We agree on most points, Robert, except the degree of affect the changes you note will have on future systems. I believe that, in spite of the capabilities of PC-based systems, panel-based HA will still prevail for some time to come. You apparently believe otherwise. Only time will tell.
Well, I got my XTBs (1 built and one kit) on Monday and they are very powerful devices.
First, about the kit: Jeff's online instructions and detailed photos took any guesswork out of assembly. I used a 20 watt soldering iron with thin guage 60/40 Kester solder. All the parts were packaged logically and assembly was straightforward. The board is tightly packed but not so much that it presents any difficulty in assembly.
I took my time and double-checked everything as I did it and the entire process took about an hour. My care paid off as it worked first time I plugged it in with the output of the kit matching or exceeding the assembled version's output. If you have good soldering skills and a little patience you can tackle this project with confidence. I'd rate it as an "intermediate level" build.
Second, about the performance: I now have about 50 X10 signal sucking Insteon devices installed - quite a challenge for any X10 transmitter! With those, X10 signal strength from the TW523 is virtually worthless except to a few close modules. With the XTB installed I can reach about 95% of the Insteon units that have been programmed with an X10 address. So, with the translator on line as well, pretty much everything can be controlled even during macro execution. I be doing more tests and schedule tweaking over the next day or two.
I'll also be bringing one of the XTB's to my home in Texas - a "pure" X10 environment that works fairly well with a Smarthome plug-in repeater. I'll test to see if the repeater can be replaced with the XTB and a coupler and report back over the weekend.
Funny stuff, depending on how much I have left to spend after we finish redoing the pool, spa .
Less than a month ago you were bragging about your online store doing over a million a year. I guess them 20 complaints in 36 months with the Floeida BBB really hurt you :) I think that online pop up store has seen its day.
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Well, I'm not going to get into a post-length contest with you, but I'll just make a few points.
BTW, here is a picture of my old theater controller system, CQC based of course. It's a VIA mini-ITX based system in a HushPC enclosure. It was very nice and I liked it a lot, but adding media to the picture required moving up the food chain to one of our new systems, which does RAID1 (don't want to re-rip all that stuff) and does require fans, and a lot of PCI slots for the various bits and pieces needed for automation without having to go to external hardware.
------------------------------------ Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
Oh, BTW, I should point out that the CQC interface you see in that picture is very old and not so great. It's long since been replaced with something far snazzier.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
If you are going to use an Elk or Omni, then the standard scenario is to connect everything (that you can) to the Elk or Omni and use CQC for the high level stuff (touch panels, TTS, controlling and coordinating devices that the Elk cannot, weather data feeds, media management, etc...) It's a very common arrangement with our customers.
You can set up web based access with the CQC web server for remote access if you want, which will provide access over low bandwidth connections. If you have access to a broadband connection you can just run the standard interface viewer, though you'll sometimes want to make some interfaces that are more approprirate for that (i.e. don't use a few MB's of fancy images, which is pretty common for locally accessed interfaces.) That gives you full two way control and better security when you can do that.
The media stuff we can handle well now, but will do so much better in the upcoming 1.7 release when we have our own media repository. Currently we have drivers for J.River and DVD Profiler, and we'll continue to support them, but having our own repository and CD ripping and metadata retrieval will just make it a lot nicer and will get rid of one of the few external bits that we still require to implement a media system. But you can browse your media by cover art or text, select what you want, kick off the player, see metadata on what's playing, and control the playback.
We have a fairly basic Russound CAV driver now, but a new one is in the works for 1.7 that will take it up to full potential. So we'll be able to push out metadata to the keypads and all that.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
"Enamored". . So the affinity goes beyond the rational. That's fine. No permission needed. We all have preferences.
No. VIA is not in a unique position. Intel and AMD and IBM are also in this position. (The word "unique" has a meaning in English.) Here's an AMD (geode) mini-ITX footprint fanless board:
Bobby writes about "it" --the mini-ITX -- but it would be helpful for others to understand that the only "it" is a set of dimensions that define the width and length of the board (but not its height) and the location of the mounting screws, I/O panel (but not layout) and maybe slot. That's "it". There is no electrical specification.
