The Media Center Blog

Zebra roller blinds with DC 12V Motor and Qubino Z-Wave / Vera controller hub - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 14:05:00 +0000

Finally I have my new Zebra blind installed and configured with my Vera home automation system.

As previously mentioned I have not physically connected a wall switch to the Qubino DC Flush Shutter module, as I am utilizing my existing wall switch connected to a Fibaro Roller Shutter 2 module for my curtain track, you can see in the video here how it's working with this new Zebra blind.

The wall switch is a single click up to open the curtains, a single click down to close the curtains and now thanks to some programming logic in Vera / PLEG a double click up on the wall switch opens the new Zebra blind, a double click down closes the Zebra blind and a triple click down opens the "Slats" of the Zebra blind, by opening / raising the blind 4% to let in daylight but still have some privacy.

I have also programmed up my existing Aeotec Minimote Z-Wave remote control using buttons 3 and 4. I am running device toggle state scenes in Vera to open and close either the curtains or blind etc.

I can also control the Zebra blind from the Imperihome Android control app, screen shots below or via voice commands to Google Home / Alexa.

Here are some photos of the blind mounted:

Blind Closed:

Blind "Slats" Opened 4% raised:

Header rail or valance:

Here you can see the Qubino DC Flush Shutter module and then hidden away behind the blanking plate:

It is not the quietest or quickest blind motor but I expected that, DC motors tend to make more noise, than say my 240V AC Dooya tubular motor I have installed in my kitchen.

Youtube video here of the blind in action, with the Aeotec Minimote and the wall switch.

Some screen shots of the Imperihome control app on my Android tablet.

The device highlighted in green is the actual Qubino DC Flush Shutter device.

Also highlighted in blue, I created a virtual on / off switch device in Vera and used some PLEG logic to enable me to have a device in the Imperihome app to "turn on" open the blinds "slats" to 4% and "turn off" close the blind again fully.

This enables me to more easily open the blinds using the app to the required 4% for the "slats" to allow more daylight in, rather than me guessing what is 4% on the actual devices percentage slider.

And this it how the Imperihome app looks when the blind is fully closed:

Summary

Overall for the money I spent I am happy with the setup and the look of the blind.

I am not affiliated with the supplier on Aliexpress, however Scott and their team at the Runxin Blinds Store are very good and I have purchased all my motorised window coverings from them.

You can contact Scott to discuss your requirements and obtain a quote for the various motorised window covering solutions they offer.

If you do contact them, please be sure to mention you were referred by "The Media Center Blog" however. From the store home page you can use the "Contact Now" link.

Zebra roller blinds with DC 12V Motor and Qubino Z-Wave / Vera controller hub - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:32:00 +0000

Parts one, two and three.

I will be covering the installation of the blind, the wiring and the calibration of the upper and lower limits of the tubular motor in this part.

Here is a PDF document with the instructions for the ES2512-1.5/28 motor. In order to calibrate the motor I needed to buy a temporary DPDT momentary rocker switch. I bought this cheap one off eBay.

Black DPDT On-Off-On Momentary Rocker Switch 15A 250VAC 22x30 6 pins - EAN # 0691046680464.

If you've not sure how to wire up a DPDT switch you can watch this Youtube video here where it is explained.

The middle two pins on the switch go to the motor.

Then from your power supply connect the positive and negative (ground) wires to the top two pins.

Then you loop over a small cable from the top positive power pin to the lower opposite positive power pin.

Then you loop over a small cable from the top negative (ground) power pin to the lower opposite negative (ground) power pin.

You can then test the switch up and down by pressing the buttons on the switch. Next I needed to follow the instructions for the motor to calibrate its upper and lower limits.

From the user manual:

Entering into the state of programming： Keep the switch on the “UP” position, and then, keep down the “k1” key on motor head for more than 6 seconds. Motor gives out quick short alarm “Di, Di, Di” means the motor is entering into the state of programming.

Setting of upper limit： Keep the switch on “STOP” position, and then keep it on “UP” state, the motor continuously rolling up . When the shade close to the end-point of the upper limit, keep the switch on “STOP” state, motor stops operation. Then press “UP” a time and then press “STOP” a time, the shade will move towards upper position a little, Repeat the above operation again and again until the shade reaches the end-point of the upper limit.

Setting of lower limit： Keep the switch on “DOWN” position, motor gives out quick short alarm “Di Di,Di”. After 2 seconds, the shade continuously rolling down. When the shade is close to the end-point of the lower limit, keep switch on “STOP” state, At that time, press “DOWN” a time and then press “STOP” a time, the shade will move towards lower position a little. Repeat the above operation again and again until the shade reaches the end-point of the lower limit.

Confirm programming： Keep the switch on “UP” state, motor gives out quick short alarm “Di, Di ,Di” means the above limit settings are effective.

Once I was happy the blind was working OK with the DPDT switch, it was time to remove that and wire in the Z-Wave Qubino DC Flush Shutter module in its place.

Here is the wiring diagram from the Qubino user manual.

I don't plan to wire in a wall switch however, instead I will be utilizing the existing wall switch for my curtain track connected to a Fibaro AC Roller Shutter module. I will just program the double click up and double click down triggers of the Fibaro module to control the Qubino module, this will be programmed in Vera / PLEG logic engine.

Here is a close up:

Positive / Negative wires from your power supply go to + / - on the Qubino module, I am just using a 12V 2A plugin power supply I had laying around the house from something else.

Q1 / Q2 go to the motors wires for up / down.

l1 / l2 go to your wall switch if you have one, and also you need another positive wire from the power supply to the common on the wall switch.

TS connects to the external temperature sensor if you have one.

Once the Qubino module is wired up you can then pair it to your Z-Wave controller hub in my case a Vera Plus.

The user manual for the Qubino DC Flush Shutter can be seen here.

Now we need to also calibrate the Qubino module. (Or do we?)

From the user manual:

13. Flush Shutter DC Calibration

Automatic calibration

Automatic calibration is a process during which the Flush Shutter DC learns the position of the limit switches.

Shutter positioning calibration

(par. 71 set to 0)

There are two options to calibrate the device:

• Calibration through main gateway (hub) UI

1) Include the device into the Z-wave network according to the instructions for inclusion.

2) Set the parameter 78 (Forced Flush Shutter DC calibration) value to 1.

3) Flush Shutter DC performs the calibration process, completing full cycle - up, down and up again.

4) Set the parameter 78 (Forced Flush Shutter DC calibration) value to 0.

• Calibration through the inputs I1 and I2

1) Include the device into the wireless network, according to the instructions for inclusion.

2) Quick press the switch/push-button connected to I1 input and wait until the Shutter DC reaches the upper limit switch.

3) Quick press the switch/push-button connected to I2 input and wait until the Shutter DC reaches the lower limit switch.

4) Quick press the switch/push-button connected to I1 input and wait until the Shutter DC reaches the upper limit switch.

As I don't have a switch connected to the Qubino module, I used the "Calibration through main gateway" option.

Setting parameter 78 to 1 byte dec with a value of 1. The blind then lowered and raised to do the calibration process, however there was a big problem, the calibration process didn't move the blind to the fully down and fully up limits of the motor. It only moved the blind up and down just a little bit.

I was unable to figure out why and in the end the trick to get it working, was to unpair the Qubino module from Vera and start over and pair it again.

However this time I did not set any calibration parameters on the Qubino module. As is, paired to the Vera, I was able to move the blind fully up and down via the Vera controller and it was then working OK. So in my case, in the end I did NOT use any calibration parameters on the Qubino DC Flush Shutter module.

Here are some photos of the brackets and the Qubino module.

Fitting the brackets up in to the window reveal was easier than I expected, I didn't hit the concrete lintel and was able just to use regular rawl plugs and long screws and the brackets were secure enough.

In the final part we will be looking at the blind in operation.

Part five here.

Zebra roller blinds with DC 12V Motor and Qubino Z-Wave / Vera controller hub - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 13:04:00 +0000

Part 1 can be seen here and Part 2 here.

Zebra Roller Blind unboxing.

I was keen to see which motor was actual in the blinds as I hadn't managed to obtain that information from the seller on Alixpress. I had just specified I needed a standard 12V DC roller tube motor with no inbuilt RF radio.

