Housboat and EIB

[Rille]

Is Housboat compatible with EIB (European Installation Bus) or does any bodey know of any prog. to controll a Eib-bus, ETS is far to expensive

[ScottBot]

Is Housboat compatible with EIB (European Installation Bus) or does any bodey know of any prog. to controll a Eib-bus, ETS is far to expensive

Rille,

I don't know anything about EIB, but HouseBot provides an architecture that allows developers to create plugins to support about any hardware/protocol that can attach to the computer. HouseBot currently doesn't have an EIB plugin, but if there is hardware that connects to the PC to control/monitor EIB then a plugin could be created.

[yaccri]

AFAIK, EIB cannot be accessed from a computer. I looked into that about a year ago, and there wasn't any hardware that could be plugged into the PC.



Yoram

[Rille]

yaccri wrote:

AFAIK, EIB cannot be accessed from a computer

What do you mean by that, all programming of the EIB-bus is done over the rs-232. You could also use this. I´m looking for a prog. or plug-in that could send a command to the EIB-bus (hopefully over rs-232)

[chocolate]

Hi all,



Wow, I'm so happy that i'm not the only one with this installation on this forum. I also have an EIB installation but i'm running a Gira homeserver which I bought about 2 months ago. I know it accepts IP telegrams. So it won't be that difficult to have housebot send these commands. I'm still working on the initial setup but I'm a DIY so it always takes a bit longer to set it up. If you have EIB you should buy yourself this Gira homeserver. It's worth it and I'm going to try to set it up with housebot or just through the network with an internet browser initially. I've also looked into this program that was proposed before but I heared it is very expensive for private use. So no option for me.



I keep you posted



Greatz



Marco

[Rille]

chocolate, thanks for the tip. I have to check that Gira homeserver.

I know that EIB is very common in Germany but unfortunately i don’t speak german... I’ve poste here if i find anything useful

[Richard Naninck]

Scott,

It has been awhile since this thread first started, but in the mean time EIB developped and more and more people are installing it in their homes and office buildings.

A friend installed a huge set of EIB devices in his new home and we are setting HouseBot to control it. It has a USB port and an API with COM objects to control it. So no rs232 port I can hook up to using the generic serial device to write my own protocol driver.

Using vbscript I can connect to the COM object and write messages to the bus. That part works, however reading is a problem. Their are two read possibilities, synchronous and asynchronous. One produces an array of data (if all is like I understand it) and the other triggers an event. VBScript can't handle events as far as I know and the array I try to get the received dat into is always empty. I have a good helpfile with example code in VB.Net, C++, VBA (with demo's in MS Excel) and a web demo using javascript etc. It all seems very simple, but not really portable to vbscript. (Obviously no vbscript examples are available).

Did you ever look into EIB after this thread has originated? I think it would be a huge step for HouseBot if EIB would be supported since it is still (the) only true standard bus system around and more and more buildings are controlled by it nowadays.

Could you look into the help file if I send it to you to maybe come up with a simple plugin that connects HB to the USB bus (all example code is available) and put the received bus data in a received data property just like with the generic serial device, rfxcom or any other device working the same way. For now I would only need one connection method (USB) and read only (so no writing). This would make it a very small plugin, but also very limited in use for other people (which is obviously a downside;))

Thnx,

Richard

[ScottBot]

Richard,

I have not had a chance to look into EIB. In the little bit of looking I have done, I haven't really be able to find much on (or equipment for sale) it here in the states. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Without the equipment and time, I don't think I'll be able to be much help in writing a plugin for you. About all I can do is offer my help if you want to write the plugin. The other option is to investigate why the your array is returning empty.

[Richard Naninck]

Thanks Scott.

You probably won't find any equipment in the States. Not sure why though it sticks to Europe.
I will pick up on this in a few weeks and hopefully come up with a small HB plugin that pulls the data of the bus and provides it to a so called "Received Data" property and go from there.
I know that building plugins in C++ should be the way to go, but having all the code in vbscript just makes it so much more flexible. I can adjust code on the fly and copy it to a different system and make simple changes to get it to work in a new system. Unless of course waterproof plugins are built capable of all features and the integration with other plugins is then done using script. That would mean a complete overhaul of my system and I don't think I could manage that within the next year or so;)
So if we start building the plugin in C++ and we run into problems, I will get back to this topic..