Bragging rights

[biomech]

I am a new user of HCA and I love the power and flexibility of the product. At the moment, I only have a few lamp modules, a couple of switches, a few dimmers, and an IR remote. I can see that there is considerable power in HCA's visual programmer but with my limited collection of Insteon toys, I don't have much need for the VP... yet.

I'd like to hear from some HCA owners. What are some of your most complex or clever visual programs? I am looking for some inspiration. Care to share?

[ewelin]

I use all kinds of VP. I personally don't like the limited features of the "Green Mode" in HCA so I have my own setup. I ahve several schedules, a Home schedule, Away, Vacation, and Holiday. The holiday one is for around christmas time when our lights are up as everything is automated. I have 8 button KPL at each door with buttons linked to programs to change my home mode.

So I have a home button which when pushed runs a Home program that checks the time, if it's after dark it turns out the stair lights as well as a light in our dining room to light our way when walking it. It also turns on a few devices that are disabled when we leave the house to save energy.

I have an away button that triggers an away program which turns off all non-essential things in the house like all of the room lights and a few other devices that are sometimes left on. There are certain devices, like our aquarium we don't want turned off. Also when we leave and it's dark, we like the lights in our dinning room built in to be dimmed to 90% rather than 65% as it provides a bit of light for our dogs.

Those are the two programs that I use the most, but I've also created some other cool programs like one for Earth hour that I uploaded here (http://www.hcatech.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48). This runs automatically so that we always participate in earth hour. I also have a really advanced set of irrigation programs that I'll need to document and share at some point. But basically, the best way to water your lawn is in short bursts so that the water has a change to soak in evenly over the entire lawn. So I've setup a program for each zone that turns on the zone for 4 minutes, then turns off and waits for 10 minutes so the water can soak in. It then repeats that twice more for a total of 12 minutes of watering over 32 minutes. This has cut our waters amount in less than half and the lawn is actually in better shape. Before I automated the system it would water for 30 minutes straight. The whole system also is controlled by a flag which I can easily adjust the number of watering days. So if I want to water twice a week, I set the flag as 2. If I want it to water every day, I set it to 7. I even have a few weather checks so that during heat waves there is more frequent watering.

I probably have more programs in my house than I do devices. LMAO... I have programs for turning lights off automatically. Again I didn't like the built in system as these lights I want to turn off at different time periods. For example my front hall light, in the summer, 7 minutes is more than enough time for us to get ready to leave the house and walk down the stairs. But when it's below 40 degrees and we have to put on jackets or boots rather than shoes, 7 minutes no longer cuts it so the program checks the weather conditions and temp and allows for more time depending on the conditions. I have programs which alert me when the HCA Condition changes to Reg or Yellow, a simple program that send my wife a reminder via email, one that emails me when our power goes out and when it's restored.... There really has not been anything I haven't been able to program with HCA once I wanted to automate it.

Now that I'm thinking about programs again, I think I may go write a program which alerts me when our basement light has been on for over an hour and repeats the alert every hour until it's turn off. I hate it when those lights are left on!

[biomech]

Fantastic. That is exactly the kind of post I wanted. You have some great ideas in there. I especially like the idea of using buttons on the KPL to set home and away modes. I put my first KPL in two weeks ago and I think I'll borrow your idea for the KPLs near the exits. Your post is loaded with good ideas. I'll also use your lawn watering, power outage alert, and basement light program ideas. Thanks so much for posting. Let's hope other HCA owners do the same.

Rick

[ewelin]

No problem... Glad to share, and that's why I've added a few programs to the forum I linked to above. I love that HCA allows us to easily export programs.

[ghostt]

my world is all about the visual programmer. Nothing in my HCA design is directly addressable, everything must be "churned" through HCA, and a program takes care of it.