So I took the motor out of the roller blind tube to take a look at it. The motor is a Bofu ES2512-1.5/28.

Its a brand I've not heard of before but appears to be the same brand of motors sold on Amazon by "Rollerhouse".

The motor is smaller in size than I was expecting so hope its going to be powerful enough for my size of blind.

There are no mechanical limit screw holes like there are on my AC Dooya tubular motors. However the top and bottom limits can be set on the motor by pressing the button and following the directions in the supplied instructions, which you can see below.

I didn't take a photo of it but the inside of the tube has a notch, similar to this image I found on Google.

This is the other end of the motor that slides in to the tube and has to be aligned over the notch in the tube.

Enclosed Instructions:

This is the other end of the tube from the motor.

I pulled out the end to take a look at it.

There are three supplied brackets which clip in to the header rail like this.

These brackets will have to be screwed up in to the Windows lintel inside the reveal, which I hope isn't going to be a major hassle but might be if its solid concrete and not much gap between it and the plaster work for any fixings.

In Part 4 I will be fitting the blind and taking a closer look at it as I haven't been able to pull out much of the fabric yet with the motor installed and not powered up etc.

Part 4 here.

Zebra roller blinds with DC 12V Motor and Qubino Z-Wave / Vera controller hub - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 12:32:00 +0000

Part 1 can be seen here.

Installation of the Qubino Flush Shutter DC module.

The whole reason I opted for the Qubino DC module is because I couldn't be bothered chasing out the walls for mains AC cables that would be needed for a Fibaro Roller Shutter module.

So I just installed a deep surface mount back box in the top corner of the window reveal and ran some low voltage bell cable down to a nearby plug socket area.

The Qubino module will sit inside the back box and a blanking cover plate will hide it.

Optional Temperature Sensor Probe.

An optional temperature sensor probe can be purchased and connected to the Qubino Flush Shutter DC module. You can purchase these from Vesternet here for £12.56.

However that seemed a bit pricey for what is just a DS18B20 Digital Temp Probe. So I made my own for about £4.

I already had a spare one in a draw that I previously purchased from Aliexpress here for about £2 shipped.

I just needed to find a suitable connector to be able to connect it to the Qubino module.

The correct connector needed is a Micro JST 1.25mm Connector Plug and I found one on eBay for £2.

I then just soldered the two together using this diagram.

JST Connector - Yellow -> Temp Probe - Black (GND)

JST Connector - Black -> Temp Probe - Yellow (DQ)

JST Connector Red -> Temp Probe - Red (VDD)

I then drilled a hole through the wall out from the back of the surface mount back box, so I could have this as an outdoor temperature probe.

Including the Qubino Flush Shutter DC module in to the Z-Wave Vera controller hub.

The temperature sensor probe should be connected to the Qubino module before you pair the module to your Z-Wave controller hub.

I paired the Qubino module to my VeraPlus Z-Wave controller hub, however I ended up with four devices rather than just the two that I was expecting to see.

It added a parent device which I named “Lounge Blind” and assigned it to my Lounge Room.

It also added a child device for the Temperature Sensor, which appeared to be working and changing values.

However its also added two additional child devices which I was not expecting.

Its added another child device for “Window Covering”.

If I press the open or close buttons on this “Window Covering” child device, then the parent “Lounge Blind” device is also changed to open or closed.

And another child device which I have no idea what it is.

Seems these two extra devices are phantom or ghost devices, so I just hid them from the Vera UI7 web GUI. by adding two lines of code to the Startup LUA.

Where number 502 and 503 are the device ID numbers of the child devices you want to be hidden.

luup.attr_set("invisible","1",502)

luup.attr_set("invisible","1",503)

In Part 3 we will have a look at the Zebra blind that has arrived from China.

Part 3 here.

Zebra roller blinds with DC 12V Motor and Qubino Z-Wave / Vera controller hub - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 13:15:00 +0000

I've been looking for some blinds for my living room window. I already have motorised Z-Wave black out curtains fitted, however I wanted some light coloured blinds sat behind the curtains so I could let light in but still have some privacy.

Ideally I probably would have gone for wooden Venetian blinds, however there are limited cheaper options in the EU to control the tilt opening and closing on those kinds of blinds, Somfy do them but not so cheap.

The best DIY solution I have seen is the Z-Wave iBlinds Kit which is a Z-Wave enabled motor that sits directly hidden away in the header rail of the Venetian blinds, however these are only currently available for the US market, although I have been told by iBlinds that they are planning to release an EU model at some point.

The other option is them crappy looking chain cord pulley motors that look unreliable. Although I have a friend who rates the Brunt Blind Engine ones.

I then saw blinds called Zebra blinds, which is basically a roller blind, however they have a sheer part to the dual layer fabric, so you can either have them in full privacy or adjust them to allow in some light. Watch this random Youtube video better than me trying to explain what they are.

Roller blinds are much easier to integrate in to a Z-Wave network as there are plenty of roller shutter modules out there you can use. I previously used a 240V mains voltage roller tube motor and a Fibaro Roller Shutter module for the blinds in my kitchen.

Looking on Aliexpress however, most motorised Zebra blinds for sale were either battery operated motors which I didn't want, or mains voltage motors, I wanted to avoid having to chase mains electric cables in to the walls again as I have just painted all of my lounge room, so I was looking for a low voltage 12V DC motor that could be used with a thin surface mounted cable.

Most of the motors being sold as a complete Zebra blind kit also came with an RF 433Mhz remote control. I believe you cannot use an RF motor and then attached a Z-Wave roller shutter to it, as the motor is still expecting the signal to come from the RF remote control. My same friend also tried a Qubino Flush Shutter DC module with SmartThings and an RF 433Mhz tube motor he bought from Amazon, however he said it did not work for this reason,

So I needed a 12V DC standard motor with no remote and no RF 433Mhz as I planned on using a Z-Wave Qubino Flush Shutter DC module.

So I contacted my usual supplier on Aliexpress Scott from Friend Group their store has been renamed to Runxin Blinds Store however its the same people.

I gave Scott my requirements and measurements and he said he could supply me a standard 12V DC motor in a 38mm diameter tube.

To pick a fabric colour I was given this link here. I've picked colour B121 which looks to be a light cream colour I hope !

Other colours available:

These were the measurements of my Windows internal recess, which I sent to Scott. For my window size the cost was $135 USD.

The construction of the Zebra blinds, they also call them Rainbow blinds on the Aliexpress store, they have a metal cassette style header concealing the roller blind itself and a metal bottom bar.

Here is the proposed wiring diagram for the Qubino Flush Shutter DC module and the blinds 12v DC motor.

I don't plan to install and connect a physical switch with the Qubino module. I do have an existing switch near to this window connected to a Fibaro Roller Shutter module for my Z-Wave curtain track.

I figured I could just program the Fibaro Roller Shutter module for double clicks up and double clicks down on its wall switch to then control the Zebra blinds / Qubino module. This will save me the hassle of wiring in another switch and cabling in to that wall again.

I've only just ordered my motorised Zebra blind kit, so it will take some time to arrive from China, I have already got the Qubino Flush Shutter DC module here. In part two it will be the unboxing.

Part 2 here.

Ezviz DB1 Video Doorbell with Z-Wave Vera Controller and Imperihome app

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 16:53:00 +0000

I recently purchased an Ezviz DB1 video doorbell. Ezviz is made by Hikvision a leading global CCTV manufacturer.

Main reason I purchased the DB1 was the price at £120 and the fact that is has a local SD Memory card slot for cards up to 128GB, so I wont be paying a monthly subscription. You can also connect the DB1 to CCTV NVR's like Hikvision's own NVRs or to a software system like Blue Iris as the doorbell has a RTSP video stream.
Also you can subscribe to the Ezviz cloud storage package if you wish as well, so plenty of options there.

I bought a Kingston 128GB SD card for about £14 from Mymemory.co.uk as I don't currently have an NVR. I don't recommend you ever by SD cards from Ebay or Amazon as in my personal experience they are all fake cards that gave me problems.

I purchased the DB1 doorbell and a mechanical chime and doorbell transformer kit from a company called Connectec.uk as they even sold the bell cable and clips, everything I need to install the doorbell.

