How to configure DS10A door / window sensor with W800
Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:30 am
For those interested in leveraging the DS10A, an X10 wireless door / window sensor, within Housebot I thought I would share my experience since it was not spelled out anywhere that I could find.
First the DS10A was designed for use with an X10 Security Console that receives the wireless signal and responds accordingly. Note that signal is not an X10 house / unit code. My preference was to avoid such hardware and simply use Housebot instead, and fortunately the W800 can receive the same signal and pass it to any HA program capabale of accepting it.
I had first tried the V572 RF Transceiver, which can be placed anywhere in the home near an outlet in order to receive X10 signals and pass them on to the wire via a powerline interface. The upside was flexibility in location since the V572 did not have to be connected to a PC, however it adds traffic to your powerlines and from what I had read the V572 could not be integrated with DS10A devices. Therefore I switched to the W800 at the cost of a serial port on my Housebot server. In any event here are the steps I followed to leverage this hardware:
1. Connected a W800 device to my Housebot server via an available serial port and then connected its power and antenna.
2. Configured the W800 plugin within Housebot by adding the W800 hardware interface. Specifying the appropriate COM port and setting the module to "Enabled" verified the device was recognized.
3. Added a new device within Housebot, specifically a hardware type device based on the W800 interface previously configured, and then selected the X10 security sensor within that configuration.
4. I then added batteries to my first DS10A, pressed and held the test button on that device for more than a second, and then released it. That caused its indicator to flash twice meaning that it generated a new security code. That code was automatically interpretted by Housebot as noted in the system log and also registered by the X10 security sensor device.
5. To add another DS10A I simply repeated steps 3 and 4. If you have trouble with those steps you can verify that your W800 is receiving the signal and passing it to the PC by downloading the W800 Demo Decoder application from http://www.wgldesigns.com/w800.html. You of course have to shut down that app however before starting Housebot to avoid contention with the serial port utilized by the W800.
6. Now that Housebot was receiving signals from the DS10A devices I could simply add a task for when conditions are met. It included a condition for each device stating that if 'X10 Security Sensor Command' is equal to 'Sensor Open Min' or 'Sensor Open Max' (depending upon which setting you use on the DS10A) then change a custom property I added to that same device for state to 'Opened'. I did the same for 'Closed'. I then displayed that property in a theme for a remote, triggered a popup, sent an email, and triggered other devices such as lights and alarms.
Note that the forums state older versions of the W800 Housebot plugin had problems with the DS10A code and that v2.09 should be used. I found that updated plugin posted in the forums, but I also discovered it's included in v2.32 of Housebot so I didn't need the update. Other than that I use the X10 CM11A Controller to manage my X10 devices and that works well.
First the DS10A was designed for use with an X10 Security Console that receives the wireless signal and responds accordingly. Note that signal is not an X10 house / unit code. My preference was to avoid such hardware and simply use Housebot instead, and fortunately the W800 can receive the same signal and pass it to any HA program capabale of accepting it.
I had first tried the V572 RF Transceiver, which can be placed anywhere in the home near an outlet in order to receive X10 signals and pass them on to the wire via a powerline interface. The upside was flexibility in location since the V572 did not have to be connected to a PC, however it adds traffic to your powerlines and from what I had read the V572 could not be integrated with DS10A devices. Therefore I switched to the W800 at the cost of a serial port on my Housebot server. In any event here are the steps I followed to leverage this hardware:
1. Connected a W800 device to my Housebot server via an available serial port and then connected its power and antenna.
2. Configured the W800 plugin within Housebot by adding the W800 hardware interface. Specifying the appropriate COM port and setting the module to "Enabled" verified the device was recognized.
3. Added a new device within Housebot, specifically a hardware type device based on the W800 interface previously configured, and then selected the X10 security sensor within that configuration.
4. I then added batteries to my first DS10A, pressed and held the test button on that device for more than a second, and then released it. That caused its indicator to flash twice meaning that it generated a new security code. That code was automatically interpretted by Housebot as noted in the system log and also registered by the X10 security sensor device.
5. To add another DS10A I simply repeated steps 3 and 4. If you have trouble with those steps you can verify that your W800 is receiving the signal and passing it to the PC by downloading the W800 Demo Decoder application from http://www.wgldesigns.com/w800.html. You of course have to shut down that app however before starting Housebot to avoid contention with the serial port utilized by the W800.
6. Now that Housebot was receiving signals from the DS10A devices I could simply add a task for when conditions are met. It included a condition for each device stating that if 'X10 Security Sensor Command' is equal to 'Sensor Open Min' or 'Sensor Open Max' (depending upon which setting you use on the DS10A) then change a custom property I added to that same device for state to 'Opened'. I did the same for 'Closed'. I then displayed that property in a theme for a remote, triggered a popup, sent an email, and triggered other devices such as lights and alarms.
Note that the forums state older versions of the W800 Housebot plugin had problems with the DS10A code and that v2.09 should be used. I found that updated plugin posted in the forums, but I also discovered it's included in v2.32 of Housebot so I didn't need the update. Other than that I use the X10 CM11A Controller to manage my X10 devices and that works well.