HouseBot

For those that are looking at interfacing HB to the real world and need a little (or maybe a lot) of middleware intelligence, I suggest you look at the Arduino family of microcontrollers. I am using one, the Arduino Uno, to interface between HB and a stepper motor (and optical sensors to limit travel) to move an anamorphic lens into/out of position in a home theater. The Arduino is programmed in a subset of C, but take it from me - its easy to pick up. Along with the free downloadable reference material, I bought a "cookbook" to give me a feel for what the Arduino could do... and was amazed. The Uno has 20 bits of I/O, 6 of which can be either analog or digital. It interfaces to HB via its USB connection to the HB server. Serial comm on the Uno is duck soup. And interfacing to HB via a generic serial interface is reasonably straightforward (see other post dealing with what seems to have been a timing issue).
For more info see http://arduino.cc/en/

I have also recently discovered the Arduino. This is indeed an amazing piece of hardware.

I have purchased a Ethernet Pro from http://www.sparkfun.com and have coded it up with an xAP to Onewire bridge and it is rock solid.. I am now working on using a Mega2560 for a combo x10/Onewire to xAP bridge and macro controller.

As far as using it straight from Housebot, I have not tested in that area but I would be very interested in hear how you progress, please keep us updated.


Gene

The first Arduino I have used (more to come) actually is a hardware interface as I described above. It takes serial commands from HB, via USB serial connection, and actuates a stepper motor. When I first installed it, there was an issue with the comms between HB (or the PC itself) and Arduino. After a day or two the communications would fail until the PC was rebooted. I installed serial port monitor software to see what was happening. During that time (weeks), there were no failures. None. I stopped monitoring a few days ago and there have been no failures since, but that's really not a good test. Obviously, Plan B is to leave the port monitor in place.
I'm also planning another Arduino to use with HB to control and monitor a spa (hot tub), eliminating the local timer and its somewhat inaccurate thermostat. It will also allow me to monitor temps of the spa, outdoor air, and Koi pond on a Swremote panel. I probably won't get to that project until hot tub weather is over.

Hi
is it possible to get your xAP arduino code? are you both sending and receving xAP? using BSC?
i am in the process of doing a xAP-sauna controller using arduino... it need to send temp values and also recive some commands...
tnx in advance...

I'm not using xAP (And honestly, I don't know what xAP is).

Hi sorry for highjacking your thred... but nightrader informed about xAP/arduino/1-wire acouple of replies up... and the xAP interface to HB is great so its a nice way of integrating arduinos to HB... i just hope hi will publish the code for the arduino.

kind regs

wallebalboa wrote:Hi sorry for highjacking your thred... but nightrader informed about xAP/arduino/1-wire acouple of replies up... and the xAP interface to HB is great so its a nice way of integrating arduinos to HB... i just hope hi will publish the code for the arduino.

kind regs

I found this maybe this can help you?
http://www.dbzoo.com/livebox/hah_arduino