Announcement

**Rick Tinker** · April 3, 2003, 12:35 PM

Well, there are a few questions to address here. First of all I have to point out that HAI implemented a polling protocol for their panels. What this means is that the plugin has to constantly ask the panel for updated information. Some changes in the panel such as when a zone changes generates a special type of event which the plugin picks up on very rapidly. However, not all of the zone information (such as the analog value) is provided with this special event, so the plugin has to again ask the panel for the rest of the information for that zone. What this means is that a zone used solely for analog input, which is not what it was designed for by HAI, will not react very quickly to changes in the value because the analog value is picked up by a secondary, less-frequent polling that the plugin does. The zone inputs do, however, pass current through the + and - terminals of the zone and that current amount is represented through the values 0 through 255.

I think what you want for your analog inputs is something else more designed for analog data such as the Applied Digital Adicon series, JDS TimeCommander/Stargage, HomeVision or others. However, if your reason for wanting the analog inputs is for temperature sensors that can handle higher ranges, then keep in mind that the RCS thermostats are supported by HomeSeer and user scripts, and some (perhaps all) of them have replaceable temperature sensors that have a higher range than what HAI has. HAI also has some new temperature sensors that *may* have higher ranges, but because I have not seen a change in their protocol (they have hard coded temperature values) I doubt that the high-end range has been changed. Some of the aforementioned products for analog inputs (Adicon/HomeVision) have their own temperature sensor products that might fit your needs or (as is the case with HomeVision) can have an interface to the one-wire products which does include a temperature sensor.

Does that address everything?

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**fbitz** · April 3, 2003, 01:14 PM

ok now I understand and you answered most of my questions:

AS a follow up I found a PC program HAI PC-STAT that would allow to connect RCS directly to the PC via a serial to 485 cable...

Can HS do the same as PC-STAT..I am assuming reading/writing over RS232/485 is not that hard?

I WANT TO BUY YOUR RACK BASED SERVER SO AS TO START WITH A 'CLEAN' and RUGGEDIZED ENVIRONMENT

**Rick Tinker** · April 3, 2003, 01:27 PM

You mixed manufacturers in that last post, so I can't really answer the question without making some assumptions! HAI (Home Automation Inc) is one manufacturer and RCS (Residential Control Systems) is the other. I am not sure of the program you found but the HAI thermostats when they are not connected to the HAI security/automation panel operate in sort of a multi-point modified RS-232 environment whereas the RCS thermostats have both RS-232 and RS-485.

To try to answer your question though it doesn't really matter because some people on this message board have written scripts to talk to the HAI thermostats in RS-232 mode, and HomeSeer has had support for the RCS thermostats for some time so if you went with those and bought one of their RS-232 to RS-485 converters then you could use that too.

The RS-232 to RS-485 converter takes care of the physical layer protocol changes, so when you send a command out a serial port using HomeSeer, then that command would be heard by the thermostats on the RS-485 bus.

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**fbitz** · April 3, 2003, 02:03 PM

OOPS..I MEANT HAI RC THERMOSTATS
PC_STAT IS SOLD BY HAI AND COMES WHEN YOU BUY
A RC THERMOSTAT ACCORDING TO THEIR WEB SITE (ALTHOUGH MY HVAC GUY BOUGHT 11 OF THEM AND NEVER GOT SOFTWARE WITH IT)..

THEY ALSO SELL A RC-202 PRODUCT THAT BOOSTS
THE RS-232 WHEN MORE THAN 4 THERMOSTATS ARE USED...do you know about that booster?

SO I SHOULD BE ALL SET! ASUMING THAT SOMEONE WROTE THE CODE FOR H.S. WITH SUPPORT FOR MULTIPLE RC IN MIND!

**Brian Raynor** · April 3, 2003, 03:15 PM

I just purchased an HAI Omni Pro II and am just beginning to play around with the HomeSeer plugin for it. I also have the OmniStat RC100 thermostat. And I also have an outdoor temp sensor hooked up (haven't found out how to get the HomeSeer HAI plugin to recognize it as a temp sensor though).

It appears that HomeSeer supports this fairly well. Haven't played too much with it yet though.

I don't believe ANY software comes with the thermostats, nor have I seen anywhere where they mention this.

