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**Rick Tinker** · April 4, 2003, 10:00 AM

Brian,

Your login idea to validate the code is very good - I may have to mull that around a little. Actually, if it is just user verification you are looking for, there is a protocol command that does this and returns the level of authorization that user has. Perhaps I put in a function that does this and then you can do what you want with the information such as restrict access to the security page. I will put more thought into it.

Meanwhile, as for your stated use of this, I have a different solution that I got from HAI long ago. I too used this feature for cleaning people that Napco had where you enter the code and it would allow a single use disarm and arm, and then it would not work again until you re-enabled it. Since HAI does not have this feature, they gave me a workaround. I have an output tied to a zone input on the panel, and the zone input is configured as a tamper zone I think. Anyway, I have a flag that I set with a button when the cleaning service is coming and I am not home. When they come in and disarm the system, the flag is reset (turned off). If I did not set the flag initially and the maid code is used to disarm the system, then the program in the HAI immediately uses the output to set off the alarm. Scott at HAI (support) can give you more details on how to set this up. It's a pretty decent solution.

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**JLehnert** · April 7, 2003, 08:28 PM

Rick,

My problem isn't with the layout of the HAI pages. I have a detached garage, and boat dock that I would like to be able to arm seperately from the house. The garage is not that important, as it's only 15 ft from the house and I can survive not being able to arm it seperately from the house. However, the boathouse is ~450 ft out on the point (that is it will be if I ever get a #@%$#@ job so I can pay to get the #@$%# thing built!) and I really want to be able to arm it whenever it is not actively in use. According to GC, the plugin will get confused if multiple areas are used.

I'm not sure that you would really need to have 3 HAI security pages, 3 HAI HVAC, etc. The number of zones/stats/units does not change depending on the number of areas. The only two places I can see where there would be a problem are the HAI "devices" on the "status" page, and the "Panel Status and Arm/Disarm Action Table" on the "HAI Security" page. The first could be solved with additional "devices", but the second would definetly require some work.

That said, additional customization on the HAI pages would be nice. I can think of several things that would be nice to do, i.e. arrange zones by floor, or type, etc.

My system is described in my profile.

**George** · April 8, 2003, 04:33 AM

Rick,

This may be pretty easy, I hope.

How about a plugin feature (it could be in the setup screens) to pause the plugin and release the serial port?

That way I don't have to bring HS down so I can launch PC Access to change something in the panel.

About the only thing it would have to do upon reconnection is to go back and reverify status's like in startup.

I think everyone that runs the plugin has the same problem in maintaining the panel.

George

**George** · April 30, 2003, 08:56 PM

Rick,

Any thoughts on the ability to release the serial port? Just want to know if it's simple to put the plugin on hold, release the port so I can use PC ACCESS and then reacquire the port and restart the plugin.

Thanks,
George

**George** · May 8, 2003, 08:18 AM

My last time asking for a reply to my request.

Can this be so hard to implement or at least respond to?

Just curious.
G

**Rick Tinker** · May 8, 2003, 01:18 PM

George,

I don't know how I failed to respond, but I obviously did. Lots of messages here each day - send me an email next time I miss it.

What you are asking for could be done, but I'll be honest with you, it is a fair amount of work. It is not difficult, but it's a little time consuming I think. I would have to look at the code in detail with this feature in mind to say for certain.

What is it you are doing with PC Access that you are doing often enough for this? I only ask because short of changing a user code, I have no reason to go into PC Access and haven't on my system in probably a year.

I'd say that yes, I could add this to my list, but where it ends up priority-wise depends on two factors: 1. What Rich says the priority is for working on the plug-in, and 2. How many other people have requested it. Have you been running the latest beta at least? Is it working well for you?

You wrote it was your last time asking - if I had not responded, would I have had a surprise waiting for me at the user's dinner during EH Expo next year?

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**bchamber** · May 19, 2003, 07:19 PM

I have several suggestions for the next generation Omni plug-in.

I would like to see the option of adding additional Omni devices other than the default ones. For instance I would like to have devices for all of my security zones, temp sensors and t-stats.

The web pages also need some help. While they look good, there static content is a bummer. They really need to be revamped with realtime status. This goes for all of the other HS web pages as well.

Has anybody out there developed any custom web pages or scripts for their Omni that they would be willing to share?

Also when is development scheduled to begin on this enhancement?

Keep up the good work!

Thanks,
Brad

**Rick Tinker** · May 20, 2003, 09:30 AM

Brad,

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>I would like to see the option of adding additional Omni devices other than the default ones. For instance I would like to have devices for all of my security zones, temp sensors and t-stats.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can pretty much confirm that won't happen! Much of the design of the V2 plug-in API and this very plug-in surrounds the fact that if a user has a large HAI system, or it is an Omni Pro II with it's 384 units and tons of zones, that it is not feasible to track all of that using devices. Back when the unit limit was 64, it would take at least 8 house codes! Sure we could trim it down by having the user select the devices, but it would still be a VERY difficult task to keep track of the devices, especially if the names are changed.

Tell me why you want the device support, and I will tell you a way to work without it. Sorry to be so definite on this one, but the request is the opposite of the entire design premise of not only this plug-in, but the whole version 2 of the plug-in API that was spawned by this criteria.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>The web pages also need some help. While they look good, there static content is a bummer. They really need to be revamped with realtime status. This goes for all of the other HS web pages as well.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In your HomeSeer windows UI, click on View... Options... and then under the Web Server tab, set the "refresh" value to something other than zero. See if that helps with this request. Keep in mind that HAI will not allow anything to be realtime anyway - you have to poll the HAI panel (which I really hate) for information. I am currently polling for anything that has changed every half second, and then there is a long list of items that the HAI panel does not register as changed that I have to poll to get anyway, and I get one of those items every half second as well. Thus, thermostats for example have to be polled and never have information in the panel when they change, so if there are 50 other things to monitor and you add 2 thermostats, then that brings the total up to 52 things, and thus your thermostats will be updated every 26 seconds approximately. It will take longer in actuality since the polling is interrupted when you are carrying out actions or doing condition checks.