At this point even VIA has made a least a dozen _different_ boards using different chips sets, different CPU's, different ethernet, different video and so on. Many of the boards are available in different variants. There is no standard feature list and there is no standard I/O connector. There are at least five variants of the latter. The consistent characteristics of VIA's offerings are that they all use VIA CPU's and principal chip sets.
In the most compact implementation, computers based on the mini-ITX footprint don't use the PCI card slot (configuration #1). Mini-ITX has one vertical slot so unless modified, an PCI card sticks vertically straight up (configuration #2. There are slot extenders that #3) place one board above the MB, #4) two boards above the mother board, #5) one board next to the mother board, #6) two boards next to the mother board, Each of these six different configuration corresponds to a different optimal case shape and size.
So unlike PC-XT through micro-ATX where the MB footprint also defined the principal characteristics of the slots and case, you need *six* _different_ cases to optimally enclose the six different mini-ITX configurations. (So much for reduced variability
The single most standardized compact case configuration in IT, instrumentation and automation (1U rack) can handle micro-ATX, mini-ITX and nano-ITX. Unless there is new PCI slot extender I don't know about, all allow only one PCI card (I'd like to see variant #7 appear -one top, one side) . So much for the need and advantage of the mini-ITX in standard racks. (FWIW, the I/O configuration of Homeseer's box does not appear to match any of VIA's I/O configurations, so the Homeseer box may very well use one of the many other manufacturers of small mother boards --not VIA and maybe not even mini-ITX. I dunno.) So ironically, if you want 2 PCI cards in a 1U rack case, you have to use the larger micro-ATX with 2 horizontal extenders, not mini-ITX MB.
Add to this reality that just there were many manufacturers of the PC-XT and PC-AT and ATX and micro-ATX form factors, there are currently many manufacturers of mini-ITX boards using CPU's from AMD/Geode, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Celeron/socket 370, and Intel dual core
And video and ethernet and other peripherals from around the globe. What's more, they are available with PCI, mini-PCI, PCI-E and mini-PCI-E slots-- so much for consistent expansion!
The permutations and variations are very large. So the notion that the "mini-ITX" -- VIA or others --- is somehow bug-free because the configuration has been so thoroughly tested through time is just that in my opinion -- a notion.
Intel's position as the world's biggest chip maker places it in a (yes) unique position to do the R&D needed to reduce power consumption.
In total sales and value, VIA picked some crumbs up off the floor.
Reliability? FWIW, the most squirrely, infuriating, post 80386 PC's I've used have been VIA's. I avoided VIA like the plague for years.
Low(er) purchase price? Not in my experience.
I felt that way when I first used Ampro Little Boards in 1989 ;-) Course then the favorite American ox to gore was IBM, not Intel and the overseas innovator was NEC. (NEC, oh NEC, where art thou now? )
If history repeats itself, Intel's consolidated media chip sets may make the current multi-chip melange ( including VIA's) look like a home-brew Frankenstein every bit as quaint and cuddly as the 1987 Ampro Little Board.
Whether the motherboard foot-print is 24cm x 24cm (micro-ATX), 17x17cm (mini-ITX), 12 cm x 12cm (nano-ITX) or something else won't matter at all (in my opinion).
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
This got a bit garbled.
Sorry, Typing too fast ... Marc Marc_F_hult
Exactly. This was the architecture that ABIK was introduced with CyberHouse-Stargate ca 1997. Has anyone else also noticed that this means that you can simultaneously use more than one HA application on more than one PC and more than one operating system ?
CyberHouse, Homeseer CQ and MSMCE can play very nicely together each doing what it does best. I've half a mind (no comments please) to add a linux box with an open-source HA app.
Key here is to separate (at least some) of the hardware from the CPU's so that the hardware can be shared over the network. This adds real redundancy and smarts IME. (Dean will correct me, but CQ has some remote management advantages over other HA apps that are best/require that hardware be associated with the CPU running CQ.)
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
One strong candidate would be a $50 Linksys WRT54G. Runs Linux on about 7 watts and has built-in ethernet switch and wireless.
A principal impetus for HA in our case is for when we travel. Having a HA system running while someone else is living in your house as is typically the case when we are on extended travel is the most difficult of HA scenarios IME.
