HouseBot

We are now at a stage where we would like some guinea pigs :-) If you are interested in testing a beta release of the xAP BSC plugin for HouseBot - please drop me a PM or email me ..

kevin (at) xapautomation (dot) org

We are interested particularly in people who already use xAP and have BSC (Basic Status and Control) devices on their network, and are prepared to give some feedback. Currently BSC is the only supported schema , but most peripheral type devices do use BSC. Both xAP v1.2 and v1.3 are supported and HouseBot can both import , track and control BSC devices as well as create it's own xAP BSC devices from property values. If you aren't a xAP users but are fairly 'savvy' and want to give xAP a go then please feel free to ask too.

xAP is an open and non commercial home automation protocol that is very simple and yet powerful and expandable. It operates in a broadcast mode (usually UDP on Ethernet) such that all devices can see each other and receive status / control each other in realtime. Hence effectively all your devices are networked (not dedicated to a single piece of software). This allows you to create a distributed HA system with redundancy should you wish.

Most xAP applications are free and there are some low cost 'xAP embedded' devices too covering digital, analog and serial I/O, 1-wire, C-Bus, CallerID, X10, HomeVision etc. Several PC applications are available to interact with various other HA software and devices as well as development tools.

Kevin


More details from..

http://www.xapautomation.org
http://www.mi4.biz
+ several others if you are interested....

Can you point me to some xAP enabled hardware so I can get an idea of what is out there?

Osler

A lot (the majority) of hardware is attached via a PC conduit application - see also say http://tinyurl.com/ywerfw
for a lot more examples eg for Ocelot / 1-wire etc / US Net CallerID

Early days with embedded hardware but here we go. Some retail products and some development opportunities

xAP Netiom - 16 inputs, 16 outputs, 4 analog in, RS232 in/out, counters , latches, Ethernet, web interface etc..
http://www.phaedrusltd.com/pages/html/netiom-xap.html

1- wire
http://www.opnode.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=opn-one

Serial RS232
http://www.opnode.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=opn-232

X10
as above - in beta

Embedded xAP controller OpnMax
A web based open source xAP controller/scheduler application for the Netgear NSLU2 'Slug' - circa $125 I guess for hardware. Has graphing , PHP, Perl and SQL DB inbuilt
http://www.opnode.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=opn-max

Tibbo
There is also some open source code (Basic language style) released to add xAP to this standalone cased Ethernet/ RS232 serial device from Tibbo (circa $100) , again initially supporting the Meteor Caller ID device or the Quasar quad temp sensor http://www.quasarelectronics.com/3145.htm
This code can be easily adapted for almost any serial attached device .
A really nice quad port version has just become available circa $250.
http://www.tibbo.com/ds202.php
http://www.tibbo.com/ds1000.php

PIC based code available for the adventurous
C library code available - plus..
http://mm-wave.com/honeycottage/hahome.htm
Here's a guy who has based his whole home architecture around xAP - there's an interesting block diagram. He uses DMX lighting and has some PIC based devices for switches, LCD's etc. I believe he may release xAP preprogrammed PIC devices ...

Rabbit Processor
http://www.rabbitsemiconductor.com/
xAP implemented on this platform - in fact I use it in my gateway device (see below) based on teh 3700 processor

Amtel
Preliminary implemenation of an LCD touchscreen / switch based device by Ian
http://www.mollyology.com/ProjectsInter ... isplay.htm

RS485 interface
http://www.bazautomation.com/

C-Bus Lighting
See Below

HomeVision Controller
http://www.csi3.com/homevis2.htm
See Below

Quasar Temp Sensor
See Below

Caller ID
See Below

The 'see belows' refer to an embedded controller I designed for myself but have had some boards made up as others asked. Circa $300 ( this is near cost)

It is a 4 serial port (RS232/422/485) embedded controller with onboard C-Bus interface and Ethernet that takes software personalities. Has 512K RAM 512K Flash and 1MB serial Flash These are the devices or protocols that it currently supports and gateways between. Others may appear in time.

Personalities are currently available for C-Bus lighting, xAP and the CSI HomeVision hardware automation controller (http://www.csi3.com) There is preliminary support for the Quasar DS1820 1-wire quad temp sensor board as well as the Meteor UK Caller ID device too. The gateway also includes a FTP and web server and is has user upgradeable firmware.

I haven't created a website yet for this (I am a home enthusiast not a company, just completing beta testing and not selling at a profit) but there's a picture of (half) the board here
http://www.ukusa.demon.co.uk/HVCBUS.jpg - The Rabbit processor board and C-Bus interface are not shown but both just plug on piggyback style, it has a case too.


Kevin

Thanks Kevin. As always, you are quite complete. I have much reading ahead of me.

Osler

Anders ... please can you give me an alternative email address as the one you used is failing (non deliverable)

Send me another email ... Kevin

I've sent out some new betas over the past couple of days . The plugin now has an installer and help documentation included.

The new version seems very stable but as ever ensure you make frequent backups of your HB configuration database just in case.

Please ensure you use the most recent version of HouseBot (3.02.01 or later) from the download section as it has some changes in terms of initial xAP device creation.

There are both some novice xAP users and novice HB users testing this. Please post feedback here.

Cheers Kevin

General xAP info and wiki
http://www.xapautomation.org

xAP discussion group
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xap_automation/

Kevin,

Not sure if it's required, but I made a fix to 3.02.01 for Edward that corrected a problem when dynamically creating groups that have similar names (nesting issue).

Maybe it's only an issue if things are named in a particular way, and most users won't encounter it.

Hi Scott - Yes thanks for the fix - and it seems to work :-)

It's not one that'll cause a big problem for testers - it just occasionally puts new devices into unexpected groups but they can be moved quite easily of course. It's great that it has been fixed for a later update though. Great support from you as ever :-)

E's still looking at enhancing this so should we discover anything else strange or indeed something that might be useful we'll be in touch to try and avoid minor updates.

One user (Anders) has suggested a feature to directly link property values between two devices internally - rather than a task. Almost a shared property. This fits in well with allowing access to existing HouseBot devices from xAP both for reporting and control and would be neat and faster although conversely it might lead to a little confusion as to why things change state unexpectedly.

Kevin