Actually, the Thermostats can be used in one of two modes. One is to connect them directly to an Omni panel (Omni LT, Omni II, or Omni Pro II). this will allow the alarm panel to be able to directly control them. You can use HAI's PC Access application to program the panel (or use the panel's console, though this is not as easy for obvious reasons) to have it control the thermostat, set temp thresholds etc. Even to change the setpoints and modes when you are away...

In this mode, HomeSeer, though the HAI plugin, should be able to control the thermostat. In fact, it appears it can control multiple thermostats (though I only have one and have no way of testing).

The second way to use the HAI OmniStats is via a direct serial cable, I believe running at 300bps. With this, you'd need some software to directly control it. I would imagine you could probably write HomeSeer scripts to directly talk to it, but don't know of anyone who has tried. I'd have to check the manual for my OmniStat, but I believe the protocol is describe in the manual.

Keep in mind that much of the HAI documentation is available on their website. This includes documentation on the thermostats.

Since I've only had my HAI Omni Pro II for two weeks (as of today), I can't speak for everything yet. I am still finishing up my installation and integration. Just installed the HomeSeer plugin last night. However, it appears that there is a good bit of functionality in the two...

Also, I'd have to second Rick's recommendation... If the only thing you are looking for is analog and digital inputs and outputs, you might be better off looking at Applied Digital products. This would include the Ocelot (or Leopard II if you want a touch screen) for the controller and SECU16 (8 analog/digital inputs, 8 relay outputs), SECU16i (16 analog/digital inputs), and RLY8 (8 high current relay outputs).

The ADI products would turn out to be cheaper, not to mention that the Ocelot/Leopard is far more powerful from a programming standpoint than is that HAI Omni. And if you need more capability, you can always add multiple Ocelot/Leopard to the bus. In addition, you can use standard LM34 chips for temperature sensors (with a few addtional components) on the SECU16 or SECU16i, or if you don't want to mess with that, ADI has Temperature and Humidity "Bobcats" that do it for you. All their products are networked using an RS-485 bus. ADI states they support up to 127 modules on the bus.

HomeSeer directly supports the Ocelot and Leopard as well as the expansion devices.

Actually I have both... I have an Ocelot, SECU16, and Leopard II in addition to my HAI Omni Pro II system... The HAI Omni Pro makes an excellent security system (which is why I bought it) and is quite capable at other automation tasks...

However, if you don't need a security system, I'd look toward ADI.

Here's a few links you might be interested in:

Applied Digital - Automation homepage
Applied Digital Support Forum (Excellent)
HAI Homepage
Worthington Solutions - Worthington Distribution's solutions page and forum

The Worthington Solutions link provides another discussion board that often has a lot of HAI topics on it, as well as "Solution" files showing how to integrate various devices, including HAI to Ocelot, etc... Very useful... This is part of Worthington Distributions, who also distribute and sell HAI and ADI products, amoung others...

**Rick Tinker** · April 3, 2003, 06:12 PM

Yes, the HAI plugin for HomeSeer supports multiple thermostats. As you add thermostats, you only need to go to the HAI Panel Limits configuration screen that the plugin provides and increase the number of thermostats.

Temperature sensors are also supported by the plugin although telling the plugin about them is a little more manual - you have to add an entry to the INI file.

There is a pretty comprehensive help file in the help directory under HomeSeer's main directory, and it will tell you about the Aux Temp Sensors and how to add them there.

The support for HAI thermostats via RS-232 was done by a user and that script is posted at this message board. Additionally, I thought I heard where another user or perhaps the same one actually implemented the scripts to fit in with HomeSeer's thermostat template system.

A plugin to do the serial thermostats would give you many more capabilities, but I have no idea how much interest there is in that. Somebody else could write one though.

One of the things that bugs me big time about the HAI panels though is that for some STRANGE reason, the thermostats connected to the panel cannot be put into Aux/Emerg Heat mode programmatically. Through the RS-232 protocol though you can. Having a pair of RC-100 thermostats because I have heat pumps, I really wanted to automatically put them into Aux/Emerg heat mode when the outside temperature was below 36 degrees as my propane is much more efficient than a heat pump at or below that temperature. For this reason I have been tempted to yank the thermostats off the panel and put them on a serial port. If I do that, then I will definitely want a plugin!

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

Announcement

HAI TEMPERATURE INPUTS+ ANALOG INPUTS

HAI TEMPERATURE INPUTS+ ANALOG INPUTS

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