UPB switches and two UPB in-wall controllers (all HAI). I also have maybe six or so X-10 switches.
I have five HAI RC-80B thermostats (new house will have six) all connected to the OmniPro II.
My current system has 32 relay outputs but I'm not using any of them (I had a previous HAI controller and the expansion cabinets came with relay outputs). I will likely be using a few relay outputs in the new house but I may just use what's on the Stargate.
I have a Davis Weather Monitor II (currently connected via RS-232) and I'm running VWS. I have VWS generating a series of graphs every five minutes. These are used both for my home intranet page and also to update a dynamic image in HouseBot. I also have VWS writing out a CSV file which I parse and use to update properties in HouseBot. These properties can easily be displayed on any HouseBot panel (more about HouseBot to follow).
I have no internet weather forecast feed, but I think others have written them for HouseBot. If not, it should be easy to add.
I am using the Stargate primarily as a voice announcement solution. I have a two-way RS-232 interface between the Stargate and HouseBot (I could also do one to the OmniPro II but I haven't found the need for one). Since the OmniPro II is already talking to HouseBot I have annoucements triggered when the security mode changes.
For example I have a morning greeting that confirms the system was disarmed and reads me the outdoor temperature (picked up from the outdoor temperature sensor on the OmniPro II). I can make most any request I want from the Stargate to HouseBot (I created my own little serial command structure). After HouseBot receives the command it can transmit results out the same serial port. Then the Stargate can pick up the results and act accordingly.
I'm not currently doing any WAV file output but it would be easy to interface a sound card from the HouseBot server to a free input port on the ZPR68.
The annoucements I mentioned above are mostly done through my Panasonic phone system (thanks to advice I got here I think from UpstateMike!). For rooms that don't have a phone but *are* an AV zone I can have the annoucement go through the ZPR68 to the room amp (all needed zone switching can be done by HouseBot as I also have an RS-232 interface to the ZPR68).
The ZPR68 is my whole-house AV system. It has eight source inputs (analog audio and composite video) and up to 15 zones (mine is "fully loaded" with all zones). The ZPR68 is fully integrated with HouseBot. And since I installed a full IR infrastructure when I installed it (I was previously using a Pronto remote to control everything) it made it easy to interface with HouseBot. I just installed a USB-UIRT and coupled its output to a receiver on the ZPR68. It works quite well.
I have a number of AV components connected including a tuner, a Dish DVR942, two Sony 400-disc DVD changers, a squeezebox and a ReplayTV - all controlled from HouseBot using touchscreens or any PC in my house.
I have the analog output of my squeezebox connected to one of the inputs on the ZPR68. Right now I control it via the SlimServer web interface. I've looked at the protocol docs though and it seems like it should be fairly easy to integrate it with HouseBot - I just haven't had time yet.
The cameras are one area I don't know much about yet. I don't have any in my current house. I've wired for three in my new house but I haven't yet figured out the best way to display them. I'm doing a lot of reading on this site for more ideas.
I'm currently using ViewSonic ViewPads for user interface in some rooms. These are 10" Windows CE tablets and I've installed CF wireless cards. In the "main" rooms I'm using Dell 15" touchscreens connected to dedicated PCs. I don't really like the fact that I need dedicated PCs but I *really* like the large size and they have lots of "real estate" (1024 x 768). I've recently seen posts here about the UTMA stuff and they sound interesting. I may consider one or more of those mounted in-wall in the new house.
I have a number of screens in HouseBot that allow me to control each thermostat, run "buttons" (macros) on the OmniPro II, change security mode, etc. I also have predefined lighting "modes" in my two viewing areas - things like "Conversation" (100%), "Intermission" (about 50%) and "Viewing" (about 10%). In addition I can turn individual lights on and off and even vary the levels from a HouseBot remote (although this function currently doesn't work as well as I would like but that's due to the fact that my OmniPro II --> HouseBot interface isn't really finished yet).
I have three in-wall security keypads connected to my OmniPro II. I'm not sure what you mean by "access control keypad" but if you are referring to something like proximity detectors then I'm afraid to say that the OmniPro II doesn't support anything like that "out of the box". That's one area that I like better on the Elk M1.
The OmniPro II has a full phone interface. Right now I have it tied in *before* the phone system using an RJ-31X. I may move it to a spare CO port though in the future. You can do almost anything you want via the phone interface if needed.
I don't have any voice control capability and I've not looked into it so I'm not sure what's possible. It's something that I would like to have in the future once voice recognition is just a little bit better (although Microsoft Voice Command for the pocket PC is pretty amazing!).
HouseBot has all kinds of logging options. In fact this is probably a good time to talk a bit more about it. I've been using it for several years (since just before Meedio bought it). Even though it's not the most current technology (it's written in Visual C++ 6.0 and not .NET) it's still VERY well written. The original author (Scott Leonard) has always provided excellent support - even when Meedio owned the product. When they went belly-up he bought the product back from them and he's now working on the next upgrade.
If I didn't already have so much time invested in HouseBot I might have likely gone with CQC instead but with the recent price change I think HouseBot is a really good choice. Before Meedio bought it it was free and even now I think it's only $80 or so (no more than $100). It has no built-in media support but users have come up with their own solutions (including me - I have an Access database that I've interfaced with that works quite nicely). It supports VBscript which allows anyone with a knowledge of VB to do all kinds of things.
I am going to buy a Brand Electronics OneMeter for my new house and I plan to interface it with HouseBot (it seems like it will be quite easy to do). People have also written PC status tools that show things like disk space, uptime, etc. The user community is not as large as some of the other software solutions but there are a number of very knowledgable users out there who are very helpful.
Well I guess this post has become a small novel (it's certainly the biggest post I've ever made!) but I'm very happy with everything I've been able to configure and I'm especially happy with HouseBot (before it was around none of my systems were integrated). If you have any more questions or would like to see some HouseBot screenshots feel free to ask.
-- Dave