In theory, one of the WRT54Gs already plugged into my home network could be re-programmed without my so much as visiting it (re-booted remotely to download the new app remotely). A good function would be as a über watch-dog of overall system operation.
One of the Linksys variants with phone lines used for VOIP might provide a phone lifeline to the HA system independent of the HA PC's that would be smarter and more talkative than conventional remote reboot telephone hardware.
Any good links?
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
If you are running CQC, then any devices under CQC's control, directly or indirectly via the Elk or Omni, is available to any node on the network running CQC. But, you don't need to install the whole product if you just want to share out control of devices on node X, you can just install the CQCServer component, which is the device driver manager bit. But, if you are going to install anything on node X, you might as well also install some of the client tools so that you can do CQC maintenance/configuration from that node if you happen to be there.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
Would either one of these be acceptable aerial wire:
I see that most places where they talk about impedance, they list RG-58U as
50 ohm. I'd rather get the one with BNC connectors already in place, but I am not sure they are 50 ohms.Thanks!
-- Bobby G.
From outside of the box, how much difference do you expect to observe?
The next-generation "panel" may indeed contain a PC inside, but don't expect it to allow the user to load their favorite apps along with their security system apps.
Technology similar to the VIA boards has been around for quite some time. For embedded use, the PC-104 standard has existed for over 10 years, and these systems typically ran a bit behind the PC state-of-the-art, with lower power consumption, very similar to the ITX boards. Only it was easier to plug in various I/O modules to the base board, so in some ways it is easier to adapt for HA/alarm use.
Typically, if you are making lower volumes, it is more attractive to use a system that somebody else manufactures and you add system integration and software to complete the system. At some point, though, as volume increases, it is more cost-effective to contract with an engineering firm to design an integrated board with all of the useful PC parts, plus the I/O you need, all on one board. Then you contract out the manufacture of the board. By now, most of the "PC" is a reference design you can get from the CPU/chipset makers (VIA and AMD Geode are leading low-power makers, or you could go with an ARM design from Intel, Atmel, or TI, or whatever). This represents greater up-front investment, but the unit costs go down so that it is cheaper in sufficient volume (You aren't paying VIA's profit, nor for the few parts that you don't really make use of.) At this point, do you have a "PC" based system, or a "panel" based system? Does it matter?
Marcus Hall snipped-for-privacy@tuells.org
No contest here, so I'll be even terser! :-)
As for it being a necessity, isn't that a little like the cart pulling the dog? Isn't that an admission that Windows can't really multitask well and that to get it to behave you have to treat it like a mental category 5 (dolt) recruit in the Army: "Go here, do this, come back and sit quietly." If you tell them to do more than that at one time, something's going to go wrong.
I'm sorry but I see this as an admission of MS's failure. To me it says: "Windows is pretty damn touchy when it comes to multitasking." This is what I was alluding to earlier when I talked about it crashing often, and no one caring enough to complain to MS or to stop buying the product. People have come to accept this dismal level of multitasking as the best that's out there. My mainframe jockey friends assure me it's not. It's just the best that MS can do and still maintain its legacy support of lots of existing applications.
I'm sorry that I haven't kept up with recent Windows releases. I own, but don't use, XP because an OS that will stop working without "phoning home" just because you replace a NIC can't possibly be considered "robust" in any sense of the word. I've been reading through their site at:
Holy Double Moses! You want to use your combination HA/security system to watch movies?
Really? (-;
Then we're very disconnected on same basic level, Dean. To me that's just asking for trouble. The HA and security need very little user interaction once they're up. Why mix them in with media players, given the way they're now absolutely clotted up with Digital Rights Management (DRM) hoopla? I see platforms like the Via helping to merge similar functions like security and home automation but I've always seen the CATV/CCTV systems as separate entities. Maybe when all media is digital it will work more seamlessly than it does now.
Looks very cool. Clearly, you were ahead of your time! :-)
You've given me another reason to separate the two. While I'd never want to power down the security and automation, I'm now powering down the home theater components routinely to lower the electric bill. I have no doubt VIA will be able to produce a fanless server that can serve media satisfactorily by the time that's important to me. My Sony 400 DVD jukebox works out pretty well for now. As for RAID, the media collection's static enough that an external USB drive will do nicely for backups - and be more useful in the long run than a RAID'ed drive.
