HouseBot

Eric,



Thanks for the info. I would go for the TX15B in that case because I don't need the cooling functionality.



Since I'm living in Belgium I need the system to work on 240V but I was thinking using an IH2030 (XM10, european power version) and an 3th party 12V power supply. I suppose this shouldn't be a problem or am I wrong ?

Bram,



As long as the IH2030 interface is the European version of the TW523/PSC05 then you should be fine. I'm not sure if the HVAC units operate the same as American models though.



I'm not sure if you will be able to find the TX15B anymore it has been replaced by the TX16B.



Eric

I have sent a new version to Scott that just has a few changes to some internal initialization code.



Eric

Eric,



I have been trying out your plugin with my SmartHome TempLink. It was working prior to your recent update.



The TempLink is a simpler device that Reports the temperature the same as RCS TX15B. It doesn't have the setback and other modes that the thermostat has. It has a few configuration modes for setting how it reports the temperature, the house code it uses and a cooling or heating mode. It can send housecode : 1 : on/off when the temperature passes through a configurable set point.



Your latest change seems to attempt to configure the thermostat at startup. It is unhappy that the TempLink doesn't respond. It would be nice to have a simpler plugin that supported the SmartHome TempLink. It is probably just a subset of what you have. As I said earlier it was able to report the temperature properly prior to you latest changes.



Would you consider creating a plugin for this device? If not maybe I could attempt to brush off my coding skills and modify your code myself.



The error logged at startup is: Unable to get all required properties for the RCS TX15B Thermostat Device.



The error logged when the TempLink reports a new temperature is: Unable to send subscription notification to device [5254051]. HBDeviceSubscriptionNotification() is not exported.



I also see this error logged each time the cm11a composite property changes.



Thanks,



Mark







Info on TempLink can be found here:



http://www.smarthome.com/1625.html

http://www.smarthome.com/manuals/1625_web.pdf

Mark,



I can look into creating a simpler plug-in for the TempLink but one thing you can try is to delete your thermostat device and re-create it. I added a new property and they may be causing the problems.



I do send out some preset dims to get the current status of the thermostat at startup but if it never gets a reply back it doesn't care.



If that doesn't work I will see what I can do to create a different device but it may be a little while as I have started working on my 1-wire plug-in and that is going to be taking up most of my time for a bit.



Glad to see someone is using my plug-in.



Eric

Eric,



I removed and recreated the device. It no longer logs any errors. But, it doesn't show the current temp as reported by the TempLink. The current temp always shows 0.



Mark

Eric,



Very strange... it started working after I went to bed last night.



After doing a bunch of testing this morning I found that if I send a status request and the TempLink responds with the preset dim to indicate the current temp the value doesn't get updated in the device.



It seems to be a CM11A or CM11A Hardware Module problem since the preset dim value of an x10 lamp module set to the same house/unit code doesn't get updates either.



I also found that you don't update the value for the housecode:11 and housecode:12 entries in the PLC Code Translation Table. Up here in New England we do get temperatures below 4F (although we hope not to get these temperatures in our houses). If I wanted to detect outside temperature I would at least need Housecode:12 working.



Mark

Mark,



That is strange. Make sure that you have the latest CM11A plug-in because Scott wasn't sending notification of preset dims correctly until recently.



You are correct about unitcode 11 and 12 not being updated. I was figuring that the inside of my house wouldn't get that cold so I didn't bother implementing them. I will fix that this evening.



Eric

Eric,



I believe I got the latest CM11A code. It has the fix for reporting the preset dim level 0 based (0-31) vs 1 based (1-32). I had noticed this problem also but you beat me in reporting it to Scott.



It seems that when I restart housebot the current temp for your plugin gets set back to 0. It then doesn't except preset dim temperature reports from the TempLink until after it finishes sending out the configuration preset dims to the thermostat.



Since the TempLink doesn't normally send out temperature reports until there has been a temperature change it can take quite some time before your plugin will reflect the correct temperature.



In my testing last night I was sending Status Requests to the TempLink to get it to report the temperature. I did this by using a PowerLink I have and the direct control program available from SmartHome. This little program lets you send just about any X10 command out. I have been using it to mimic the TempLink and sending various temperatures via preset dims to housebot and your plugin. That is how I detected you had not implemented unitcode 11 + 12 (it's not quite that cold up here today).



One of my goals with the TempLink is to monitor the temperature at a vacation house I have and notify me if the temperature drops to a dangerous level during the winter months. Since your setting it back to zero when you initialize after a restart I'll have trouble filtering this out following a power fail. Most devices seem to report the last value known after a restart.



Mark

Mark,



I think I will create a simpler thermostat device for the TempLink that persists the current temp and doesn't send out the status request.



I didn't make the current temp persistent because I didn't want an old temp sitting there just in case it had changed dramatically since HouseBot was last run.



Eric

Eric,



Thanks, a special plugin for TempLink would be great.



I got TempLink to work in housebot originally using 6 X10 lamp module set to units 11-16 and six lengthy scripts that decode the preset dim of these modules and set a temperature property in yet another a null device that I created. It works but is a bit unwieldily. I like it all in a nice clean device plugin.



I don't need the ability to configure the TempLink since configuring it is really a one time thing to get it working and I can do it with the PowerLink and Direct Control application I mentioned earlier. If you do choose to implement configuring of the TempLink via your TempLink plugin it might be more useful for other that want to use it.



Another nice thing to include would be to have a property that shows the state of the base house code unit 1. TempLink send HouseCode : 1 : on/off to indicate if the settable thermostat threshold has been crossed. Again I can use an additional device to detect this but it would be nice to have the property included it the TempLink specific device.



Mark

Mark,



I figured that I would leave the configuration to external programs but I can add a read-only "Threshold" property that will monitor unitcode 1 On/Off



Eric

Eric,



Cool!!!



I just looked again at the TempLink manual and you can configure both the House code and Unit code it uses to report crossing the temperature threshold. I am currently using unitcode 1 but it would be slightly more generic if you let the unit code be selectable for this property



Mark

Mark,



I have added a Smarthome TempLinc device to my thermostat plug-in that hopefully will do what you want. I don't have anyway to easily test it so if you could give it a shot and let me know if it works correctly.



Eric

I've just updated the plugin on the web site. I didn't change the description, but if you download the "RCS TX15b Thermostat" plugin you will get the new one.