Re: BCS and X10 Question

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

mustang8760 wrote:
> I'm working on an xAP connector for the LynX-10 PLC and I have a few
> question about BCS.
>
Sounds good..
> Is it the responsibility of the X-10 connector to convert a source
> like Source=ACME.Controller.apartment:BedsideLamp to its X-10 address?
>

Yes - the enpoint application translates from xAP addresses to device
specific addresses.
> If this is the case wouldn't it be better if there was an intermediate
> "devices" connector that could maintain the state of the
device and
> translate the xAP source to an X-10 address and then sent out the
> correct xAP message to the X-10 connector? This way you could change
> the X-10 interface you were using without having to recreate all your
> "devices".
>
Well... yes and no.  If you did this then you have an intermediary
application and  that increases response time and points of failure.
Also you get double the network traffic and also to an extent duplicated
status messages from different devices (different addresses) that are in
fact the same device.   I can see the point about having to configure
the address translation in the app though.
> Can BCS be used for messages for a thermostat (or is there a better
> schema out there)?
>
Yes but a 'Level' device which you would think is the obvious choice
doesn't sit neatly with a temperature scale as the temp scale can be in
different units eg Centigrade, Farenheit etc . Also it has no natural
top and bottom limit so 50% doesn't make sense , and of course lastly it
can go negative .  For these reasons most people have implemented
temperature devices in BSC as Text types  reporting text = 22.6 F  or
Text= -1.8 C   (I would add a degree symbol but i cant find it ;-)
> Also is there a schema out there for home theater control?
>
Quick answer..No. What everyone finds is that creating 'generic' and
complete schema is actually an onerous task - and home theatre control
has such a very wide scope so whatever you proposed people would have
different views and desires.    I think you will need to segment it
more. Lighting may well come into this too for example.  There are
schema for the 'whole house audio' and obviously BSC for basic I/O , and
to an extent you can create a compound BSC device that models very
complex systems, eg your AMP ONOFF, Speaker switching, screen control
and Vol could be BSC devices whereas a tuner might have its own schema .
You can mix and match BSC and other richer schema within one device and
trying to shoehorn unnatural devices/models into BSC often isn't the
right approach. The advantage of BSC is the simplicity and plug and play
but often this just isn't the 'right' way to do it for more complex
devices. BSC as the name implies is for 'simple' devices.  So I would
encourage you either creating your own schema or borrowing some
components from other schema (including perhaps BSC) and mixing your own
compound version to create a home theatre control schema that does what
you need, (but don't expect it do everything everyone else needs too or
you'll be there for ever).

K
> Thanks,
> Eric
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