What has been the most successful for me is my motion sensor setup. I have motion sensors everywhere, and rather than have them send an X10 command to turn on a specific unit, they just send a code that is a trigger in an HCA program for that particular motion sensor. This way, I can customize how any individual motion sensor acts, without having to manually configure the motion sensor hardware, take it out of the box, put batteries in it, set the house/unit code, and its done. The rest is all done in HCA.

It has worked out *extremely* well. This way all my motion sensors have built in logging (to an external log file that is used by my web server for other things), turns on/off lights, pauses for a period of time, and then turns things off. The program is setup to "start over" if a command is received on that same trigger while the program is running, so the timeout value in the script will only shut off the light if the program runs for the full 10 minute duration without getting re-started (ie, no new motion in the room).

Its allowed me to setup a virtual star trek-like environment. Lights turn on as I walk into rooms, and I've put in programming to turn off lights as I walk out of rooms (strategic motion sensor placement). Essentially the "light" follows me around the house, only having lights on in rooms I am present in. Huge saving in electricity as well (electric bill dropped $40 USD after implementing this).

As I've expanded my system, I've added things to these motion sensor scripts. For instance, I finally got whole-house audio implemented. Now, the motion sensors also turn on the music in each room as I enter, and turns it off when I leave the room.

My other favorite program I designed is one that has a trigger of "anytime the weather outside changes", it then goes into a rather complicated program (about 50 different visual programmer elements) that figures out what time of year it is (winter/summer/fall/spring), then figures out the internal temperature (from an HCA compatible thermostat), then sets the thermostat to either A/C or heat depending on the time of year and what the temperature values are for outside and inside. The script also checks to make sure I'm home or not, and if not, it acts accordingly.

That's a whole other script.. the "am i home or away" script.. I have DS10A magnetic sensors on all doors in the house, and another program I have figures out if I'm coming home or leaving based on the order that the garage door and inner garage door opens. If the inner door opens first, and the garage door opens 2nd (within 2 minutes), it assumes I'm leaving. It waits 5 minutes, and if the inner door hasn't opened in that time, it locks the house down and sets HCA into 'away' mode.

My goal with HCA, and home automation in general, is to make it seamless, and as little user interaction as possible. The idea was to make my house work for me, and make me not have to think about anything related to the home control. So far, its working great, and HCA is proving to be a true workhorse in this sort of environment.

More ideas everyone!

[jhendric1]

I also use motion detectors and ds10a's as triggers.

At dusk my front porch lights come on at 30% as theres no need for 100% as no one is out there. Using a ds10a on the front door, when it is opened the porch lights ramp to 100% almost instantly and stay on for 1 minute. I have 3 motion detectors in the front yard and driveway so if they get triggered it restarts the 1 minute timer. As long as there is movement the porch lights stay on. Other wise they dim back down to 30%.

Now if I pull in the driveway or walk across the lawn, the motion detectors trigger the porch lights to come on a 100%. If I open the storm door(2 front doors, front door and a storm door) at any time the porch lights are at 100%, this tells HCA I am outside coming inside and to turn on the hall light at 70% so I never walk into a dark house. If I have the hall light come on more than 70% then its too bright and my eyes have to adjust. It stays on for 20 sec and turns off so I have plenty of time for me to get where ever to turn on the lights I need. The porch lights suddenly turning on also lets everyone know someone is outside.

I also have HCA turn this hall light on at 30% at midnight, later on weekends, so it becomes a night light. Off at dusk.

I also use a ds10a on the laundry room door so the light comes on when entering. I do this as usually when we go thru this door our arms are full of clothes. The light is set to turn off in 3 minutes unless it receives a trigger from a motion detector I also have out there. The idea is that HCA is to turn off the light in 3 min but the motion detector keeps telling it to start over when it sees motion. Works perfectly most of the time.

I use a W800RF32 to receive all these motion detectors and ds10a's. I have subsituted some triggerlincs for ds10a's for a comparison and found out while they are a little more reliable, the response time is up to 2 seconds for something to happen. With the ds10a's and W800RF32, when the trigger is received its nearly instantaneous which is perfect when you need a light on when a door is opened.