What kind of PCI cards are you using for your newest server?
(So much for "terser!")
-- Bobby G.
No, I don't see it that way. It's nothing to do with multi-tasking really. It's that most people who end up with any automation in their homes are going to get it profesionally installed. The DIY market is very small, so they don't drive this. If you are putting an automation system into someone's home, and you are the one who has to deal with problems, you are going to be conservative, no matter what OS it is running, and not let the user directly use this machine for day to day purposes. It's just the safest thing to do. And this machine really does want to be a server, not a client, which means it won't be a small VIA machine, it'll have ot be something with more ooph.
No, it can multi-task extremely well. You keep ignoring that the problem is the HUMAN, not the machine. If you let completely non-technical end users poke around in any machine and modify themselves and install anyo old thing the they run across on the internet, and they will, then nothing is going to stay stable.
My previous system (the VIA one) was running XP and stayed up for over a year until I took it down to replace it. It had not glitched in the slighted, leaked any memory or anything else of that nature. This is because it was treated as an appliance, as an automation system should be.
I think that you are overstating the situation to make it sound as bad as possible. It may ask to phone home if you change multiple aspects of the machine at once. That can only happen if you've already taken the machine down in order to make hardware changes. A quick and painless call will fix it if it happens. In a profesionally installed system, this will be handled by the installer.
No, I don't watch movies on it. Movies are in a changer controlled by the box. I do listen to music off of it, which is a very light weigth operation for a modern machine, and I partly do it because I'm using mine mostly as a home theater controller, not as a whole home automation system (because I don't have a home, just a small apartment.) If it were being used in a whole home automation installation, then it would just be serving up data for playback on other devices.
We have a 4 zone IR blaster card, one or two 4 port serial cards, and a digital input/contact closure card.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
I'm still not sure that in the future home there will be only one machine serving all three functions: HA, security (HA/S) and entertainment. As I said previously, since the horsepower requirements are so different between HA/S and entertainment uses, it makes lots of sense for me, at least, to split those areas. I can't see how you could ever leave a media server "alone enough" to keep it protected. You're always adding new media and if you're running "street legal" you need constant updates to various players and intermediate software.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy into the "dumb human" argument very deeply. MS has created tons of access "holes" into its computer programs that require end users to become "hole experts" and very familiar with ways to stop data from leaking out of or into their PC's. Mac users don't have to frenzy about what patches to add and what add-on software to buy but PC users do. The problem is simply that Windows is not designed for robust multitasking. When you set it up as an appliance, it means you can't really use it for anything else. You can't even risk installing MS blessed and approved programs because any one of them is likely to screw things up.
I've seen plenty of highly technical people do very little with a server (adding a new printer or a CD burner) that completely bollixed up Windows. I recall distinctly having to rebuild a server because Adaptec's CD creator hosed the ASPI drivers. I challenge you to find the Windows user out there that *hasn't* inadvertently loaded a "killer" program that blew out something on their machine, whether it was another app or the whole damn thing went to the BSOD. It's not just Joe Dumbo user loading every toolbar he sees on the net that brings down Windows multitasking.
Maybe they've finally gotten things right. I'll likely never know because I won't buy into "ET phone home" software except for something that comes bundled on a laptop where I can't avoid it for a number of reasons.
Got an XP machine with a NIC? Change it out an tell me if your XP machine's happy with it. Mine wanted to phone home, as did a friend's. That's when I dumped it. As for quick and painless calls I'm not trusting my computing environment on MS's future willingness to take calls. Nor do I like having to punch in 25 character codes just because I like to tinker with machines. MS didn't force activation on their corporate clients. It's just another example of their contempt for the home user.
Where's our resident zookeeper? Surely you *can't* be allowed to design HOME automation software if you don't HAVE one!!?? (Sorry, just kidding - I couldn't resist after some of the replies I've read.)
Seriously, though, I hope you see why I don't want to mingle the two, at least in my larger installation. Right now, AV comes from the media room and it's piped via RG6 to where it's viewed. Each "viewstation" can also feed the rest of the house, if required. When I finally settle on a motion detection system I like, whatever program's playing will follow me around the house. The big catch is how to get my wife to wear a transponder so her programs can follow *her* and not me around! :-) I also need to wait until the pain of my trying to implement the "follower" technology using X-10 motion detectors is forgotten.
