Support of SimpleHomeNet products

[roussell]

Scott,

We'll be installing 6000-10000 square feet of new sod this spring/summer and a new irrigation system to go with. I was looking at SimpleHomeNet's Insteon irrigation controller for use with HB. Any clue if this would eork out of the box with HB or would I need a custom device?

Here is the link: http://www.simplehomenet.com/prods.asp? ... Irrigation

and here is a link to the command set used: http://www.simplehomenet.com/Downloads/ ... %20Set.pdf

I don't mind writing a device if necessary, but if so - Have you given any thought to releasing a "shell" of sorts that would aid the mentally challenged among us? Maybe a hello-world type of device with source that can talk to the Insteon HW interface that is already included with HB... I don't think the SDK has what I need because it doesn't tell me how to speak with the Insteon HW interface.

As a side note - maybe this is a feature request - how about the capability to speak to a HW interface directly from a script? That would allow somebody to develop a script-based device instead of having to develop something in C++.

Lastly, if not the SimpleHomeNet interface - is there one out there (no X10 please) that will interface with HB today?

As always, TIA

Terry

[ScottBot]

Any clue if this would eork out of the box with HB or would I need a custom device?

Both the PLM and PLC Insteon Hardware Interfaces have an API that can be called from a Device named SendInsteonCommand that is intended to support things like this. So you can develop a Device plugin using the SDK and just make the call to the interface to do all the hard work. In looking quickly at the API spec, I think that you may only be able to get the Standard - non broadcast messages to work with it (but that's the majority of the commands). It's not entirely unreasonable for me to add an additional API for the extended and broadcast flags too if you find you can't do without it.

I don't mind writing a device if necessary, but if so - Have you given any thought to releasing a "shell" of sorts that would aid the mentally challenged among us? Maybe a hello-world type of device with source that can talk to the Insteon HW interface that is already included with HB... I don't think the SDK has what I need because it doesn't tell me how to speak with the Insteon HW interface.

The samples that come with the SDK do show how a Device can communicate with a Hardware Interface, so that should get you a long way. It's really just a very general sample to illustrate the communication mechanisms that you can adapt for the specifics of the design. But feel free to ask me anything you need to help you through it.

As a side note - maybe this is a feature request - how about the capability to speak to a HW interface directly from a script? That would allow somebody to develop a script-based device instead of having to develop something in C++.

If you mean something like the VB Script Device, but for Hardware Interfaces.... then I agree that would be nice. The problem is that a typical hardware interface has to communicate to something over a serial port, network, or other proprietary interface that would make it a fairly challenging plugin to develop. Not a bad idea though!