Scary Cabin

Some questions from a colleague about home automation got me thinking. Maybe I should document what I use and why. Well, this entry is an attempt to do so. First some background.

When Smarthome first introduced the Insteon line of devices and protocol they made it fairly easy for developers by providing full documentation and development kit. The price point was less than the equivalent Z-Wave and UPB products but more than similar X10 products. However, it also would work with X10 products. I had some X10 products (dimmer switches, lamp/appliance modules). Since I preferred to have a Linux based control system, getting started with the Insteon SDK seemed like the way to go. I jumped in with the development kit (PLC & lamp module) plus a few additional switches and lamp modules. Using the documentation, I started writing Insteon tools for Linux. I developed a fairly robust set of tools to control devices, dump link tables, save and compare topology. Then Smarthome changed the protocol. The differences were substantial and you had to support both.

It was about this time that a company called Universal Devices Inc. came out with the ISY26. The ISY26 was an embedded controller for Insteon. Since they were dealing with all the special cases needed to interact with all the different devices and both protocols and provided a nice network based API to interact with the ISY26, it seemed like a good way to go. I jumped on-board. About this time I was also looking into ways to get touch screen controllers in the house. I started playing with Cinemar’s MainLobby home automation software. This software is Windows based, but allowed for custom plug-in’s to support various HA type devices using Visual Basic or C#. I wrote a couple of simple things to get familiar with it and then developed a plug-in to interact with the ISY26. Because of this, UDI approached me about developing something similar for HomeSeer, another home automation software company. A lot of what I created for MainLobby was applicable for HomeSeer so I decided to go for it. It took about a year to fully develop a plug-in for HomeSeer, but I was able to create a core library that interacts with the ISY and front-end code for both MainLobby and HomeSeer that made use of it. The HomeSeer plug-in is available in the HomeSeer store. Attempts to get Cinemar to officially recognize my MainLobby plug-in failed. When a new player in the home automation software field emerged, Code Core Technologies Elve, I switched over to that for my home control system. Developing touch screen interfaces was easy and they fully supported third party developers creating additional drivers. Using the same base code that was used for the MainLobby and HomeSeer plug-ins, I quickly created an ISY driver for Elve. I’ve also created and modified a number of other drivers for Elve. Being able to customize it for my environment was a huge selling point. Unfortunately, Code Core Technologies was unable to survive and has mostly shutdown. The good news is that the latest version of Elve is still available as a free download. I’m currently working on a driver for the RainMachine irrigation controllers.

My current system is:

A UDI ISY 994i controller with Z-Wave module
Elve 2.2 running on a Windows XP virtual machine
Insteon light switches throughout the house
Insteon keypad switches
Insteon lamp modules for various stand alone lamps
Insteon LED light bulbs for a couple lamps
Insteon motion sensors for garage, side door light, and den light
Insteon garage door sensor/control module
Insteon Venstar thermostat
One Z-wave dimmer switch
Two Z-wave lamp modules with beaming support
Kwikset Z-Wave deadbolt
DSC alarm panel
Russound CAV whole house audio controller
Roku 2 media streamer
ASUS All-in-one PC touchscreen computer for monitoring & contol