Anyone talking to the Carrier Infinity system?

[qai]

Am thinking of a long term logging and then looking for unique messages. Is there any linux term programs that would help in this case?

[mfisher]

A long-term log file is the place to start, but you'll eventually need to correlate the real-world events back to that data in order to make any sense of it.

[cadillackid]

typically when I crack protocols I will first try to get a handle on the handshake setup messages between master and slave....

with 485 its real easy to monitor a 485 bus because by nature it is a multi-drop setup.. so first you setup your 485 adapter to your PC to not sit in the middle but sit alongside the existing network......

next, you activate just one end of the connection... you disconnect the slave and see if the master sends out any codes.. and you log them... I use procomm plus to do it...

then you turn on just the slave device and see if it just waits or sends out any commands... and you log them....

then you connect both together and log a very short amount of time... and you search through your logs and see if you find your original commands.. likely you will find some sort of handshake occurs....
at that time you write a small program in any langauge of your choice.. I use VB6 because it is easy to set up serial communications...

and I try to establish the handshake with the master....

if you can send and receive the handshake... great you are 1 step into it..

if not.. then you play with response timings a bit... if no go.. you break out the logic analyzer and look at timings.. often micro controller based protocols are very sensitive to response times of messages....

if I cannot emulate the timings with a PC based program I will build a micro controller to do it..

(that is how i communicate with my minisplit units.. I have a micro controller that can talk the langauge and emulate the timings of the original interface well... and then it talks to my PC via a companion program I wrote on the PC end....)

protocol cracking is a real pain... I have cracked many protocols on lots of things over the years... I would jump into the inifnity systems except I dont have access to an infinity (nor do i want / need to spend the thousands to get one).. however i wish I did have access to one as it sounds like I could make a market out of an HA controllable interface device / thermostat....

SOMETIMES you can get lucky and go directly to the board-set manufacturer and state your intentions of devloping a product that would make their systems more saleable and they will divulge their protocol to you... it has been done before..
-Christopher

[nebulous]

I'm talking to my Carrier Infinity system. I have an Infinity Touch that uses Carrier's WWW service for remote access, but all devices communicate with each other using a proprietary protocol over rs485.

I wasn't satisfied with Carrier's web service and didn't appreciate the vendor lock-in, so I wrote my own located here (https://github.com/nebulous/infinitude).

There are several threads on various home automation forums about the rs485 protocol and I'm trying to consolidate them all into a wiki on the infinitude page. There you can find some long-term logs from my system (and hopefully yours if you're willing to submit them) and a parser program to extract and display frames in a more human-readable format.

Check out the Infinitude Wiki to see what we know so far and to contribute to the project. A $5 rs485 dongle is all it takes to get your computer talking to the devices

[Big]

I would love to control my Infinity system through Homeseer. Any luck doing it yet?

My limited research suggests it's a pain in the rear and no one has had much luck with it.

[noopara]

I am controlling my Carrier Infinity system through the SAM serial port on my HS2 system without any problems. I just used their protocol and wrote some scripts to read status and send commands.

[NeverDie]

I just used their protocol and wrote some scripts to read status and send commands.

Did you use the wiki above for the protocol details, or is there another source you found helpful?

[noopara]

I used the Carrier SAM protocol document.

[drule]

Where did you get your SAM module from? I've searched all over and can't find a source.

Thanks
-David

[noopara]

I got it when I had the system installed. I replaced my old furnace with a new Carrier furnace and heat pump. I had them install the SAM while they were at it. They didn't know anything about it and had never installed one. I had them get in touch with a Carrier Tech Rep to get any tips and tricks and while they were talking to him they let me talk to him. I watched them very closely as they installed it. It really is an easy install as far as connecting it to the other parts of the Carrier system. It does come with installation instructions but not the protocol. It's way overpriced, but if you really want to control the system from your HA system, it's the way to go.

[drule]

Originally Posted by mfisher
Yup - I have a 485 interface wired into the furnace now. Am getting a lot of junk info but I know that it's real data. I'm not using the SAM, just hard wired to ABCD (actually just the data lines). So anyways, I tried to issues some of the ASCII commands, like S1OAT? to ask what the outside air temp was, nada.. So I'm wondering if anyone has any experience decoding the communication protocol directly off the 485 bus vs via the RS232 connection in the SAM.

