Hello,
I'm very impressiv by openremote project, it really sound good. I still have two question:
- Do you plan to integrate a visualisation on web page like in http://sourceforge.net/projects/knxathome/. It's very great, you can click on the house, then floorplan... then see the bedroom with the light and click on it ...
- the "real" knx integration in the orb (dim, status, graph...) is plan, however when ??
- you said the usb/rs232 knx gateway are not supported, why not using eibd or tweety (it make a simulation of an eib/net ip router
I think these two points are very important in order to really be the best automation solution.
Regards and continue effort really good job !
Comments (7)
Dec 18, 2009
Juha Lindfors says:
Do you plan to integrate a visualisation on web page like in http://sourcefor...On the control panel you will be able to create a navigation like this for the user where you select room, drill down to a specific device in the room and then possibly a specific page of the remote control.
On the modeling side, possibly at some point. The focus however there is more on how to integrate protocols and devices to work in a coordinated way first.
Once we have the first set of building blocks in place (expecting first dev release in a few weeks) for bidirectional communication between the panels and controller then we will look at integrating protocols into this framework.
The one thing I don't like about connecting a software unit with complex logic directly with USB or RS232 connections to devices is that it binds you to a single-point-of-failure architecture, in this case the controller, as the physical ports cannot be accessed by anyone else. Introducing a network layer between the two – whether routed or a mesh – avoids this issue to a degree by creating a homogeneous deployment architecture that is easy to replicate to increase fault tolerance.
Therefore connecting to KNX bus over an IP gateway or router would always be my preference and recommended hardware architecture.
Having said that, nothing stops you from deploying an eibd unit somewhere in your house and connecting to it through Boss, or hosting eibd directly in the ORB if you insist (I think either Jorg or Marcus are already doing this).
Dec 19, 2009
Marcus Redeker says:
Having said that, nothing stops you from deploying an eibd unit somewhere in yo...You can do it either way. Currently we are using Calimero to program the KNX stuff which also supports a direct RS232 connection but IP is much easier
Dec 19, 2009
Juha Lindfors says:
Right, IP is easier and also more robust from system design point of view (and a...Right, IP is easier and also more robust from system design point of view (and a dense mesh could be potentially even better but most people don't have a dense mesh around).
RS232 can appear at some point (contribution?) as a lot of people still seem to use that to get to KNX bus but supporting IP has the preference.
Dec 22, 2009
Mathieu Gallissot says:
For this KNX interfaces discussion, it's complicated. IP is sure much easier for...For this KNX interfaces discussion, it's complicated. IP is sure much easier for an architecture point of view. With more and more RJ45 cabled homes, it's easy to integrate.
But, for a more technical point of view, I'm not always satisfied with IP devices at it uses KNX cEMI, which is unacked. Depends of your usage, you might find sometime the bus access very long. For example, scanning a KNX line is 10 times longer with cEMI than using EMI2 interfaces (RS232 and some USB). But it also depends on both the stack and the layer used for data.
Plus, you can find very good devices (I like this particular one : http://www.calao-systems.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=5959), which does work great with Calimero.
Dec 22, 2009
Juha Lindfors says:
Interesting, thanks for sharing the info. Can you expand the lack of ack on cEM...Interesting, thanks for sharing the info.
Can you expand the lack of ack on cEMI, I see acks at the tunnelling layer at least, at which layer is the ack missing? Or is your objection at IP network in general (saturation and collissions) not getting reliably to the gateway?
The CALAO USB/KNX stick looks great - as I see it, and if I understood you correctly - you are trading network reliability to software stack reliability (controlling access to the USB port). Unless of course you duplicate the bus access with redundant hardware (can I have two nodes with CALAO installed to provide redundancy?)
Do people in general care about redundancy in their installations (thinking at commercial level, probably not so much at individual residential installations)?
Dec 22, 2009
Mathieu Gallissot says:
Well, I don't know all the details about this acked/unacked thing. But at some p...Well, I don't know all the details about this acked/unacked thing. But at some point, IP tunnelling (I don't know - yet - about routing) is slower than RS232 and some USB. I discovered this while scanning a line for discovering which individual addresses are used (trying to read a property on the device for each individual address on the line). It took me less than a minute with RS232, and more than 10 minutes using IP tunneling (for the same result). I'll try to find the answer I had at the time, but mesureing time for huge macro excectution, it was visible again (using both an industrial stack and the calimero stack).
Also, the IP network in a home is still too unreliable for me. I still have troubles with people complanining that "Internet doesn't work", damn layer 8 of the OSI model ! Well, sometimes it may be the ISP box which DHCP service is down, or the home switch which is down, or so many other stuff... So what I use to do is put the bus directly to the supervision touch screen, with the Calao key and bring an IP connection for video, multimedia, weather, RSS and other IP data. In that way, when there is a problem on the IP network, the inhabitant can still turn on and off lights.
It is kind of what a guy told at the OR Amsterdam event : "With KNX/TP1, if a client complains his light doesn't want to turn off, in most cases, it's that the bulb has to be replaced" (or something like that). Having the bus directly to the supervision software prevents my phone to ring instead of the ISP's one.
The CALAO USB/KNX key is first a USB/RS232 converter (tested on linux and win32 systems), which embed then a RS232 FT1.2 BCU (tested with Calimero). I never really had problems with any stack (except troubles with ETS), but I see your point for a large basis of installations. It still is a question of maintenance : try hard to set up your connection and live free, or ease up the set up and try hard to maintain the connection.
Dec 22, 2009
Juha Lindfors says:
So what I use to do is put the bus directly to the supervision touch screen, wi...You can turn on and off lights by getting off the couch and walking to either the wired touch screen or the light switch. If your IP is out, your wireless panels and controls are out.
Or were you planning to bring your TP1 cable directly to my coffee table?
I think at this point IP over WSN becomes an interesting transport where that level of network redundancy is desirable. So in my opinion working on IP as core transport is still a valid choice, especially when looking forward into what home automation will look like in the future and the multimedia distribution trend over IP in households (meaning IP networks are going to be critical for your average consumer, no matter what).
Personally I already find it harder to live without my IP connection than my lights