[ewelin]

As I've expanded my system, I've added things to these motion sensor scripts. For instance, I finally got whole-house audio implemented. Now, the motion sensors also turn on the music in each room as I enter, and turns it off when I leave the room.I'm curious as to how you did this. What are you using to distribute your whole house audio and how are you controlling it via HCA?

[ghostt]

I'm curious as to how you did this. What are you using to distribute your whole house audio and how are you controlling it via HCA?

Its actually quite a simplistic thing I setup.. Essentially I used what I had laying around the house and built onto that.

I have 2 "physical channels" of audio throughout the house, one for music, and one for house events (such as doorbell, responding to voice inquiries, email notifier, whatever).

1. House status audio: This is a hard-wired audio channel that I ran through all my structured wiring in the house. I went on ebay and bought a ton of miniplug audio cable, and plugged it into the sound card of the HCA machine, and then ran that to an audio distribution amplifier, and then ran audio runs to each room. Setup a powered speaker set in each location, and voila, HCA can now talk directly to the house audibly.

2. Music: I have always been a fan of the Slimdevices line of network audio hardware, I bought a few when they were a startup company long before they were bought by logitech. I have purchased more throughout the years. Essentially they all connect to a central server (software running on a PC with access to your music library). Each device in the house can be synchronized, or can play independent playlists. The server software is a great open source UI that has easily determined URLs for taking action on a given player. So, I picked up a copy of 'wget' for Windows (a command line HTTP request tool), and just spawn "run program" elements in HCA programs which spawns BAT files with specific 'wget' commands in them based on the event in question.

End result, the music in the house follows me the way the lights do, triggered off the motion sensors. Since HCA knows if someone is in a room or not, music never is left on in any given room. Having separate channels allows for home control status audio without interfering with the music. I would have preferred a single solution, but there was no 'good' way to do it without running separate 'feeds'.

Here's a few links for each of the pieces:

Slimdevice wireless or wired network audio players: http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/

'wget' for Windows: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm

There are other implementations of 'wget' for windows, but this was the one I found to be the quickest (important, since often times I'm sending a volume change request from an X10 control pad, so the response time needs to be as fast as possible).

Incidentally the whole setup works really well so far. When I first set this up I thought that music control would be a problem using X10 control pads, however its working great, with very little lag/delay.

I basically have HR12A's in every room that are customized for audio control (with a custom label set in it). This allows me to rotate through saved playlists, change volume, go up/down tracks, change to random/not random, shuffle/not shuffle, etc. The response time is generally less than 1 second from the time I press a button to the effect taking place on the music device, which is impressive since its doing all of the following:

1. X10 command sent OTA to W800
2. Signal is processed by HCA, and relevant program is started
3. HCA program fires off relevant BAT file based on the trigger
4. BAT file runs 'wget' against a specific URL on the Slimdevices server software
5. Slimdevice software tells network audio player what to do
6. Action occurs.

Considering what all takes place, I'm kind of shocked it all happens in under 1 second per button press, so all in all, while it kinda smells like a duct-tape setup, it definitely gets the job done! :)

[ewelin]

quite the setup... thanks for the feedback. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to set things up. I need to have HCA give audible alerts and I'm trying to decide if I want the option to have whole house audio or not. And I'm also trying to decide if I want HCA to be able to give certain rooms alerts or just the entire house... so many choices.

[ghostt]

quite the setup... thanks for the feedback. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to set things up. I need to have HCA give audible alerts and I'm trying to decide if I want the option to have whole house audio or not. And I'm also trying to decide if I want HCA to be able to give certain rooms alerts or just the entire house... so many choices.


Its definitely a lot of work, but in the end I much prefer having each room's audio as a 'zone', rather than having audio be a "all rooms the same" kind of thing. The primary reason I split into zones is for voice activation (working on that now, USB->CAT5 BALUNs for long USB runs, and have a USB microphone in every room). So far I've done the groundwork and tested in one room with 1 USB run, and its working pretty well. Big problem now is training my voice for hours on end. :)

I can say this -- wiring up for whole house audio in any way is a pain in the rear, but once its all said and done you'll be glad you did it. Audible alerts from HCA alone make it worth it (using text to speech, wav files, whatever).

