Domotics for dummies

[Leonardo]

Hi again Pete, I was able to install a Virtualbox Windows VM and install vFx Message Viewer... it seems non too different from running the iServer daemon in debug mode... infact... I cannot understand anything
I also can accept to use the iServer layer to get the xAP command and send the http request, but it's really impossible to find any info about how to!
I think it will be better to write my own little frontend in AS3 and use it :/
(hoping that it's possible to use simple flash without OpenPeak libraries because the libraries provided with the SDK generates errors )

Remainig serious, I also tried to find info about iServer and its protocols but I'm not very lucky!
So I though maybe I can rewrite the daemon to let it do what I need (http with curl or netcat and why not system commands), I opened a socket on tcp 9996 and... nothing readable!!! I'm beginning to hate xAP

[pete]

I just utilized to the view to watch the sending out/reception of structured xAP commands. If you highlight a message you can see it in the xAP little pieces.

I guess here I started to play with xAP something in the 2000's (maybe early 2000's) and it was related to utilizing 1-wire devices. That said I did have 1-wire temperature and humidity sensors in the "old" house before I moved to the current home in 2003. Sometime in the early 2000's "built" a Linux DVR server and it also had a means of talking and receiving xAP which I played with.

There is another forum in the UK (Automated Forum?) which has a section relating to xAP and you will there the vestiges of folks that created the first "rules" set of xAP. That said I did kind of get involved in changing the base for the weather xAP standards a bit as it was antiquated.

When I first read about FlashxAP, software, I-server et al I thought it to be a nice way to expand on using xAP. That and a home automation structured for everything language is great.

Today I use xAP for many things but it is not the primary mechanism for my home automation even though I use it for pieces of it.

I do have a piece of software / plugin which is similiar to the I-Sever running 24/7. It is though from the 2000's. It runs on my wintel automation server and accepts xAP messages and sends xAP messages. So in fact I can utilize it to automate or get information from my 16-20 IO devices. I do some of this today relating to my weather stations and 1-wire devices and Linux Zoneminder box and my little Seagate dockstar running Archlinux. I can though control any of the lighting today with xAP (Joggler running flashXAP) but do not.

Today that server talks X10, Insteon and UPB on the wire. It also talks Z-Wave. (wireless but using a serially connected piece of hardware). The server also talks to hardwired RF devices; WGL-800 (X2) and RFID (no name X3). I want to start utilizing Zigbee to see what its all about.

Here using the Joggler in its native form to run FlashXAP is a neat way to create a "conduit" for home automation. But you can (more work) just connect the hardware directly to the Joggler and write stuff to talk to the hardware on the Joggelr.

Actually too look at the "rules" relating to what TCP / UDP base is being utilized for xAP. It really does work better in Linux but mostly people used it for Wintel stuff. Also on a bit of a tangent have a look at XPL a similiar to xAP format. I have played with this and still use a bit of it today.

http://www.doghouselabs.com/system/inde ... ion+Server

[Leonardo]

Hello Pete, I was out for times, I worked to others things.. At the end I was not able to use xAP for my automation, too different. So we decided to write a new software for this.
We created the "multibutton" sofware that works great under a generic Linux OS.
Also the OpenPeak can run it, we just have to copy some library stolen by a Ubuntu 8.04.

At the moment the development is still in progress but the software is working not bad and it's very very versatile.

In few words we can create a page with an array of buttons, every button can do something like:
call http request, run a local script, open a messagebox, open another page (getting another xml configuration file).
every button can have its own image, can be a switch (with image and command for on and off), we can add text, color, whatever.

The XML is quite similar to the xAP one, anyway is easely readable.

We'll release the RC in the next days hoping someone will fin it useful.

I'm using it on some Jogglers for my home automation system based on Domoticz and it works very well.