My existing doorbell chime was just battery operated, so I had to do a little bit of wiring in the house to replace it with the new chime and get the 12V DC cable in to my porch and the area where the chime is located.

Nothing too difficult, I just connected a plug on to the doorbell transformer for the 240V AC in and a 12V DC bell wire going out to the chime / video doorbell.

This is the standard wiring diagram without any Z-Wave stuff added yet.

I also watched this Youtube video here which was helpful with the wiring and setup.

The chime and transformer kit I bought from the Connectec website, obviously they don't advertise the make and models numbers as they don't want you to source it from else where.

I had read on the Ezviz website on this page here that only certain chimes were compatible, so I was a little cautious and decided to buy the whole kit from Connectec as they had tested their particular chime and doorbell transformer with the Ezviz DB1 and if I had any problems then I would have one supplier to deal with etc.

For the record the doorbell chime is a Eterna Model number DC1WH and the doorbell transformer is also an Eterna model number BT4812.

Here are the instructions / wiring diagram that came with the Eterna chime, I ignored them! and just followed the wiring diagram for the DB1 video doorbell as it is different.

Also the chime does say max 8V DC which was a little concerning as I am running the DB1 video doorbell on 12V DC, however its all working fine and this is what Connectec and also Dynamic-cctv.com recommend as they also sell the same DB1 kit.

First I tested everything on my living room floor wiring everything up as per the DB1 video doorbell wiring diagram.

In the Ezviz mobile app you have to specify in the settings that you are using the DB1 with a mechanical chime, if you don't set that the chime won't work and make a sound.

Once I was happy I had it wired up correctly as per the standard DB1 wiring diagram I then investigated how to add Z-Wave and integrate the DB1 video doorbell in to my Z-Wave network and my Vera Plus controller hub.

The solenoid on the chime works across terminals numbered 2 and 3.

I used a battery operated Everspring SM103 Z-Wave door / window contact sensor as it also has a handy dry contact input on it.

I also need to add a 12V DC mini coil relay, I used this one here.

G5V-1 12DC - Signal Relay, 12 VDC, SPDT, 1 A, G5V-1 Series, Through Hole, Non Latching.

Here is the pin out diagram. Pins 2 & 9 on the coil relay (no polarity) connect to terminals 2 & 3 on the chime.

Then pins 1 & 5 on the coil relay (no polarity) connect to the dry contact inputs on the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor.

My wiring diagram for the Z-Wave integration:

When the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor is included on your Z-Wave controller in my case my Vera Plus, when the DB1 doorbell is not pressed the sensor should be not tripped.

And when the DB1 doorbell is pressed then the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor should change to a tripped state and then shortly after return back to a none tripped state.

You can then use that as a trigger on your Z-Wave controller hub to carry out whatever automations you wish.

I have the DB1 doorbell camera automatically come up on my wall mounted Imperhome Android tablets, make TTS announcements to Alexa and flash some lights etc.

Note for Vera and TTS announcements to Alexa I am using this new plug-in here.

Now the DB1 doorbell camera is decent for the money, however it has one major drawback there are no accessible mjpg and jpg snapshot streams only RTSP video stream.

Vera doesn't support RTSP cameras and the Imperihome control app only supports RTSP streams with no authentication. However I was unable to even get any IP camera into Imperihome without RTSP authentication. It just doesn't seem to work.

So I had a problem how to get a mjpg and jpg snapshot URL from the DB1 camera ?

I tried two options.

1. TinyCam Pro Android app running on one of my wall mounted tablets, TinyCam Pro has an inbuilt Web Server function. But I found it a little temperamental and wasn't that happy with it.

2. Blue Iris software. I installed a copy on to my WHS Windows file server and added the DB1 camera using its native RTSP stream. I found the resulting Blue Iris mjpg and jpg snapshot streams to be a bit more stable so currently I am sticking with it.

In either software you first add the DB1 doorbell camera in to it using its RTSP stream URL

Native RTSP video streams on the DB1 doorbell camera, some examples.

Where IP 192.168.1.101 is the IP address of the Ezviz DB1 doorbell camera.

Main

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/user=admin_password=****_channel=0_stream=0.sdp

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/Streaming/Channels/101

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/ch1/main/av_stream

Sub

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/Streaming/Channels/102

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/ch1/sub/av_stream

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/h264_stream

Then you should be able to access the mjpg and jpg snapshot URLs.

Some TinyCam Pro Web Server example URL's for mjpg and jpg snapshot.

Where IP address 192.168.1.102 is the IP address of the Android tablet / device running the TinyCam Pro app. The port number you can change and specify what you want it to be.

The camera ID is specific to each IP camera in the TinyCam Pro app, sorry I can't recall now where I found the camera IDs.

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&resolution=640x480

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&resolution=640x480

TinyCam User and password in URL

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&user=admin&pwd=****

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&user=admin&pwd=****

Blue Iris Web Server example URL's for mjpg and jpg snapshot.

Where IP address 192.168.0.103 is the PC where you have Blue Iris installed and the port number 8081 is the port number you specified in the Blue Iris web server settings. Cam1 is the first camera added to Blue Iris, Cam2 is camera 2 etc.

http://192.168.1.103:8081/image/Cam1?user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/mjpg/Cam1/video.mjpg?user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/image/Cam1?h=480&w=640&user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/mjpg/Cam1/video.mjpg?h=480&w=640&user=admin&pw=****

Another advantage of using the Blue Iris software on my Windows file server, is that I can now record motion detection events on to the file server itself, so I now have video clips on there as well as on the local SD memory card in the DB1.

Also Blue Iris can send out HTTP commands when motion detection is triggered and when motion detection trigger is reset.

I created a Virtual Motion Sensor device in Vera, instructions here.

And then using these two HTTP JSON commands in Blue Iris to set if the virtual motion sensor device in Vera should be tripped or not?

IP 192.168.1.100 is the IP address of Vera and DeviceNum 403 should be the device number of your virtual motion sensor device in Vera.

Tripped Command:

192.168.1.100/port_3480/data_request?id=lu_variableset&DeviceNum=403&serviceId=urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1&Variable=Tripped&Value=1

NOT Tripped Command:

192.168.1.100/port_3480/data_request?id=lu_variableset&DeviceNum=403&serviceId=urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1&Variable=Tripped&Value=0

Here are some screen shots of the Imperihome Android app.

Ezviz DB1 Doorbell added in to Imperihome app using their IP camera object and the mjpg / jpg streams from Blue Iris.

And here is the Vera virtual motion sensor device added in to the Imperihome control app.

I've also integrated the DB1 camera using a mixture of the native DB1 RTSP video stream and also using the Blue Iris mjpg and jpg snapshot URLs in to Kodi media center using the Security Cam Overlay add-on and in to my Fire TV stick using a free IP camera app I found in their app store.

One other current issue I have is that I cannot stream the DB1 camera image to my ChromeCast video devices connected to my TV sets. I believe this should work and I have added my Ezviz account in to the Google Home app and the Doorbell device is showing up OK in the Home app, but when I ask the Google Home Mini to "Show doorbell" it says OK and looks like its about to start playing on the TV / ChromeCast but I just get a black screen and a progress bar at the bottom and a spinning circle, the camera image never loads.

I had initially connected the DB1 to my 5GHZ WIFI network and then I reset it and switched it on to the 2.4GHZ WIFI network instead, but its the same problem on both. I have a good solid WIFI signal on my mobile phone outside where the doorbell is located, so I am not sure what this problem is. I have emailed Ezviz UK support for comment.

Summary

Overall I am so far pleased with my purchase of the Ezviz DB1 doorbell the image quality at day and night time is good and the motion detection works well as does the phone calls to the Ezviz app on my mobile phone when someone presses the doorbell, I can talk to them if I am in the house or out and about. I have also shared the DB1 device in the Ezviz app, so my daughter also has the Ezviz app on her mobile phone and access to the video doorbell functions.

Only downside I can see to the DB1 is no native mjpg or jpg snapshot support and no Onvif support.

But the big upside is a local SD memory card slot and no monthly subscriptions for cloud storage if you don't want.

Also the DB1 comes with three different coloured face places, black, white and brown. I used the black one to make it stand out a bit more against the white door frame, there is also a blue circle that lights up around the doorbell button.

