Sharing ideas for BT Connector usage

[Crashless]

I think I've gotten things setup in a way I like right now, but I was curious about how other people were using this plugin in their systems.

I currently have two virtual devices one each for my wife and I called "Vince is Home" and "Nicole is Home". Our phones have been paired with the server and I have a BT connector device setup for each binded to the appropriate HS device.

Both devices are currently using the "Discover Services" poll method set for a 60 second interval requiring 10 missed responses to set the device to "Away".

I found the default 10 second interval and 1 missed response to be far too touchy and it seemed to be causing issues with the phones.

Any thoughts people have about this implementation would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't tested how this polling effects the battery life of the phones yet - has anyone noticed any difference?

So the only event I've come up with so far is to check if both our devices are "Away" then if it is daytime, it will turn all the lights off. I have the event set to only run every 30 minutes to prevent it from over filling my logs.

Once I've gotten the BT connector to be reliable, I'll probably come up with some that will turn on lights when we come home from away - but I want to test turning off lights for a couple of days before I get too crazy.

[tenholde]

What is the range of the receiver? How far away from receiver does the phone have to be before you consider the house empty?

tenholde

[Crashless]

I got the IOgear GBU321 from Amazon, and it just barely can keep tabs on my phone from one side of the house to the other. It is a class 1 device, theoretically working up to 100m, but our phones are class 2 devices, so they can recieve the signal from the computer, but the computer can't hear the device as easily.

My house is 1200sqft and about 40ft per side. So things work pretty well.

In hindsight, I should have gotten an adapter that could take an external antenna - then I could use a high-gain antenna and get better range. Problem is, I'm not sure where to even start looking for something like that - and the IOgear adapter was priced right - under $30 shipped.

So to answer your question simply - about 50-100 ft usually will be far enough to lose the connection. My settings currently allow for about 10 minutes of non-communication to declare the device "Away" so it should cut down on the number of "false aways".

Edit: Found this article about modifying a class 1 BT dongle to use an external antenna - not for the sqeemish:

http://www.pentest.co.uk/documents/b...ongle_mod.html

[stipus]

A 10-second polling interval is a bit too fast. You'd better use 30 seconds, because yes it affects the phone battery life, and if there is a timeout, requests might be queued in the stack, and some buggy stacks eventualy crash...

The polling method that uses the less power is "Auto Discovery", but you should then remove the pairing, otherwise the phones are always found (even when they are away).

[Crashless]

Interesting, I was curious about which would be most efficient. I suppose there isn't _too_ much risk in keeping the phones discoverable.

What kind of things do you use this for stipus?

[stipus]

I use auto-discovery for my own phone (Treo 650), because Discover Services crashes my phone after a while (the palm BT stack must be buggy...)

I use Discover Service for my GF phone from 3 different BT dongles (using 2 Bluetooth Clients installed on remote computers), so that I can approximately locate her phone in the House using the plugin triangulation feature

[Crashless]

I use auto-discovery for my own phone (Treo 650), because Discover Services crashes my phone after a while (the palm BT stack must be buggy...)

I use Discover Service for my GF phone from 3 different BT dongles (using 2 Bluetooth Clients installed on remote computers), so that I can approximately locate her phone in the House using the plugin triangulation feature

What is it with palm and bluetooth? I had a 600 back in the day and they would never support any of the SDIO bluetooth modules - SO annoying.

I was curious about how you had the multiple dongles - how do the other clients report back to HS?

[stipus]

I was curious about how you had the multiple dongles - how do the other clients report back to HS?

You just need to install the Bluetooth Client on any remote computers that already has the HomeSeer speaker installed (does not need to be running).

In your HS2 directory, you can find a SetupBluetoothClient.msi file. Just copy this file to any remote computer with a BT dongle, and run it to install the Bluetooth Client.

The Bluetooth Client automatically reports to the main plugin. It can also work from a remote location over the internet.

Note: In the current BT Connector updater version, there is a missing file in the HomeSeer directory on the main HomeSeer server: once you have a remote bluetooth client installed, you need to copy back BluetoothClient.exe to the main HS server Homeseer directory (this file is needed on the server due to the remoting technology).

[Michel]

Poll delay

Stipus,

Quick note : I downloaded the plugin last week-end for a trial and the day after had 0 days left :-( . Still I needed a short range detection method and the phone idea was appealing so I bought it.

