HAI Important Information

[Volvernon]

FW and HAI boards

Hi all,
I recently made an inquiry regarding my new system and I asked about the future issues regarding communications to/from the system. Below is a snippet of what was provided me. Please keep in mind I am very new to all of this so please bear with me if it not very informative for this thread.

... The Omni IIe with the ethernet port will allow you to use our SnapLink product for remote monitoring. Firmware 2.16 was released last week and that has changed the protocol to TCP/IP on the existing controllers with the ethernet ports (Omni IIe and Omni Pro II). The new Omni IIe and Pro II boards shipping now have that firmware and are also have flash firmware so no more firmware chips easier to upgrade. I would definitely get a controller with the ethernet port.

Volvernon

[anogee]

Wow, they have a whole new PC Access and the upgrade appears to be free. Its out lucky day. Now, Rick, when will the new plug-in be complete?

It looks like PC Access 2.16 is available now. Looks like 2.15 to me, but 3.0 will be out in April. Even allows comments. Kinda makes me proud to be a HAI owner.

[Rick Tinker]

Sorry, if the firmware is out, it sure isn't apparent in my little office! I have received nothing from HAI yet - no new software, no protocol/DLL documentation, and no firmware upgrades.

Can't give an ETA on the plug-in until I at least get that!

[anogee]

Its amazing, because HAI really has been quiet about this. I'm on their mailing lists, and they usually send out a mailing if they so much as change the color slightly of their switches, but for this news, NOTHING.

Still nothing on their site about the new firmware, but they did announce that the new panels with upgradable firmware are shipping, and a new PC Access upgrade seems to indicate something might have changed with access to the panel. Maybe maybe not. They say that the new 3.0 version of PC Access won't be out until April. Maybe this is when the firmware upgrades will be available as well.

Here are what HAI says is new in PC Access 3.0:Wow, it only took them 10 years but it sounds like they are moving up to 2008, or at least the late 90's.

[Rick Tinker]

OK, I *just* received a message from HAI - it's almost as if they are lurking here...

I have a copy of the Initial released Omni-Link II protocol, and I openly smiled when I got to the section titled: NOTIFICATION MESSAGES - it signifies the end of polling!!!

However, their new SDK for communicating is still a few months away! (Yes, the plural form of month was specifically written.) So, I asked if they want to continue to work with me and my questions about the Ethernet protocols to help me get that working, so we'll see if they are willing to do that or will be making me wait for that new SDK (Home Control Object).

I told them how many firmware updates I need, so hopefully they will arrive soon.

[anogee]

So, is the firmware for existing controllers out yet? I'm guessing I should wait to upgrade.

[Rick Tinker]

Yes, it appears to be out. Omni Link II is currently only supported on the Omni IIe, OmniPro II, Lumina, and Lumina Pro. I have no idea if "currently" means that they are going to implement it on other controllers, or if it means they have more controllers coming out...

[anogee]

Yup, probably means you are out-of-luck if you have an older one, like the Omni II, but other than not connecting to the new HomeSeer plug-in, it probably won't matter much because PC Access and the other software will have to support both the old and new protocol anyway.

I have to say though, HomeSeer seems to work pretty good with the Omni, even with a not so great protocol. The worst problem that I have is that Omni sometimes screws up when it is connected to HomeSeer. It runs fine when it isn't connected. I'm looking forward to getting that problem fixed.

[rirvine]

I have a copy of the Initial released Omni-Link II protocol, and I openly smiled when I got to the section titled: NOTIFICATION MESSAGES - it signifies the end of polling!!!

Just got my copy as well.. Also the way it's implement is good if you already have code that queries the units/zones etc, you can just plug in the new notification information as it just returns the same query responses.

I also love how they have finally documented a lot of the config settings (no more reverse engineering!)

However, their new SDK for communicating is still a few months away! (Yes, the plural form of month was specifically written.) So, I asked if they want to continue to work with me and my questions about the Ethernet protocols to help me get that working, so we'll see if they are willing to do that or will be making me wait for that new SDK (Home Control Object).

Rick, I thought you had the ethernet comms working? If you already have it working with UPD, the TCP implemention is exactly the same, sequence numbers, handshake, AES encryption is all the same.

Why don't you ask me your ethernet questions? I've had it running fine for about 18 months now. Might be a quicker turn around than HAI as well.

Ross.

[Rick Tinker]

Ross,

The issue I was having was not with UDP vs TCP - I always write TCP regardless of whether it is TCP or UDP because I neglect to acknowledge the accurate acronym. The issues I was having was with the encryption apparently because I was getting reject messages when I try to go to secure mode. I will send you some info via email and see if you can figure out what I was/am doing wrong. Thanks for the offer!

[rirvine]

FYI: Everyone might want to hold off upgrading to the 2.16 firmware.
I've been working with HAI on the new protocol.
There are a few problems with the current protocol documentation version (Version 2.16).
I've also found some bugs with the new protocol. Which should be expected since it's all brand new.
I'll keep this thread updated.

Ross.

[Wazoo]

Thanks for the update Ross....

I'm circling the airport on this one until you all figure it out.

[anogee]

Yes. Thanks.

[basshook]

Ross, I was interested to know if you are seeing any significant added performance with the new non-polling protocol? I use my panel for I/O into Homeseer and it would be great to reduce the latency.

Thanks,
-Ron

[rirvine]

The new notifications system reports the events as they happen. As there is no polling, there is very little delay. It's almost impossible to tell how long it actually takes to report the change, but its way less than a second. So it’s as close to “instant” as you could probably get.
BUT, the current firmware is pretty broken when it comes to the new omnilinkII protocol. It's totally new, so that's sort of expected.
The whole notifications system is incorrectly reporting events. It reports the events fine, such that I see it report zones changes, unit changes, thermostat changes etc, but it’s messed up the “data” in the event changes.
For example, the new notification system, when it reports a unit has change, it reports the unit number, but doesn't actually report the units state (on, off, whatever). When it reports a Thermostat change it reports the current temp, heat/cool setpoints but is missing the System Mode, Fan Mode and Hold Status information.

As it stands at the moment, the 2.16 firmware is unusable if you want to use the new events notification system in the omnilinkII protocol.
This is the first major protocol change for… what seems like ever.. for HAI. So there will be problems as this is version 1.0 of this new protocol.
I have a great contact within HAI who’s really helpful and will fix anything that needs fixing. So I’m confident it’ll get resolved quickly.

To clarify something, if you need to upgrade to the 2.16 firmware for anything OTHER than the new OmniLinkII protocol, then it’s perfectly fine. The old protocol that the HAI plugin uses still works without any problems, it’s just this new protocol that has issues. So feel free to upgrade to the latest firmware if you need additional features or support for new devices or whatever, but if your one and only reason is to get the new protocol, then don’t bother as it’s too broken in it’s current form to use.
But, I hope that HAI can fix all the bugs quickly and maybe it’ll be all good for the next firmware version.

I’ll keep everyone up to date.