RE: Progress on the xAP to C-Bus gateway - MY FEEDBACK

[Kevin Hawkins]

Well - the response to this has been a little underwhelming - so I
don't think I'm going to approach this quite the way I had intended before.
It just doesn't warrant the time and effort. Had a couple of feedbacks that
said if the cost was above £50 it wasn't worth the hardware route -
actually
I discounted these but it does show what some people expect for their
money.
I hope the general low level of response is because no-one has got their
C-Bus stuff yet so I'm guessing it will pick up later.
What I hope to do now is release the Win32 application and to look
at the possibility of incorporating a plugin personality into the Rocket
xAP
board when such tools become available to third party developers.
Alongside that I am going to look at just what I can achieve with a
few interesting products I have routed out on the PIC side - PIC is far
more
comfortable to be than having to learn C for the Rabbit. I have four things
I'm looking into currently although one is a non starter I believe. If any
of these come off then I should be able to provide a fairly cost effective
Ethernet connected controller for xAP to C-Bus. If none of them come off
then I'll probably just offer the RS232 connectivity - which could be
plugged directly into a Rocket xAP serial board for example to bridge
without a PC to Ethernet. Just ups the cost a little.

Kevin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Hawkins [mailto:<a
href="/group/xap_automation/post?postID=ekqBRnqDNXUX-rajRIGAGWm2YJ1ev7aqnGvuxDhmZ0EiVBHX0TRFgnPaVzHvxH6naswzceHu5_d0wfLbJUfoJA">lists@u...</a>]
> Sent: 05 June 2003 13:55
> To: <a
href="/group/xap_automation/post?postID=p6UzudNYmmUwBBAaVlITogpw19g1YmXvVLkitaNf2vWiTIVxjTIYgAo9GoRLFdszlYzl4qhH0OBUE4u_6fXEpxBNfmE">xap_automation@xxxxxxx</a>
> Subject: RE: [xap_automation] Progress on the xAP to C-Bus gateway -
MY
> FEEDBACK
>
> Hi Mark
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mark_harrison_uk2 [mailto:<a
href="/group/xap_automation/post?postID=ksYilIIYu-o_MsDCFqcd4GnOOBFkRjSQNIc8I-THu7_3eFlxoPn6Ez7EJSnnGUGFVN4FDzol6QYfJg">mph@a...</a>]
> > Sent: 05 June 2003 10:15
> > To: <a
href="/group/xap_automation/post?postID=p6UzudNYmmUwBBAaVlITogpw19g1YmXvVLkitaNf2vWiTIVxjTIYgAo9GoRLFdszlYzl4qhH0OBUE4u_6fXEpxBNfmE">xap_automation@xxxxxxx</a>
> > Subject: [xap_automation] Progress on the xAP to C-Bus gateway -
> MY
> > FEEDBACK
> >
> > --- In <a
href="/group/xap_automation/post?postID=p6UzudNYmmUwBBAaVlITogpw19g1YmXvVLkitaNf2vWiTIVxjTIYgAo9GoRLFdszlYzl4qhH0OBUE4u_6fXEpxBNfmE">xap_automation@xxxxxxx</a>,
"Kevin Hawkins"
> <lists@u...>
> > wrote:
> >
> > I don't have any C-Bus kit at the moment, but post-UKHA2003 it's
> > certainly on the shortlist (against Polaron) for lighting
control.
>
> I know nothing about Polaron but the people that have it seem very
> happy
>
> > The thing I dislike about C-Bus is the in-wall controllers, so
I'd
> > definitely want to xAP-control it.
>
> They are not aimed at HA enthusiasts certainly - their functionality
is
> limited - however I think for one of the 'city living' type installs
> they
> are probably very suitable really - 5 scenes is more than enough I
> would
> think in practice - but timer / logic functions may need more than
> Clispals
> timer offers.
> >
> > My preference for controllers, best first is:
> >
> > - Personality for the Rocket board
>
> I would like this too as essentially my hardware is the same as this
> board -
> an unnecessary duplication if we both make one. However there is work
> to be
> done in getting the product to a stage where a third party can write a
> plug
> in or personality that can be imported to the product. A developers
> toolkit
> perhaps. As there are issues in source code availability for the
> product and
> NDA issues on C-Bus it will take a little working through to get this
-
> but
> P and I are talking and hope to have a solution. I am about to order a
> Rabbit board and to teach myself C (again)
>
> > - Embedded RS232
> > - Windows application
> > - Linux application
> >
> > I don't have any need at the moment for a non-xAP version, but I
> can
> > see how it would be useful as a debugging / installation tool (if
> I
> > go the PC-application route.)
>
> Several people have asked for this - just a simple ON OF DIM STATUS
> protocol
> not dissimilar to X10 I guess - I'll see
> >
> > I'd rather see a xAP - xPL bridge than a separate xPL connector
> for C-
> > Bus to xPL. I think that there's going to a be a lot of effort
> spent
> > by people building connectors for both protocols unless a bridge
> > comes into use soon.
>
> One of the very neat things in xAP that dovetails very nicely with the
> way
> the C-Bus gateway works is the UID. This allows xAP switches to
control
> C-Bus loads with absolutely minimal overhead (and has reverse
> benefits).
> Through a gateway this will be awkward as a UID can't be generated for
> xPL
> source messages* and the addressing construct of xPL source/target
> addresses
> is truncated to the extent that it can't support multiple hardware
> endpoints
> within one xPL device. It will need awkward name value pairs within an
> xPL
> message body.
>
> * When I say can't be generated it would be possible to fabricate
UID's
> for
> xPL sources but the lack in xPL of the hardware sub ID - the last two
> digits
> of the UID and the content after a : in the longform address is
> irrecoverable I think.
>
> K
>
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
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