[ewelin]

yeah I've looked at the abus system, and I like that setup, but it doesn't allow an easy way for me to HCA give alerts to certain zones as there is no way to remotely control the controller... right now the best solution I've found is the MCA-66 Multi-Zone controller (http://www.htd.com/whole-house-audio/mid-level-whole-house-audio/MCA-66-Audio-Controller-Amplifier), but at $700 for just the controller it's an expensive setup.

[ghostt]

yeah I've looked at the abus system, and I like that setup, but it doesn't allow an easy way for me to HCA give alerts to certain zones as there is no way to remotely control the controller... right now the best solution I've found is the MCA-66 Multi-Zone controller (http://www.htd.com/whole-house-audio/mid-level-whole-house-audio/MCA-66-Audio-Controller-Amplifier), but at $700 for just the controller it's an expensive setup.


Ah, yes the separate zones for the music audio in my setup is easy (since I can turn players on/off via URL with the Slimdevice server-side software), so that was easy, but the splitting of the hard-wired audio into zones was more problematic. I ran into the same issues as you with cost, I like to keep things cheap with home automation (thank you ebay!), so I spent a lot of time just thinking about how I'd do it.

I ended up finding a lot of IR connecting blocks (for Xantech systems) on ebay, the guy was selling 10 connecting blocks for $100, so I snapped them up. I use distributed IR a lot as well, so I figured I'd use them.

Later on, I remembered that IR signals going over miniplug (such as Xantech) are just stereo audio channels. You can use an IR connecting block as an audio distribution device as well. The lot that I picked up were simple "1 in, 2 out" connecting blocks.

So I took the HCA audio output from the sound card, connected it into a "real" audio distribution amp (1 input, 8 outputs). Then connected each of the 8 outputs to one of the IR distribution blocks. Since those blocks are powered by DC power bricks, simple X10 appliance modules easily turns a zone on or off by turning on/off the IR distribution block that runs to a given room.

Each of the IR blocks still have a 2nd output I haven't used, and going this route without finding IR blocks for cheap would be equally cost prohibitive (I think purchased new or 'normal' used price on ebay is around $30-50 each).

Yet again, another duct-tape solution really, but it worked, and it was dirt cheap compared to most solutions out there for this sort of thing.

Another way I can think of to do this (another duct tape method!) would be to get an IRLinc (the X10 device that can deal with IR signals), hook that up to HCA, then have your audio go into a remote controllable splitter setup (distribution amp, splitter, whatever, as long as its IR controllable), and run the audio feeds from that to each room, then have HCA send the IR commands necessary to the audio device to turn zones on/off. I haven't looked at what hardware is out there for remotely controllable audio distribution panels, but I would be surprised if such a thing isn't readily available, and would be further surprised if a 1x8 would cost any more than $100.

[ewelin]

So this would be a 1 in, 1 out (http://www.hometech.com/hts/products/infrared/blocks/cv-ir1200.html) solution and I could then trigger the "Zone" by powering the brick on/off via insteon?

[ghostt]

So this would be a 1 in, 1 out (http://www.hometech.com/hts/products/infrared/blocks/cv-ir1200.html) solution and I could then trigger the "Zone" by powering the brick on/off via insteon?

Yep that's how mine is setup, works really well.

I have to admit though I was annoyed at the noise of all the appliance modules clicking when zones would go on or off when major events happened (ie, coming home the house does all kinds of stuff, including activating audio zones, etc). Due to the sheer number of modules turning on, I could hear the clicking from the other side of the house. So I splurged and got real Smarthome ApplianceLinc's (much quieter of course), and all's well. In your case going Insteon you get quiet out of the box. :)

Ultimately though, yes that's my thinking. The hard part with using this method is finding the means to run the audio through something that's powered, such as the IR connector blocks I picked up on ebay. Finding them cheap may not be so easy, which is why I offered up the other possible solution (finding an IR capable audio distribution panel).