UPDATE

EZVIZ support suggested the following and I can now stream the DB1 camera image on my TV / Chromecast.

"For the streaming issue, please go to the Live view page on EZVIZ APP to reduce the resolution to Hi-Def then try it again. During this setup, it would be better if you could use the same wifi frequency."

My DB1 is still configured for the 2.4ghz WiFi and my Chromecast is on 5ghz WiFi but it seems to stream now anyway with the lower video resolution.

Z-Wave roller blinds with Dooya motor, Vera controller and Fibaro shutter module - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 12:44:00 +0000

Welcome to part four of my roller blind installation, you can see part one here part two here and part three here.

We've now added a pelmet made out of MDF wood to cover the roller blind tube and brackets. Makes everything look much neater, painted it the same colour as the walls.

Video of the roller blind in operation with Google Home voice commands.

Vera Z-Wave controller UI7 web GUI and the new blind controls.

Imperihome mobile app for Android and the new blind controls.

I've set the blinds in Vera to automatically close when entering in to either Night or Away modes. As yet I've not created a schedule to automatically open the blind in the morning but you could easily do that also.

Well that's it for this project, I am currently trying to source curtain track motors with inbuilt Z-Wave radio so perhaps next time I can cover those, if I manage to get some. Or the other thing I'd like to do is a low voltage easy plug in DC 12V / 24V tube motor in another smaller roller blind, for sun screen behind my curtains in the lounge, using a Qubino DC Flush Shutter module.

Z-Wave roller blinds with Dooya motor, Vera controller and Fibaro shutter module - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 17:51:00 +0000

Welcome to part three of my roller blind installation, you can see part one here and part two here.

Today we mounted the roller blind, I still have some touching up to do on the wall and we plan to install a pelmet made of wood, across the top to hide the whole tube / roll. I'll probably paint this pelmet the same colour as the walls.

Here you can see some photos of the ends of the roller blind.

There is no channel in the tube, inside the tube is all smooth to the touch, so the fabric must be stuck on to the tube, rather than the fabric being inserted in to a channel or groove to secure it.

I recommend you glue the white cap with the pin in to the tube, because when the blind was in operation the white cap wobbled its way out of the tube, as it wasn't a really tight fit.

As we'd already fitted the blind up and didn't want to take it down again and disturb the fixing screws in the wall, we just used a plastic spacer we made and inserted it against the bracket and the white cap to stop the cap wobbling out of the tube, seems to work well now with no issues.

Here you can see the motor end of the blind, the two screws are for the mechanical limits. You get a supplied green plastic tool to adjust these. I connected the motor to the mains power and to the wall switch without connecting the Fibaro shutter module first, so I could set the mechanical limits of the motor for upper top position and for lowest down position.

Test fitting the bracket.

We didn't want to drill up in to the concrete lintel, so instead we mounted the brackets to the sides of the walls inside the window reveal. This meant we had to use plastic blocks behind the bracket to space it out a bit from the wall.

We also moved the box for the module and cable connectors up, so it will be hidden behind the blind / pelmet.

Temporary wiring without the Fibaro shutter module to test the motor and setup the mechanical limits on the motor.

Now wired with the Fibaro shutter module. Hole in the wall where the box was previously located filled in.

Now with the module and cables / connectors pushed back in to the box and the cover screwed on. I used a 47mm deep box and it was only just big enough to fit everything inside of it. The wall still needs fixing with filler and paint.

Roller blind fitted into the window reveal.

The blind can be operated with the wall switch. Before I fitted the Fibaro module you had to press and then hold the switch up or down whilst the blind went up or down. If you let go the motor stopped.

After fitting the Fibaro module and running the calibration routine on the module, now you can just press down and release and the blind comes all the way down. Or you can press up and release and the blind goes all the way back to the top. Whilst the blind is moving if you press up or down again the blind will stop in that position.

We went for a sun screen fabric in grey colour, you can also get full black out fabric from the supplier.

When dark outside the sun screen fabric looks like this. If you want full block you'll need to order the black out fabric.

In the next part I will do a video of the blind in operation and go over some of the software Vera and Imperihome app.

Part 4 here.

Z-Wave roller blinds with Dooya motor, Vera controller and Fibaro shutter module - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 14:06:00 +0000

In part one here I discussed purchasing a motorised roller blind kit for my kitchen patio window. I will be integrating the motor in to my Home Automation controller (Vera) by using a Z-Wave Fibaro roller shutter module.

As its an AC mains powered motor, I had to do some preparation work for the installation of the electric cables and for the wall switch.

Luckily I already had a nearby switch fuse spur, so I decided to take the feed from there.

I wanted to mount the manual wall switch on the wall and also needed to run power up to the top of the window reveal where the roller blind / motor will be.

I had to create a channel in the plaster and install a metal back box. I just took my time and used a stanley knife and a hammer and chisel, to try and keep the dust down, although it was still quite a messy job. I removed the plaster back down to the block work.

I measured out the location of the wall switch first and then drew on the wall where I was to cut and knock out the plaster.

I then proceeded to chase out the wall.

When it came to the back box for the wall switch, my original plan was to fit the Fibaro roller shutter module behind the wall switch, so I put in a deeper 35mm metal back box.

However later I decided I might not have enough room behind the wall switch for all the cabling and connectors, 35mm was the max depth of back box I could fit in to the block work, so opted for an additional surface mount box in the window reveal instead to house the module and connectors.

Here you can see the channel inside the window reveal heading up to the motors location. I drilled two holes through the corner of the wall deeper than 50mm to feed the electric cables through.

I fitted the electric cable and clipped it to the block work and then filled in the channel and installed the metal back box for the switch.

I using a Scolmore Minigrid 3 position retractive wall switch and some Wago connectors for the wiring.

Below you can see the deeper 47mm surface mount box, I now plan to put the roller shutter module into with the wires and connectors.

Also you can see the electric cables now, the mains feed has been fed up from under the floor, up the channel on the wall, through the metal back box and up to the surface mount box, to feed the power to the module and motor. The second cable only goes from the surface mount box to the metal back box for the wall switch connections.

I'm not sure about the final position of the surface mount box, it may need to be moved higher up but I wanted to leave enough room to fit the roller blind.

Final fine filler and sanding to make the walls good again.

And all finished and painted and looking good again.

The actual roller blind kit arrived yesterday. However no mounting brackets could not be found. I contacted the seller and he said the brackets are sent separately in another box, so I am still waiting for those to turn up.

I think I got lucky with FedEx as I didn't have to pay any import tax at the door and just signed for it. So unless they try and invoice me later for import tax, I've not paid any.

And here is the wiring diagram I will be working with.

Well that's it for part two. In part three I will have more photos of the roller blind kit and maybe photos of it installed and a video of it working.

Z-Wave roller blinds with Dooya motor, Vera controller and Fibaro shutter module - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 20:25:00 +0000

I recently purchased a motorised roller blind kit for my patio window, after looking at various motors, I decided to purchase the Dooya DM35S tubular motor, S being Standard with no inbuilt RF Radio receiver or remote control, as I plan to use a Fibaro Roller Shutter Z-Wave module.

I have used Dooya DT52S curtain rail motors before see here. I contacted several suppliers on Aliexpress and got some prices in the end I purchased the kit from Scott at Friend Industry Holding Co., Ltd who I have used before.

Scott is extremely helpful with good communication and I could recommend him highly. If you discuss your requirements with Scott he will be able to sort everything out for you. I don't get any commission or anything, but if you do make a purchase be sure to mention you were referred by The Media Center Blog.

Motor details:

1. Motor: DM35S-10/17 is used, strong power and low noise

a. Mechanic limit switch

b. Dot-move & light-adjust functions

c. AC230V and AC120V for choice

My window recess width was 233 CM and the drop was 203 CM. I just gave Scott these measurements and he works out how long the tube should be and for the mounting brackets to fit etc. I wanted the motor on the left hand side and for the blinds to be mounted inside the window recess.

I purchased a full kit including the fabric, which will save me trying to source fabric locally. This includes everything you need, the motor, 50mm diameter tube, any crowns and adaptors and the mounting brackets. You can see one of Scott's listings here on Aliexpress, which shows the fabrics available, my wife choose a dark grey colour. For our size of blind, prices ranged from £165.00 to £178.00, also expect to pay some import taxes at your end.