If the auto-refresh doesn't help, then yes, it is a great candidate for somebody to put together an ASP page for you to get pseudo realtime updates.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>Also when is development scheduled to begin on this enhancement?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is a tough one. You see, after taking this over from somebody else, I had time to work on it. Then I joined HS, and now people kind of want all of their HomeSeer feature requests taken care of! When I polled the community of HAI users who purchased the plug-in, I found that many did not respond and there were not that many to begin with, so development of the enhanced features is a questionable business proposition either way - either way meaning even since Rich will let me develop it as an individual on my own time, I won't get enough revenue from upgrade sales to justify the time it will take me to do it, and even if Rich decided to pay for it, he would not get a good return on the investment. Thus, the work will begin on it as I can find time since I want some of the enhanced features simply because I too am a HomeSeer user with an HAI system. I can justify doing it for my own personal interest and then I don't have to worry about return on time investment. So the final answer to all of this is: "I don't know." Sorry.

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**bchamber** · May 20, 2003, 02:30 PM

Rick,

Thanks for the quick response.

I think my desire for more Omni devices is based on me wanting to incorporate Omni's information like zone status,panel status and temp sensors into my other canned HS web pages. I'm sure I can do this with a custom web page or scripting but I was hoping to avoid that till next winter. I certainly understand your comments about the large potential number of devices. Though I suspect that most users would be perfectly happy with 16 custom Omni devices. Just a thought!

I did take your advice and turned on the web server/page refresh option. It would appear that the refresh tag isn't making it to the Omni pages. I went ahead and saved out the source of one of the pages and added the refresh tag to try it out. While it does work and probably is good enough to get me by, I would still like to see asp pages.

I'm not really all that web savy and was wondering why all the HS pages arent't asp pages. Is it a lot of extra work to design and code a asp page that refreshes individual items?
I for one would be glad to spend some cash on a Homeseer option that enhanced all of the pages with asp logic.

If you do get around to updating the plug-in, please add the refresh tag to the canned Omni pages.

Thanks,
Brad

[This message was edited by bchamber on Tue, 20 May 2003 at 07:54 PM.]

**Rick Tinker** · May 21, 2003, 05:23 PM

An ASP page spat out by the plug-in will actually be no different than the ones there now. You'll notice that the pages generated now have no extension? An ASP is scripted logic that is interpreted by the server, and the result is straight HTML code sent to the browser. If you look at the source code for an ASP page after it has been served up, you won't find the scripting language in it anymore.

I will look into why the refresh is not working. Since the pages are not sent to the browser raw, HomeSeer adds the header, footer, etc. and thus I thought the refresh tag too.

If you want to have frames to divide the zones from the units and thermostats and other nice customizations, then you will want to do your own ASP using the HAI script commands anyway. The refresh on the existing pages will make them update automatically, but they won't look any prettier.

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**Wazoo** · May 22, 2003, 02:32 PM

Although I asked this in another thread... I thought I would add it to what looks like the "official" thread for plug-in addons.

Being able to completely communicate between Homeseer and my Omni II Pro via the new Ethernet port would be a killer app for those of us who have our HA system far away from the Omni panel...

Thanks!

Paul

**Rick Tinker** · May 24, 2003, 09:27 AM

Paul,

I requested everything I will need to look into this from HAI several weeks ago. Call them and tell them to get on the ball and ship me the firmware, the new DLL and the protocol changes and I can look into it. Until then, there is nothing I can do to support this. The ball is in HAI's court.

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

**Wazoo** · May 25, 2003, 09:05 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Rick Tinker (HomeSeer Tech):
Paul,

I requested everything I will need to look into this from HAI several weeks ago. Call them and tell them to get on the ball and ship me the firmware, the new DLL and the protocol changes and I can look into it. Until then, there is nothing I can do to support this. The ball is in HAI's court.

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have sent off an email to their support people as well as the regional sales manager. We'll see what happens.

Paul

**Rico** · June 2, 2003, 10:25 PM

I don't know if thermostat communication via the panel supports it or not, but the direct serial script for the t-stats had some additional features:

current status exe. fan running, cooling
filter status flag : change filter
runtime since last filter change

This biggest one here would be to know if the system is actually running. I guess I could use a zone input with a relay to tell if the fan is running...

**Rick Tinker** · June 3, 2003, 06:22 AM

Rico,

You know, when somebody points these things out it just gets me more upset with HAI!!!

I can guarantee you that if the Omni protocol supported those features, the HAI plug-in would have had it!

I have heat pumps in my house and while I love the HAI thermostats for their features, I was extremely upset to find that I could not automate putting the thermostats into Aux Heat mode, which is what I want to do when the temperature is below 35F, while the stats are connected to the panel. The serial protocol for the stats however DOES support this.

Now you are laying out even more differences!!

Jay at HAI told me that the reason they did not support the Aux mode command is because they did not get any requests for it and there weren't that many heat pump systems. As for the low number of requests, why then is it in the RS-232 protocol? As for heat pump systems, there are a LOT of heat pumps these days with better Aux/alternative heat sources than electricity.

I would love to hear what his excuse is for these commands not being in the Omni protocol because I know I asked them for this very stuff and they said it was not possible to get it.

The good news is that I think the scripted thermostat support for the HAI thermostats is about to get some work/support from me. I am going to move my thermostats to a serial port and be done with this silliness once and for all.

Regards,

Rick Tinker
HomeSeer Technologies

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