Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

IR / Onewire / iButton basics...

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    IR / Onewire / iButton basics...

    Hey folks.

    Wife and I just bought our first house which means I can run stuff through walls and generally change the house to suit my HA needs rather than vice-versa in this strangely powered rental we're in now.

    My questions interests right now:

    1. I want to get HS controlling the thermostat and AC. I'd appreciate folks recomendations on scripts/equipment required.

    2. I want to run IR through the house. I've been reading up a bit on how these systems work and I think I get it but would appreciate reccomendations/suggestions.

    3. One thing I have is an abundance of Cat5e cable. In addition to it's Ethernet use would it be appropriate to use for the IR/iButton/1wire stuff?

    The house is about 1500 sq.ft. so no there's nothing immense about the project. Right now it just has an analog/dial thermostat so I was hoping to tackle that item first rather than spending $$$ on a programmable one only to replace it a few months later.

    It's already built so now sneaking in during the studwall phase and running my wires...

    Any suggestions are appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Ryan

    #2
    1) A popular one is the HAI series, the cheapest being the RC-80. It's controlled by a serial connection (use your CAT5), supported by HS, and relatively cheap (~$120). It can run by itself as a normal programmable therm until you get your wires run.

    2) Put all your CAT5 around where you may want IR, and double it for some other thing you may want. The IR recieve will only take 3 lines, and IR send takes 2 (and depending on the run length, you may want to use 4 for higher current). Don't invest too much in distributed IR though, because soon you will have wireless touchscreens. For that matter, in <5 years most consumer AV will communicate via ultrawideband= no wires.

    3) Yes, you can use cat5 for nearly everything.

    Comment


      #3
      Cool - thanks Mike.

      Comment


        #4
        Can the RC Series thermostats accept multiple temperature sensors and actually act based on them? I've been posting about using multiple temperature sensors per room, but was assuming I'd have to program the thermostat functionality myself.

        Jase

        Comment


          #5
          Jase,
          Yes, it only has a built in sensor. But, as you said, using HS you can monitor many sensors and reprogram based on those.

          Comment

          Working...
          X