As the motor is a AC230V motor, I will have to do some work on the wall to mount a wall switch and run an electric cable from a nearby fused spur, up to the wall switch and also connect the cable from the motor. I will just use a Scolmore Minigrid (MD075WH) 3 position retractive switch, same switch I always use for Fibaro shutter modules or the Fibaro Dimmer 2 modules, see here. These Scolmore switches and plates can be purchased from most online electrical wholesalers.

The following pictures are from the listing online, in part two I will take some un-boxing photos of the product, when it arrives !

Dooya DM35S Motor, mounting brackets, 50mm diameter tube and the bottom tension bar.

The Fibaro Roller Shutter module is a module I have used before with my Vera Z-wave home automation controller for curtain rails and I've not had any issues with them.

"The radio-controlled Roller Shutter 2 works with motorized roller blinds, venetian blinds, awnings and gates. The Roller Shutter 2 is powered by a single-phase AC and provides precise positioning of blinds, awnings or gates so they can be set to the position you choose. The module is also equipped with a power metering feature when used with a FIBARO Home Center."

In part two here when my kits does arrive, I will take some un-boxing photos.

Z-Wave RFID Keypad for alarm system

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 14:46:00 +0000

I recently purchase a RFID keypad off Amazon and I also bought two new Z-Wave Sensative Strips Door and Window sensors and wanted to create a basic burglar alarm system based on Z-Wave and the Vera home automation controlller.

UHPPOTE 125KHz Single Door Proximity RFID Card Access Control Keypad Include EM4100 ID Keyfobs

Sensative Strips – Z-Wave Door and Window Sensors

The Sensative Strips claim they have a 10 year battery life time and they are super slim when compared to more traditional Z-Wave door and window sensors.

The round magnet is not used in the final installation but is used to wakeup the device during setup. The other oblong shaped magnet you can see is the one that is installed on the door or window frame along with the strip. When the contacts are broken the sensor is tripped etc.

Here you can see the rear of the strip.

Here is the purchased RFID keypad, hooked up to a 12V power supply for testing. The first thing I did was follow the instructions that came with the keypad to reset the default passcodes and I then assigned / setup four of the supplied keyfobs, it comes with ten fobs in total.

The instructions that come with this RFID keypad and straight forward and fairly easy to follow. There is a constantly flashing red LED light on the front of the keypad when it is powered up, when an assigned keyfob is held up to the keypad or the correct passcode is entered, the light goes green, “Access Granted”. When an unassigned keyfob or incorrect passcode is entered the light goes solid red and the keypad bleeps three times, “Access Denied”.

I bought a power supply off eBay to power the RFID keypad and also to power the Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor which is needed to make the RFID keypad visable and work with the Z-Wave network, more about that later.

Universal 12V 2A Switch Power Supply Source Driver Adapter For Led Strip Light

Specifications:
Input Voltage: 100~240V AC
Output Voltage: 12V
Output Current: 2A

So as I mentioned you also need a Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor, this is used to connect the RFID keypad to the Z-Wave network / controller.

The RFID keypad has two wiring connectors. JP1 and JP2.

Here are the wires on the Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor.

The following is the correct wiring.

Wiring up the power for the keypad and the binary sensor:

KEYPAD	Fibaro Binary Sensor	12v Power Supply
JP1 12V (Red wire)	P (Red wire)	V+
JP1 GND (Black wire)	GND (Blue wire)	V-

Wiring for the keypad / binary sensor functions:

I connected the grey and the blue wires off the keypad to the blue wire on the binary sensor (The second GND wire) which is the blue wire below the ANT one in the diagram above.

KEYPAD	Fibaro Binary Sensor
JP1 BELL (Grey wire)	Second GND (Blue wire)
JP2 COM (Blue wire)

Here you just connect the white wire and the yellow wire together.

KEYPAD	Fibaro Binary Sensor
JP1 BELL (White wire)	IN1 (Yellow wire)

Here you just connect the brown and green wires together.

KEYPAD	Fibaro Binary Sensor
JP2 NC (Brown wire)	IN2 (Green wire)

I just taped the correct wires up together as you can see in the below picture, you might be able to use a small connector block, but remember you need to squeeze the binary sensor and all this wiring in to the back of the RFID keypad when mounted on the wall.

I then included the Fibaro binary sensor in to the Vera controller and changed a parameter for the device and tested it was working but more on that later.

My RFID keypad was to be wall mounted in my little porch area, there is a stud parition wall and the other side of this is my living room. You can see in the next picture, I already had a switched fused spur socket at the bottom of this wall for my outside porch light. So to feed power to the 12V power supply, I took the Live, Neutral and Earth from the back of the fused spur and connected them up to the 12V power supplies AC inputs. Then the power supplies DC outputs (V+ and V-) then connect up to the keypad / binary sensor etc.

I hid the 12V power supply in the stud wall. I couldn’t be bothered to chase out the wall to hide the alarm cable I used to connect the DC from the power supply to the keypad / binary sensor, so I just surfaced mounted the alarm cable along the bottom of the wall and up.

Here you can see the area where the keypad was to be mounted, next to a Z-Wave light switch.

Here is the keypad fitted with the Fibaro binary sensor hidden inside the keypad. I used a bit of double sided sticky pad on the back of the small Fibaro binary sensor and stuck it to the circuit board of the keypad so the two would not be touching each other.

The bell button is pressed when leaving the house to arm the system and when returning home the RFID keyfobs are used or you can use your passcode. I had to cut out a bit of the keypads plastic casing to allow the cable to come in from the side.

Now the actual physical installation is finished I will show you some of the basic setup in the Vera Z-Wave controller. You need to incude your door / window sensors in Vera if they are not already. For the Sensative Strips I used the Vesternet guide here. One thing they don’t mention in the guide is that the Sensative strips by default will not appear in the Vera UI7 Dashboard –> My Modes –> Choose Sensors to arm area, so you can arm or disarm the door sensors with Vera UI7’s default house modes. To do this see this thread here.

You also need to include the Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor in to Vera if you haven’t already. I didn’t take a screen shot of how the universal sensor looks in Vera by default, but you end up with three new devices and I have renamed mine.

“Alarm Keypad” is the master device. “Alarm Keypad Away” and “Alarm Keypad Entry” are the IN1 and IN2 of the binary sensor, these are child devices.

We must make a parameter change for the IN1 device, to make it normally open rather than normally closed.

From the user manual:

Parameter No. 3 - Type of input no. 1:

Default value: 1 – INPUT_NC (Normal Close) Possible parameter settings:
0 – INPUT_NO (Normal Open)
1 – INPUT_NC (Normal Close)
2 – INPUT_MONOSTABLE
3 – INPUT_BISTABLE

So on the master device in my case its called “Alarm Keypad” go to the Device Options area and select the “Add Configuration Settings” button

Then enter Variable = 3. Data Size = 1 byte dec. Current Value = 0. Save the changes and let Vera reload.

When you press the bell button on the RFID keypad the “Alarm Keypad Away” device should go red and be tripped. When you swipe your keyfob or enter the correct passcode the “Alarm Keypad Entry” device should go red and be tripped. We can then use these new devices as triggers in our Vera scenes or PLEG logic to create whatever actions we want to happen for your alarm system.

The main thing you will need to setup is an entry timer delay, says 60 seconds to give you enough time to open the ARMED door and then to be able to swipe your keyfob to cancel the alarm siren from sounding. I wanted to do this in PLEG using the alarm example in the PLEG basics users guide, this uses state variables, however in the latest version of PLEG it seems state variables are broken and not working. So the only work around I could figure out for creating an alarm entry timer was to install the CountDown Timer plug-in for Vera and use the example found here.

In addition I have two native scenes in Vera called “Home” and “Away” I added triggers to these scenes using the new “Alarm Keypad Entry” and “Alarm Keypad Away” devices. I also added some lua code in to these scenes to also change Vera UI7’s default house modes.