At the end of the day though I find that control via X10 is almost always easiest (from a 'least amount of hassle' standpoint). I'm an ebay junkie so I'll poke around and see if I can find anything out there that might work for cheap. :)

[ewelin]

Right now I have two "zones" I want to distribute the audible alerts to, the bedroom and kitchen. So for each zone I'll have to use one of the IR connectors, an appliancelinc, amplified speakers, and probably audio balums so I can run the signal over cat5 since I have to span from the basement to the 2nd floor in each case.

Do you know of any in-wall amplifiers as I'd prefer to have the speakers mounted in the wall/ceiling if possible.

[ghostt]

Right now I have two "zones" I want to distribute the audible alerts to, the bedroom and kitchen. So for each zone I'll have to use one of the IR connectors, an appliancelinc, amplified speakers, and probably audio balums so I can run the signal over cat5 since I have to span from the basement to the 2nd floor in each case.

Do you know of any in-wall amplifiers as I'd prefer to have the speakers mounted in the wall/ceiling if possible.


I am not aware of any in-wall powered speakers off the top of my head, but I would start at somewhere like crutchfield.com to look for models/type, then hit e-bay to actually buy them (thus saving yourself 20-50% in the process). I would imagine such a beast exists, though I would think you would need 110v wiring available for that (can probably leech off a nearby outlet or something, call an electrician if you're not savvy with that stuff!).

The BALUN path for the wiring will end up costing you a fairly significant amount, BALUNs are almost always $25-$50 per pair, and you would need a pair for each zone. It would be a lot cheaper to jump on ebay (can you tell I love ebay? :)), and grab some very long runs of the miniplug audio cable. You can get 50+ foot runs for ridiculously cheap on ebay, that's how I did the audio hard-wire in my place. For the USB microphones (for voice activation) I had to use BALUNs, but that was a "no choice" situation.

I personally have been using wall *mount* speakers (picked up on ebay), they're flat panel speakers that have a powered sub to go with it, the sub hides behind furniture in each room, and the speakers are mounted on the wall accordingly. Something like that may be a nice "middle-road" for you, so its still on the wall, just mounted to it, rather than embedded IN it.

[ewelin]

Thanks to another friend... new plan in the works.... the I/O Lincs... heck, here is an image direct from the smarthome page:

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[cobom1628]

Security camera screen grab:
I hate having multiple programs for anything - so having HCA control the house, and DVR software control the security cameras had to go. I use X10 floodlights wherever I have a security camera, the light is controlled by a X10 switch which only comes on between dusk and dawn. This way the motion sensor works 24 hours and is powered by 120V instead of AA batteries.

The X10 trigger runs a visual program, this controls the floodlight based on time of day, sends an email, writes to a log file, and runs an executable with an argument that corresponds with location ("south, garage_cam", etc).

The executable is created with autoit (a free scripting program) - the DVR software runs on the same computer as HCA, it has "Channels" to view all cameras, or only one, and a right click will make it full screen. Autoit sends a "controlclick" to select the correct channel (based on the location argument), a "right-click" to make it full screen, then 5 "printscreen"s - to snap stills 1 second apart. With a little file manipulation the jpgs are stored in a folder with a date (20100622) and each jpg has a timestamp and location from the argument - (0710_WestCam.jpg).

The autoit send a "right-click to take it out of full screen, and a "controlclick" to pick the 4 or 8 camera display.

The DVR software has a decent search option, but you have to record using its motion algorithm - this way I can easily look in a directory - pick any day and scroll through to a specific time. The 5 screenshots at 1 second apart gives ample opportunity to capture multiple angles. Plus - when the monitor is left on - you can notice easily when the screen changes from multi-camera to a full screen (like a car in the driveway, etc)