It would be very interesting if somebody who had access to a SAM could run it in parallel with an RS485 monitor. You could send commands to the SAM and see how they appear on the RS485 network. If anybody wanted to lend me a SAM for a while, I'd give it a go. Hopefully it could lead to a Plugin that only required a $5 RS485 dongle to interact with a Bryant Evolution or Carrier Infinity system.

Originally Posted by nebulous
I'm talking to my Carrier Infinity system. I have an Infinity Touch that uses Carrier's WWW service for remote access, but all devices communicate with each other using a proprietary protocol over rs485.

I wasn't satisfied with Carrier's web service and didn't appreciate the vendor lock-in, so I wrote my own located here (https://github.com/nebulous/infinitude).

There are several threads on various home automation forums about the rs485 protocol and I'm trying to consolidate them all into a wiki on the infinitude page. There you can find some long-term logs from my system (and hopefully yours if you're willing to submit them) and a parser program to extract and display frames in a more human-readable format.

Check out the Infinitude Wiki to see what we know so far and to contribute to the project. A $5 rs485 dongle is all it takes to get your computer talking to the devices

Inspired by nebulous's Infinitude, I've started work on a Plugin that acts as a web proxy to interact with my Bryant Evolution thermostats. It's early days but so far I am able to see the status of my thermostats in Homeseer. Now to figure out how to control them!

-David

[KSO]

Have you had any luck on creating a plugin for HS3 yet?

[drule]

Have you had any luck on creating a plugin for HS3 yet?

I've got most of it working but haven't had a lot of time recently to finish it off. I'd be very happy to send you a copy to see what you think of what I've got so far.

As of right now, the plugin can receive info from a single zone of a Bryant Evolution system. It will read the current temperature, humidity, setpoints, etc. You can trigger events based on status of the thermostat. It doesn't yet allow you to make changes to the thermostat's settings. I've proved that changes can be made via the mechanism that the plugin uses but haven't coded it in properly yet.

I don't know if it will run "out of the box" with a Carrier Inifinity system because I don't have one to test with but from reading the documentation, I think if it doesn't work right away, it shouldn't be too hard to change.

If you need support for more than one zone, I'll need you to provide me with some logs so that I can see what the data looks like. My system currently only has a single zone.

The plugin does not require any physical connections to be made to the Evolution or Carrier system. It does not require a SAM module. You do need to have the MyEvolution/MyInifinity web service configured and functional.

Let me know if you are interested in testing!

Cheers
-David

[KSO]

I've got most of it working but haven't had a lot of time recently to finish it off. I'd be very happy to send you a copy to see what you think of what I've got so far.

As of right now, the plugin can receive info from a single zone of a Bryant Evolution system. It will read the current temperature, humidity, setpoints, etc. You can trigger events based on status of the thermostat. It doesn't yet allow you to make changes to the thermostat's settings. I've proved that changes can be made via the mechanism that the plugin uses but haven't coded it in properly yet.

I don't know if it will run "out of the box" with a Carrier Inifinity system because I don't have one to test with but from reading the documentation, I think if it doesn't work right away, it shouldn't be too hard to change.

If you need support for more than one zone, I'll need you to provide me with some logs so that I can see what the data looks like. My system currently only has a single zone.

The plugin does not require any physical connections to be made to the Evolution or Carrier system. It does not require a SAM module. You do need to have the MyEvolution/MyInifinity web service configured and functional.

Let me know if you are interested in testing!

Cheers
-David

David,
I would love to test it as I have an Evolution system now and only the one thermostat. No Zones. I do have MyEvolution running, so I am willing to test if you need me to. I am thinking that the carrier and evolution are the same system and actually share the same web site. The server address is the same except instead of api.eng.Bryant.com they have api.eng.carrier.com. Are you able to contact the evolution connex thermostat directly? It would be nice to bypass the cloud.
I dont know if you have seen this:
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=153331
It has been written for HS2 already. Maybe you can use it.

[drule]

Hi KSO,

I'm having problems with my ISP at the moment, so can't upload the plugin. As soon as Verizon restore my service I'll create a new thread in the HS3 plugin development area and put the plugin there. I'll add a link to the new thread here as well.

Thanks for the info on the HS2 scripts. I hadn't seen that before, so will have a good look at them.

Sorry for the delay.
-David