What tech for Adding Deeper PLC for HA macro logic?

[twohawks]

Been a while folks. Its 2023 and ...perhaps you could offer some suggestions where I should browse some options for this....

We have OmniPro II systems we are retiring. While a bit quaint, the macro logic control within seemed fairly complete, sporting full If When Then Else And Or logic, with the accommodation of setting variables, being able to handoff to other macros, time awareness (specified, wait, count, etc), and many other awareness factors/features. I was able to achieve just about anything with it; sorry to see it go.

I have some systems migrated to RTI and/or Elk now, but those systems do not accommodate full-scoped (deep) logic control. Some clients are also opting for Savant and/or other seemingly very limited HA systems. I figured that, at least for RTI and ELk, adding some sort of simple PLC that can onboard input from ...sensors triggers, either directly or relayed from HA and/or Security and/or Surveillance systems,... and then I could process the logic and then output a result via a serial feed to an HA and/or Security system ...should be a simple order to fill.

I heard Ocelot project is fairly dead (unreliable now). Aside from an associate's input discussing py/c# based custom solutions I am just beginning to look at Xantech, ISY-99, Envoy, Yarp projects ...not really begun yet...

I am interested in, and look forward to, hearing any suggestions you may have before I go full rabbit hole on this.

Thank you.
Twohawks

 

[electron]

This is what Home Assistant is really good at, and can run on low-end hardware (including Raspberry Pi, but I prefer a small form factor PC with SSD). I've migrated the majority of my ELK M1 logic to this platform since it has been so reliable once configured properly, plus it's easy to deploy.

If you're looking for basic Ocelot-like behavior (mine has been running 24/7 since 2006, knock-on-wood), then you could go the Arduino/ESP route. With the ELK M1 XEP Ethernet interface, any modern platform should be able to communicate with the M1.

 

[twohawks]

This is what Home Assistant is really good at, and can run on low-end hardware (including Raspberry Pi, but I prefer a small form factor PC with SSD). I've migrated the majority of my ELK M1 logic to this platform since it has been so reliable once configured properly, plus it's easy to deploy.

If you're looking for basic Ocelot-like behavior (mine has been running 24/7 since 2006, knock-on-wood), then you could go the Arduino/ESP route. With the ELK M1 XEP Ethernet interface, any modern platform should be able to communicate with the M1.

Thank you, electron.

 

[wvs]

twohawks, I share your search in extending Elk's rule logic capacity. electron, I have looked a bit at Home Assistant and started to investigate a bit. I need the extended capacity more so for a burgeoning access control function. I am not sure the Home Assistant Elk integration imports Elk users as actionable entities. Do you know if this is possible? I am also looking at the Universal Devices Elk Node on a polisy, but have not investigated this at all yet. I am not a programmer, I am quite familiar with the Elk automation logic. Would you say the migration from the Elk to Home Assistant is a programmer intensive task?

 

[electron]

Sorry for the delayed response, just catching up with posts I may have missed now. Looks like I didn't give you the correct link, since I wanted to show you the ELK M1 integration page. It doesn't look like users will show up as an entity, however, you could create a few basic ELK rules to execute tasks, set counter values or control outputs to communicate state/events with Home Assistant. Since you can do all of this without having to know YAML, it's pretty easy to do now.

 

[BaduFamily]

I would say that using the Elk M1 Integration inside Home Assistant (HA) isn't a programmer intensive task. In the sense that there isn't a lot of actual programming involved. caveat: I am probably at the 'unconscious competence' state of this kind of thing.

I loaded it into my HA, and following the pretty clear instructions wrt authorization pointed it at the unsecured port for our M1 and it slurped up the zones and whatnot. As @electron wrote it didn't create user entities.

if you can create a VM in, say virtual box, you can fire up an instance of HA and just give it a whirl. the default HA UI will get populated with ... well a lot of items, including a virtual keypad.

It's quite possible you would enjoy using Node-Red inside / adjacent to HA for extending your programming.