Code to change Vera to Home mode:

luup.call_action("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1","SetHouseMode", {Mode = 1}, 0)

Code to change Vera to Away mode:

luup.call_action("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1","SetHouseMode", {Mode = 2}, 0)

I also have two futher native scenes in Vera, one called “Burglar Alarm” which is triggered when an armed door sensor is tripped, this is is the scene that starts the 60 second CountDown Timer, for your entry delay. The second scene is called “Burglar Alarm Delayed” its trigger is that the count down timer has completed (i.e. you have NOT deactivated your alarm) and this is the scene that would then sound the siren etc. But if you do within the 60 seconds swipe your keyfob this runs the “Home” Scene and this scene should cancel the count down timer etc therefore stopping the “Burglar Alarm Delayed” scene / siren from being triggered.

So now you can get creative, my alarm scenes also do the following for example. If the alarm is tripped and its night time, all the lights inside and outside of the house are turned on. The lounge curtains are opened and the LAPD flashing police lights are started on the LED strips lights behind my wall mounted TV, I am using a Fibaro RGBW module to control the LED lights in Vera. Also a TTS notification is sent to my mobile phone using Vera Alerts that the alarm has been activated.

When we are coming home and we swipe a keyfob to turn off the alarm, if its night time lights downstairs are automatically turned on for our entrance so we are not walking in to the house in the dark etc.

Conclusion

This is not a dedicated security alarm system, but if you don’t have such an alarm system installed and you want some basic protection on your door or windows and you already have a Z-Wave based home automation controller this could be a good fun project! Its also easy to use for the wife and kids leaving and entering the house, if they are the last ones leaving or the first entering the house.

If you wish to purchase any Z-Wave Euro devices at discounted prices then contact us via our website. www.asmarterhome.co.uk

Fibaro dimmer 2 installation Home Automation (Vera)

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 18:23:00 +0000

Today I installed a Fibaro Dimmer 2 module for my living room ceiling lights, so I took some photographs and thought I’d do a blog write up.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 is a small wireless Z-Wave module that is installed behind light switches to make them “smart”. We can then control the lights wirelessly in the home automation system.

This will enable us to control the lights via our smart phones and tablet devices using the ImperiHome mobile app. We can then also setup scenes and schedules to have the lights automatically come on and off at certain times if we wish, or to simulate house occupancy when we are away.

Another function with scenes for example, could be if a Z-Wave smoke or C02 sensor was triggered in the night we could have the scene automatically turn on the lights to aid our escape or another example might be if our burglar alarm scene was tripped in the night we could also automatically turn on the lights inside and outside of the house when this happens.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 user manual can be found here

Supported Loads

As a dimmer it operates under the following loads:
• 230V operated conventional incandescent and halogen light
sources
• 12V operated ELV halogen lamps and dimmable LED bulbs (with
electronic transformers)
• 12V operated MLV halogen lamps (with ferromagnetic
transformers)
• dimmable LED bulbs
• dimmable compact fluorescent CFL tube lamps
• supported dimmable light sources (power factor > 0.5) with
minimal power of 5VA using FIBARO Bypass 2 (depending on the
type of load)

Without dimming function it may work with:
• compact fluorescent CFL tube lamps with electronic ballast
• fluorescent tube lamps with electronic ballast
• LED bulbs (power factor > 0.7)
• supported light sources (power factor > 0.5) with minimal power
of 5VA using FIBARO Bypass 2 (depending on the type of load)

I am using a light fitting that has a 240v –> 12v transformer built in to it and I am using 4x new MR16 ECO low energy 14W halogen bulbs.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 has a minimum load of 50W. So my 4x 14W halogen bulbs are 56W total, which is OK as I am over the 50W minimum. However if the total of your bulbs wattage is less than 50W, perhaps you are using low wattage LED bulbs, then you will also need to also install a Dimmer Bypass 2 as well. I’d say its probably best to install the Bypass 2 device as a matter of course anyway.

“The Fibaro Dimmer Bypass 2 acts as an intelligent load in the lighting circuit and will help prevent the LEDs flickering at startup, low dim settings or when they should be Off. The dimmer bypass should be installed in one of the light fittings or in the wiring going to the light fitting, it must be connected between the light's Live and Neutral wires. You only need one Dimmer Bypass 2 for each circuit (not for each light bulb).”

There are several excellent application notes from the guys at Vesternet about the Dimmer 2:

Here is my ceiling lights in the living room.

I took it apart to take a closer look at the inbuilt 240v –> 12v transformer

I didn’t install a Bypass 2 as my bulb wattage total was over 50W and I don’t plan to use LED bulbs anytime soon.

For the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module to fit behind the light switches I recommend using 35mm back boxes. I also recommend replacing your existing light switches with 3-position momentary, or retractive, switches, these have 3 positions and are also known as an ON/OFF/ON switch.

Why use a 3-position Switch

This type of switch provides another way of controlling the Fibaro Dimmer 2 (and the light it is connected to):

Top ON
- Press once and release - turns light onto full brightness or previously set dim level
- Press and hold - increases brightness, releasing it keeps the lamp at that brightness
Bottom ON
- Press once and release - turns light off
- Press and hold - decreases brightness, releasing it keeps the lamp at that brightness

Installation and Configuration

The switch and Dimmer 2 module can be connected to the lighting system as follows.

Using a 3-Position Switch with a Fibaro Dimmer 2

I wired up my Fibaro Dimmer 2 as per the wiring diagram above. I am using the Scolmore Minigrid 3 position momentary switches.

Here you can see the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module

Here is my orginal bog standard dimmer switch minus the screws which I had already took out.

Most UK light switch back boxes are likely to be only 16mm deep, so this means you will need to replace the back box with a deeper 35mm one.

Or you can buy light switch spacers to bring out the light switch away from the wall and then give you more space behind, but I am not keen on that look.

Here is the existing dimmer switch wiring, the wiring in my house is quite old done when the house was built in the 70s. Most UK light switches are a 2 wire system with no neutral.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 module however supports both 2 wire and 3 wire systems.

I turned off the electric at the consumer unit for the lighting ring and disconnected the original dimmer switch.

I then proceeded to remove the 16mm back box, unfortunately I rushed this a little and some of the surrounding plaster work came away. I am sure if you take your time and are more careful than I was you can remove the back box with less damage.

I then proceeded with the hammer and chisel to knock out the block work deeper to fit the new 35mm metal back box.

Next I started connecting the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module and the new Minigrid switch.

Once wired in I applied my first lot of wall filler to fix the holes I had made.

I will later sand this down and apply a second lot of filler to make the job nice and neat and then use a little more white paint to finish.

You then need to pair the new Fibaro Dimmer 2 to the Vera home automation controller, I won’t cover how to do that here as its pretty standard stuff.

Once paired I then had 3 new devices in the Vera web GUI, two are child devices which I will hide from the GUI later as they are not needed. I renamed the main parent device to “Lounge Lights”.

When the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module is first powered on it runs an auto calibration routine to work out what type of lighting system / bulbs are in use and to automatically configure the minimum and maximum brightness levels.

In the device options I had to to set parameter 20 to 1 byte Dec with a value of 2. This tells the Dimmer 2 I am using the 3 position momentary type of light switch and sets it up in that mode etc.

Also you can add paramaters 1 and 2 to see the minimum and maximum brightness levels detected by the calibration routine. Mine were 1 and 82.

If you wish you could for example set parameter 2 to 70, so that when the light is on 100% in the GUI it is actually only using 70% brightness, this is another way to save yet more energy
consumption.

In the end after playing around with these parameters for a while I finally set parameter 2 to 80.

Here are the device controls in the Vera UI7 web GUI.

I then added the device in to the ImperiHome mobile application on all of our smart phones and tablet devices.

Summary

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 is a retro fit wireless Z-Wave lighting controller and is an essential part of any Z-Wave home automation installation. They make your home lighting “smart” and gives you the home owner added benefits of energy saving, security and control.

Fibaro RGBW mood lighting with Vera Home Automation

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 12:13:00 +0000

Recently I setup a Fibaro RGBW module with the existing LED strip lights behind my wall mounted TV in the living room. The Fibaro RGBW module is a wireless Z-Wave LED controller and works with Home Automation controllers such a Micasaverde Vera, Fibaro Home Center 2, Zipabox, Homeseer, Indigo, Domoticz, SmartThings.
“The Fibaro Z-Wave RGBW Controller enables you to bring multi-colour LEDs to life, allowing you to have just the right light effect for your mood.