I can't remember in what thread I red that but there was a suggestion made about having (2) polling time. One when you're Away and one when not. I really think it would be a great thing and possibly easy for you to implement. The general idea is that when we're in range, We do not need to be polled that many time and want to save the battery. When we're Away thepolling could be faster.

I taught I could use the following script command

hs.SaveINISetting "Device0","PollDelay","10","hspi_bt.ini"

But your plugin is not looking at the .ini file on each program pass. I suppose it does it on loading or when the change is made from the interface.

Crashless, about new ways of using the plugin, buy some low quality, price bluetooth cell phone headset and use them as tags. My ultimate goal is to have one for each of my kids, along with my wife and my cell phone to have the alarm disarmed when we walk in. That's why I need a fast 10-20 seconds polling time when Away. However the alarm cant be armed 5 minutes after leaving the house.

Let me know Stripus if you would consider adding this feature in a next release.

Michel

[Crashless]

Stipus,

Quick note : I downloaded the plugin last week-end for a trial and the day after had 0 days left :-( . Still I needed a short range detection method and the phone idea was appealing so I bought it.

I can't remember in what thread I red that but there was a suggestion made about having (2) polling time. One when you're Away and one when not. I really think it would be a great thing and possibly easy for you to implement. The general idea is that when we're in range, We do not need to be polled that many time and want to save the battery. When we're Away thepolling could be faster.

I taught I could use the following script command

hs.SaveINISetting "Device0","PollDelay","10","hspi_bt.ini"

But your plugin is not looking at the .ini file on each program pass. I suppose it does it on loading or when the change is made from the interface.

Crashless, about new ways of using the plugin, buy some low quality, price bluetooth cell phone headset and use them as tags. My ultimate goal is to have one for each of my kids, along with my wife and my cell phone to have the alarm disarmed when we walk in. That's why I need a fast 10-20 seconds polling time when Away. However the alarm cant be armed 5 minutes after leaving the house.

Let me know Stripus if you would consider adding this feature in a next release.

Michel

Ooooh I like that idea of different polling times. It would be really nice to have that level of control.

Also a great idea about using cheap headsets as tags. They would only need to be charged once a week or so, and could function just as well or even better than a phone. No kids yet for me, but maybe I'll throw one on him/her when we start trying next year.

[stipus]

You can reload plugin configuration using the following command:

hs.plugin( "BT Connector").ReloadConfig()

If you add the BT Connector DLL to Scripting References, you can reload a single device configuration:

hs.plugin( "BT Connector").scanner.Devices( "Device0" ).ReloadConfig()

That's the way the Web Configuration changes device configuration. The .ini file is updated, then the command above is run to reload the device configuration.

[Crashless]

Very interesting...Michel, would you mind sharing your scripts when you get them working? I haven't delved into that side of HS yet, and would love to see your example to help me learn.

[Crashless]

To answer my own question, I created two events. One triggered when my device changes to away and one when changed to detected. Each event runs a simple script:

Sub Main
hs.SaveINISetting "Device3","PollDelay","120","hspi_bt.ini"
hs.plugin( "BT Connector").ReloadConfig()
End Sub

The poll delay gets set to 120 seconds when the device switches to detected and to 10 seconds when it switches to away.

It seems to work very well, and my phone (Sprint Mogul w/ WM6.1 ROM) no longer crashes at night due to getting pinged so much.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Now I just need to figure out some cool stuff to do with the detected/away status....

[Michel]

Crashless,

I did not get a lot of time to play with this lately. I made a similar script but before really trying it I seem to have problem with either the plugin or the stack. I need to details what is happening n run it by Stipus.

I was getting a lot of Pending request errors, so I disabled all (3) BT devices. For some reason my device still get polled and found every 60 seconds. Polling time is however set to 300 sec. Lot of strange things needing to be stable before moving to triggered events.

Keep me inform on the stability of your set-up.

What BT dungle are you using. What stack and what version.

Michel

[Jakob.Sand]

Ideas for BT usage.

I have not yet got the module up and running. I Bought the Belkin dongle and hope to find time to make it work. Here are my plans:

1. open and close electronic lock on all the doors into the house dependent who is in the house. Ie. if nobody is home lock. If my wife arrives open up. The same with heat (cirkulation pumps etc.)

2. Speak # of unread mails when my phone has arrived and not been around for + 1hour

3. Start music with farvorite playlist dependend on time and who is in the house

4. Speak: Xzy is approaching

5. Start farvorite picture-slideshow depened on who is in the house.