HouseBot Tutorial or Manual

[vintagewine39]

Folks, maybe someone can helpme. I'm in my 15 day trial period and am trying to evaluate the product. I currently use PowerHome and have a fairly sophisticated setup using this produt. However, I've found that I really like this interface alot more than PowerHome. Here is what I'm looking for:



1. I'm trying to setup a very small project to evaluate functionality. Need to complete in less than 8 days, so it has to be small. While I understand all the options (at least I think I do). However, I can't seem to put all the pieces together. I'm looking for a tutorial. I know the online documentation is good, I just want something to follow all the steps



2. So, far I can turn lights on and off, but I can't make them dim (something which should be very simple to do). I created a task, but can't seem to execute it. I read in the documentatioin the ways to execute a command. So, I'm trying to create and entry in a software remote, but can't seem to get out of development mode on the remote.



All I'm trying to accomplish with this is to get a feel for the product. I really want to buy the entire package, I just want to make sure it will do the same things PowerHome does.



Any and all help would be appreciated.

[paran0id]

When in Housebot you cant actually do anything but develop

If you want to use the remote run the "Local Software Remote" in your start-menu



If thats not what you meant, I've gotten it to do some things to, although

it was quite hard to learn in the beginning (still a beginner :P )



Cheers

/p

[ScottBot]

2. So, far I can turn lights on and off, but I can't make them dim (something which should be very simple to do). I created a task, but can't seem to execute it. I read in the documentatioin the ways to execute a command. So, I'm trying to create and entry in a software remote, but can't seem to get out of development mode on the remote.

If the lights are X10 and you can dim them in PowerHome, you should be able to do the same in HouseBot. Some Hardware Interfaces don't support X10 Dimming, as well as some switches don't. Assuming you have the proper interface and switch, you should be able to create an "X10 Lamp Module" Device in HouseBot. This Device will allow you to use the Leviton Dim or Preset Dim Properties to set the correct dimming level (depending on the brand of switch and it's dimming support). You can also send individual Dim and Bright commands if the direct dimming options don't work for your switch.



As "paran0id" referred in his post, you can use the "Local Software Remote" option to run the Theme on the local machine for testing. Make sure that under the "Software Remotes" configuration on the HouseBot server, you have the Theme set as the default theme on the Local Remote configuration.