The Fibaro RGBW Controller is a unique, advanced wireless 4-colour LED strips controller. As well as supporting the traditional RGB channels, it also supports the additional white light channel - allowing an infinite variety of pastel colours. The controller also provides dimming control of four LED channels and can take input from up to four analog sensors.”

Wiring was simple, the user manual can be found here.

I just used a small LED driver power supply behind the TV and connected a plug wire on to it, this then plugged in to the double mains socket behind the TV and the 12 volt +/- output from the power supply connects to the 12v / GND on the Fibaro RGBW module.

The 12v wire from the LED strip tape then also goes to the 12v on the Fibaro module and the colour channels go:

Red –> Red
Green –> Green
Blue –> Blue
White –> White

I am not actually using LED tape with a white channel so this remained unused. I am using bog standard RGB SMD 5050 300 LEDs Waterproof Strip, easily found on eBay, Amazon and Aliexpress etc.
Read my previous article about how I made up the LED loom for behind my wall mounted TV here.

Once the wiring was completed it was time to pair the new Fibaro RGBW module in to the Vera home automation controller. I am using a Vera Edge UI7 unit and below are the step by step instructions from Vera support on how you should pair the module.

In order to include your device on Vera , please try to follow the standard steps below:
- Bring your device within 3 feet from your Vera Controller.

- Afterwards access your Vera Web Interface ( Dashboard ), click on Devices > Add Device > Other Device > Other ZWave device, click on the step 3 ( in the right side of the page ) then click on Retry button.

-Your unit will be into exclusion mode, in the status bar you should see the this message: “Add/Remove : Remove devices now…”, after then follow the steps on your device for exclusion process according the owner guide.

-Then automatically the status bar should be: “Add/Remove : Add new devices now…” if not so, click on “Try adding it again” to put your unit into inclusion mode, the status bar should be changed into: “Add/Remove : Add new devices now…” and then follow the steps on your device for inclusion process according the owner guide.

Then give a name to your device and click on the Finish button.

Where they say “follow the steps on your device for inclusion process according the owner guide” you just press the B button on the Fibaro RGBW module quickly 3 times.
The new device(s) are then added in to the Vera controller web GUI and you end up with 6 new devices. Unfortunately I forgot to take some screen shots of the devices before I renamed them and moved them in to the lounge room, but basically you get the main parent device a child device which is used as a dim all channels function and then a device for each of the colour channels RGBW.

You now need to rename these devices so they make more sense, to do this I moved all the dimmer sliders down from 100% to 0% then one by one on the child devices that are for the colour channels, move the slider up to 100% and watched the LED lights to see what colour they went? If Red for example rename that device “RGBW – Red Channel” or if the lights went Green, name it “RGBW – Green Channel” etc.

This is how the renamed devices look like in Vera UI7 on my system. RGBW Dimmer is the child device of the parent device and is the dim all functionality.

I named the parent device RGB Controlller.

Tip:-

Decide if you want to actually hide the individual colour channel child devices from the Vera web GUI? I haven't done this yet, but I will probably hide all of the individual colour channel child devices and just keep the main parent device for the Fibaro RGBW Controller, the child device for the Dim all functionality and the device for the RGB Controller Plug-in, more on that later.

Startup Lua example:

luup.attr_set("invisible","1",134) 134 is the device ID you want to hide etc.

End of Tip

Now by default its seems that you won’t see that colour picker box in the screen shot above and it will be missing. This is a newish native feature of Vera UI7 and it needs to be enabled by making a few changes to the main parent device.
Click on the arrow of the parent device and go to Advanced.

In the device_file field and in the device_json field which can be found further down the page you need to replace the following text:

In the device_flle field change -
D_DimmableLight1.xml to D_DimmableRGBLight2.xml

In the device_json field change -
D_DimmableLight1.json to D_DimmableRGBLight2.json

So those fields should now look like this:

Then go to the Commands tab and press the Configure node right now button.

After this you should now have the native Vera RGB support and be able to see the colour picker box on the parent device. Pick a colour and then click the Choose button and the LEDs should change to that colour you just selected.

You can also use this colour picker box in scenes, so you could have a scene run and select a particular colour to then be displayed.

Congratulations you have now setup the native Vera RGB support for your Fibaro RGBW module, however there is more, as always 3rd party developers seem to do things better and there is a plug-in for Vera called “RGB Controller” by installing this plug-in we can gain even more functionality such as a colour wheel picker and support for the Fibaro RGBW modules inbuilt aimations / programs more on that later.

In the Vera UI7 web GUI go to APPS –> INSTALL APPS and search for “RGB Controller”

Now I already have the plug-in installed but you would select to install the plug-in from this area etc.

Once the plug-in has been installed you should see a new device called “RGB Controller” I believe it was called. I renamed this plug-in device to “RGBW - Colour Wheel”

Now you need to link the new RGB Controller plug-in device to the actual Fibaro RGBW Controller parent device. So you need to know what is the device ID number of the Fibaro RGBW Controller parent device? In my case its #128

Keep this number in mind and now open up the new RGB Controller plug-in device and go to the Settings tab. Under Device type select the “Fibaro RGBW Controller” and press Save.

Now for some reson the second drop down box called “Controlled Device” didn’t seem to work for me and was empty. so instead go to the Control tab – Advanced – Variables and scroll down to the field called Deviceid and enter the device ID number of the parent Fibaro RGBW Controller device, in my case #128

This should then have setup and configured the RGB Controller plug-in deivce to be able to control the Fibaro RGBW Controller parent device etc.

Now this is where the fun stuff starts !
You can now go to the Colour Wheel tab and you select a colour first on the wheel / circle, then in the square box in the middle, you select a shade of that colour and the LED lights will then change to that colour.

If you are using the ImperiHome mobile app for Vera you will be pleased to know that this colour wheel functionality is then also avaiable in the app.

The Fibaro RGBW module has 5 predefined animations or programs they are called:

Fireplace
Storm
Rainbow
Aurora
LAPD

These are animations for example the Aurora animation slowly fades through the colours and the LAPD animation looks like police lights flashing which I have now used in my burglar alarm scene.

In order to utilise these inbuilt animations, I created 5 new scenes in Vera with a single line of LUA code in each to start each of the ainmations. The deviceid you can see in the code below of 139 should be the device ID of your “RGB Controller” plug-in device what ever device ID number has been assigned to it.

RGBW - Fireplace
luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="6" },139)

RGBW - Storm

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="7" },139)

RGBW - Rainbow

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="8" },139)

RGBW - Aurora

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="9" },139)

RGBW - LAPD

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="10" },139)

I then created a sixth scene to stop the animations.

RGBW - Animation Off
luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:RGBController1","StartAnimationProgram",{ programId="0" },139)
Here you can see my new scenes in the Vera UI7 web GUI

Here are some older photos of the LED mood lighting behind my wall mounted TV

Final notes:

In the Fibaro RGBW modules user manual there are many configuration parameters that can be set and configured. However for my working setup here I did NOT add or configure any device parameters. It seems I just didn’t need to do any of that.

The Fibaro RGBW module essensitally replaces the existing LED driver and IR remote that probably came with your LED tape.

However if you are interested in also keeping the IR functionality it may be possible as demonstrated on this German blog here.

Summary

I am very pleased with the Fibaro RGBW module and it has made a welcome addition to my home automation setup. Being able to control the LED mood lighting via your home automation system is much more convenient as I can now control the LED lights with our smart phones and tablets, also we can now incorporate LED lighting controls in to our home automation scenes and schedules.

Kodi keyboard shortcuts to run Vera scenes (Windows)

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 11:26:00 +0000

This question came up on the Vera forums, how to use Kodi media center keyboard shortcuts to run scenes in the Vera home automation controller. This is for Kodi Windows users only.

If you wish to do this in Kodi / OpenElec (Linux) then read this article here instead.

Here is a brief overview of the steps required:

Step 1: Create or Edit the Kodi keyboard.xml file to create your desired keyboard shortcuts.

Step 2: Create a pyhton .py script file that Kodi calls when you press your keyboard shortcut in Kodi. In turn the python script calls a Windows .vbs script.

Step 3. Ceate the .vbs script which sends the HTTP command to the Vera controller to run the scene.