Some screenshot as example:





and an example of the xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<multibutton>
<title>Multibutton</title>
<updateinterval>1</updateinterval>
<background>abstract-background.jpg</background>

<button x="700" y="100" width="82" height="100" labelY="87" background="glossy_orange_button.png" label="Test" foreground="#ffffff" messagebox="Facciamo una prova...\nVisualizza tutto?"/>

<button x="50" y="10" width="128" height="128" background="sun128.png" label="Piano\nGiorno" foreground="#ffffff" pagesource="pianogiorno.xml"/>
<button x="200" y="10" width="128" height="128" background="night128.png" label="Camere\nLetto" foreground="#ffffff" pagesource="camereletto.xml"/>
<button x="350" y="10" width="128" height="128" background="heat128.png" label="Tempearature" foreground="#ffffff" pagesource="tempearature.xml"/>

<image x="600" y="10" width="82" url="temp.png"/>
<label x="660" y="70" label="" foreground="#000000" checkurl="file:///opt/mb/get.sh 10"/>
<image x="600" y="110" width="82" url="temp.png"/>
<label x="660" y="170" label="" foreground="#000000" checkurl="file:///opt/mb/get.sh 8"/>

<label x="10" y="10" label="CUCINA" foreground="#ffffff" bold="true" italic="true" fontsize="25"/>

<exitbutton x="10" y="320" width="82" height="82" background="glossy_blue_button.png" label="Esci" foreground="#ff00ff" fontsize="17"/>

<togglebutton x="100" y="150" width="82" height="82" onbackground="menu_button_on_.png" offbackground="menu_button_off_.png" label="Luce\ncucina" foreground="#ffffff" onurl="set.php?control=luce_cucina&value=1" offurl="set.php?control=luce_cucina&value=0" checkurl="get.php?control=luce_cucina" ignoreanswer="true" italic="true"/>

<label x="10" y="435" label="Home Domotic System" foreground="#222222"/>
<button x="740" y="420" width="60" height="60" background="button60_blank_.png" label="?" foreground="#ffffff" displayversion="true"/>
<exitbutton x="10" y="320" width="82" height="82" background="glossy_blue_button.png" label="Esci" foreground="#ff00ff"/>


</multibutton>


Regards, Leo

[hawsey]

Wow, good work here
You have been busy...

[Leonardo]

A little bit
But we are really satisfacted by this job. Software will be released under GPL-2.0 license.

[pete]

Very nice Leonardo!

Looking forward to giving a spin.

Please let us know when we can try it.

[Leonardo]

Here I am, the software has been released with version 1
you can download it here:

http://www.lucabert.de/myProgram/viewPr ... Program=25

this is the source code, the elf binary can be downloaded here:

http://multibutton.lucabert.com/multibutton

here the libraries to run multibutton on O2 Joggler:

http://multibutton.lucabert.com/libs.tar.bz2

download and take a look to the page:

http://multibutton.lucabert.com/page1.xml

this contains all the example.

I'm working on some scripts to be run for checking lights status and whatever.
Out of the box the software can use http requests to turn on and off lights.

I Hope someone will find it useful.

Regards, Leo

[Leonardo]

Documentation is still (very very very) in progress, so please take a look to the page1.xml to see all the possibility.
Still undocumented and not directly visible here, we have the possibility to use:

file:///path/to/file.conf
(notice THREE slashes)
in domoticz.cfg to define the path where to get xml pages

and
file:///path/to/script.sh (pl, py, whatever)
in all xml files to run scripts instead of http requests.

Regards, leo

[pete]

Leonardo,

Looks good.

What hardware do I need to purchase to utilize this software? RFXCom serial device?

[Leonardo]

Hi Pete, just to use this software you don't need to buy anything, it's a simple software that allows you to create one or more pages with buttons, any button can do an action (http request or run a shell script), load another page, open URL, whatever.

So, if you already have a generic domotic system and you can send commands to it, it's enough and it will work out of the box

In my case I use it with a Rfxcom 433 transceiver, a Raspberry PI, Domoticz and sfuff from COCO Technology.

Cheers, Leo

[pete]

Hello Leo,

Installed Domotic application/software last night to play around with it. I do not not have an RFXCom device so decided to try to connect to my Davis Vantage Vue serial (shared) on the network device such that I could get some data.

The serial communications is the same for the Davis vantage pro as it is for the Davis Vantage Vue (very similiar). I do get an error though polling the serial comm from Domotic to Davis Vantage Vue.

I like the Domotic software. It is very quick and application is intuitive.

I have been wanting to get an RFXCom transceiver to play with here. I do not mind playing with non US radio frequencies and would like to see about a simple RFXCom communications to a simple wirelessly connected to RFXCOM to a 120VAC device using EU frequencies just to play a bit with.

[Leonardo]

As said I have Rfx and it works great, if you plan to use it I can share some script I wrote to interact with Domoticz. I use these scripts with Multibutton buttons
Cheers, Leo