RE: PC interface to door push

["Ian B" <Ian@xxxxxxx>]

Do you have a spare serial port? A simple PIC chip monitoring the bell
push
wire and then a serial command to the PC would be a way to go? If you
want
to know more tell me about the door push. is it a bell already or a
dedicated line etc.

If this may be the way to go let me know as it seems very trivial on the
PIC
end. Shouldn't cost much either.

Ian B

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gordon [mailto:paul_gordon@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 28 May 2002 22:11
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] PC interface to door push


Alex,

There are, as you say, several options...

You could purchase a VIOM board from www.phaedrusltd.co.uk I have one
of
these, and can highly recommend them, but it's massively overkill if
you
only want 1 input... - However, if you want more in the future this could
be
very handy...

There are Homeseer plugins/scripts which allow you to use a maximum of
four
inputs through a standard joystick port. - There is a little bit of
hardware
work involved, but it's childishly simple stuff I believe...

In fact, there are scripts that allow you to use a standard joypad device
as
an input device for homeseer, so I guess you could hotwire a joystick
button
to your bellpush button....

Take a look through the Homeseer message board, I definately recall
seing
these joystick input methods discussed there...

HTH,

Paul G.



>From: "kinchyuk" <kinchyuk@xxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>Subject: [ukha_d] PC interface to door push
>Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 12:18:40 -0000
>
>
>Sorry if this one has been covered recently, I've been a bit
missing
>from the list of late.
>
>I want to hook up a door push to Homeseer, which then does the
>necessary alerting. I've looked at the X10 powerflash, but that
seems
>a bit of a waste of time (and money!) to go from button to X10,
then
>X10 back to Homeseer - even more so considering the run from the
>Homeseer box to the door is < 10m.
>
>So I guess I'm after some way of getting an external trigger into
>Homeseer via a PC. I'm sure it's stupidly simple but I just can't
>quite get my head around it. Would I need some sort of PCI
>interfacing card?
>
>Alex
>




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