I'm sure you'll agree that there are lots of way to manage and transport video and audio around the house. It will be interesting to see which ways prevail in the long run. HD TV is going to change a lot of standard ways of doing business and will probably cause some sort of shakeout in the industry.
Interesting. You can do the IR with Adicon's IR module. Same concept, I believe, just a more modular and external approach.
What's connected to all the serial cards. Are any of these items available as USB components? To me, adding external "bricks" to the Via is a better way to go because once you've run out of slots with a PC, you're done. I believe USB will support 128 devices, so it's clearly the more expandable, although not so compact, option. I would also imagine that Via will come out with some sort of expansion chassis for more PCI cards - the single half slot they offer has been rather limiting.
-- Bobby G.
I never made that claim by any means. We wrote a network distributed automation system so that bits can be distributed as required. Most systems though will have a central server that provides the core information such as security, drivers for distribution, storage of macros, images, etc... That's how ours works. You can distirbute the functionality though however you want.
The Mac has a tiny fraction of the number of users and hence a tiny fraction of the number of people out there trying to whack it and a tiny fraction of the number of companies (of varying competence) building hardware, and traditionally it was a more closed world and some of the stabiltiy came at the price of limited options.
I'm one of those people. I have four machines, a server running Windows server, a workstation where I do development, a laptop, and the automation machine. They run just fine. My work machine I beat the crap out of 7 days a week and it's rock solid.
The problem is that people who can afford a real home automaiton system aren't desparate enough to spend years making nothing in order to create an automation system, or something like that.
As stated above, I don't. It's purely up to you. In my case, I have a theater controller scenario, plus lighting for the apartment. So it doesn't make sense to have more than one machine (though I can access CQC from any of the other machines any time I need/want to since it's networked.) In a larger home, you'd likely have medium-strength server that acts as the automation server and controller for centralized hardware, and some number of other machines around the home as required.
Who knows. But, luckily, it makes little difference to us. We are hardware agnostic. As long as it's controllable, we can control it. But the PC is clearly going to be one of the media platforms in the home.
As a rule, it's not. Profesional installers would generally prefer an appliance style box, not a bunch of external things that require separate wall warts and which can accidentally be unplugged. A really large system could conceivably run out of room, but if it's a large system, you are going to have an Elk or Omni involved and it'll provide all the digital I/O and contact closures. You can get 16 port per slot serial cards, so two slots get's you 32 ports, which would be a very large system. Some systems require no IR, so that would leave that slot open.
My own system has a Dwin projector, Lexicon processor, HD Leeza video processor, Sony DTV STB, and Sony 777ES DVD changer, all of which are serially controlled. Serial is far and away the dominant control interface still, and will likely remain so. It's very low level, point to point (i.e. you don't have to depend on whether other users of the wire are doing the right thing), and would rarely not have sufficient speed. It's not the best protocol of all time, but it has it's advantages.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
BTW, I think that you are confusing a media server and a media player. A media server just serves up data. It's very much what servers are made to do. It is completely possible to also have it do multi-channels of playback if you want. This does not require constant tinkering at all, and plenty of folks do it. But it can also just be a server. It provides access to metadata for browsing and when you select something (from a local touch screen), that invokes a local player that sucks data off the server for playback.
In our system, at least in the upcoming 1.7 release, for just music (which is the only media that can be legally ripped to disc right now), we will upload the data to the server from wherever you run the media repository manager client program. So you never have to go fiddle with the client to get media onto it. It's still just acting as a server. Serving music doesn't require anything more than a couple of 300MB SATAII discs in a RAID1 configuration, nothing fancy.
If you are going to do movies, then that may or may not be stored on the actual automation server. It may be in a NAS or some other separate machine. It depends on how you want to do. But still, it's just acting as a data server, not a player.
------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
I'm at my other home now and the XTB works like a champ. Unfortunately, I still need to leave my repeater installed so the Leviton 16400 wall controllers can do their job. Tried just a a coupler but no joy. That's to be expected as the XTB only amplifies the signals fed to it through the front outlet and not what's already on the line.
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