The main reason why we use a .vbs script is so we don’t have pop up command windows appearing over the top of the Kodi user interface and the HTTP request will be sent to Vera invisibly in the background.

Step 1: Create or Edit the Kodi keyboard.xml file to create your desired keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard.xml file should be located in this folder:

C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\keymaps

Obviously browse to your own “username” folder what ever that is called, mine is called “Stuart”

If you have an existing keyboard.xml file in this folder then great we can just edit this in a text editor program. I use EditPade Lite7 as my text editor.

If you do not have a keyboard.xml file in this folder, you can download the master keyboard.xml file, to do this right click on this link here and select “Save Link As” (Chrome browser) and save the file Keyboard.xml in to the correct folder.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\keymaps

Now open the Keyboard.xml file in with your preferred text editor application.

The file looks like this:

Scroll down to the <keyboard> section

Hit enter to make a new line

Now this is where we enter our new keyboard shortcut and specify the python script file it should run. In my example here I want my keyboard shortcut to be Ctrl+Alt+A and I want this to run a python script called lounge-on.py

<A mod="ctrl,alt">RunScript(C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\Scripts\lounge-on.py)</A>

So now the Keyboard.xml file looks like this, save and close the file.

Note: Anytime you edit the keyboard.xml file you need to close and reopen Kodi for the changes to take affect.

Step 2: Create a pyhton .py script file that Kodi calls when you press your keyboard shortcut

Before you start this step ensure you can see file extensions in Windows Explorer.

Now the path I specified in the keyboard.xml file for my python script was:

C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\Scripts\lounge-on.py

So in Windows Explorer I need to navigate to the Kodi\Userdata folder and I need to create a new sub-folder called “Scripts”

In here I now need to create a new python .py script file. To do this right click in Windows Explorer and on the menu select New –> Text Document.

Then rename the text file in this example I am calling my python script file lounge-on.py

Ensure you have removed the .txt extension and that it now has a .py extension instead.

Now right click the new .py file and select to edit it in your text editor.

Paste in this code and change the path as required:

import subprocess
child = subprocess.Popen("wscript C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\Scripts\lounge-on.vbs")

So my lounge-on.py file now looks like this:

Save and close the python .py script file.

In the python .py script file, we call another .vbs file. I am going to call my lounge-on.vbs.

Step 3. Ceate the .vbs script which sends the HTTP command to the Vera controller to run the scene.

In Windows Explorer in the same folder

C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\Scripts\

Right click and from the menu select New –> Text Document

Rename the file including the .txt extension to lounge-on.vbs in this example.

Now right click the lounge-on.vbs file and edit it in your text editor.

Enter this code:

Dim oXmlHttp
Dim sWebPage

set oXmlHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")

oXmlHttp.open "GET", "http://192.168.1.10:3480/data_request?id=lu_action&serviceId=urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1&action=RunScene&SceneNum=14", false
oXmlHttp.send ""
sWebPage = oXmlHttp.responseText

You need to change the IP address to the IP address of your Vera controller and the SceneNum needs to be changed to the scene number you want to run.

Save and close the .vbs file.

Testing

That’s it the setup is completed, now open Kodi and enter your keyboard shortcut, in this example it was Ctrl+Alt+A and your Vera scene should then be run and you should see no command windows popping up over the top of the Kodi user interface.

Running more scenes

Repeat the process to be able to run more scenes. So for example add a new line in to the keyboard.xml file like:

<B mod="ctrl,alt">RunScript(C:\Users\Stuart\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\Scripts\lounge-off.py)</B>

In this example pressing Ctrl+Alt+B would run a python script file called lounge-off.py

So you would then create the lounge-off.py file and the lounge-off.vbs file etc.

Controlling Vera Devices

You can also use HTTP commands to turn on or off Vera devices, rather than running scenes. For exmaple this HTTP command turns ON my FAN device.

http://192.168.1.10:3480/data_request?id=lu_action&output_format=xml&DeviceNum=50&serviceId=urn:upnp-org:serviceId:SwitchPower1&action=SetTarget&newTargetValue=1

You need to specifiy the correct IP address of your Vera controller and specify the correct device number in DeviceNum=

ON is - SetTarget&newTargetValue=1

OFF is - SetTarget&newTargetValue=0

Summary

This is a fairly easy way to be able to use Kodi keyboard shortcuts to run scenes in Vera and also to be able to control devices in Vera.

In addition you could then go on to program your universal remote control to send these keyboard shortcuts to your Kodi HTPC and you could then run scenes or control devices from your remote control handset via the Kodi HTPC etc.

Z-Wave RFID Keypad Kits for Sale

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:20:00 +0000

We have put together a kit perfect for creating entrance / exit alarm panels for your Z-Wave Home Automation system.

The kit includes:

RFID Keypad with a Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor a miniature relay and a power supply unit.

Instruction Videos

RFID Programming Guide

This is a short video describing how to programme the RFID keypads in preparation for inclusion in a Z-Wave system.

RFID UBS inclusion guide

Video to show inclusion into the controller and changing of the parameters. Paramater 3 needs changing to the value '0' with '1 byte hex'.

Contact our Leeds Office for further information and pricing.

What is Home Automation? Demo Video

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 14:03:00 +0000

Home Automation falls in to the loT (The Internet of Things) category, its an exciting trend, there are new devices announced every day that connect to the internet to control something. The world is slowly filling up with connected devices, that ultimately make our lives easier. Connected devices are electronic devices, such as appliances, that are able to connect to the Internet. Now everyone has the ability to purchase a product in which they can turn off their lights and close their garage when they are not home. We will be living in a world where everything is “smart.”

‘home automation’ has transformed into an increasingly prominent trend for the development of the ‘smart home’. There is nothing impressive about opening a garage with a remote any more, but there is about double-checking that you remembered to shut your garage by simply picking up your mobile phone when you are miles and miles away from your home.

Smart home automation systems have made it possible for users to do things such as: put their shades up, turn their lights on, adjust their thermostat, unlock their door, and turn their dishwasher on, all from a voice command, or a simple tap on the phone. All this is great, but what are the benefits of having a smart home?

Having a smart home is beneficial for many reasons including: control, convenience, savings and security:

Convenience: Having a smart home is simply convenient. Having your lights turn on when you walk in the room, or having the ability to turn on your central heating on your way home, is a convenient way to live.

Control: Individuals have always had control over things occurring while they are in their homes, but they now have control over their home when they are away at work, or at the store shopping.

Savings: Smart homes can cut down on energy and water usage in your home, which could also save you money in the long run. Wi-fi enabled lights, smart sprinklers, and controlled thermostats are all factors in home automation that can help you save on energy usage, and put money in your wallet!

Security & Safety: Devices connected to your smartphone, such as: smart sensors to detect: carbon monoxide, motion, heat, smoke and water leaks will all keep your home secure and safe. It will not take you until a week after you come home from a vacation to realize that water has been leaking. Any emergency that occurs in your home, you can know about right away and get an immediate solution.

Building a smart home is not as much of a hassle as it used to be. Today, home-automation technologies are way more user-friendly, accessible, and most importantly, way more affordable than they used to be. Adapting to the smart-home world can change your life.

Watch our new demonstration video.

Budget Cinema Room Project

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 10:40:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to another blog post. We had a client who wanted a cinema room but on a modest budget. We know that these rooms can cost thousands of pounds but we accepted the challenge and came up with this…..

Before:

As you can see we start with a typical room layout.

In order to be a budget cinema room we discussed with the client about requirements and costs. We then came to an agreement and proceeded to work within the budget.

This was for everything, all materials, amplifier, speakers, lights, Z-Wave Home Automation controller and modules. The only item that wasn’t included was the TV as the client already had their 55” LG TV.

Once the room was cleared we started creating the false ceiling for the speakers and spots and the strip light effects. We also started work on the fake chimney breast as well.

Once this was completed we added all the wiring as needed.

The next stage was the boarding up stage.

Straight after it was the plastering stage.

Once most of the plaster had dried we then measured the ceiling and made all the holes for the speakers and lights.

As part of the budget deal the clients decided they would do all the painting themselves and so we left them to it, which took 2 days to do.

We came back after a week as agreed with the client and then continued with the installation of the lights, speakers and strip lighting. We also added in the Z-Wave Home Automation controller and modules.

Finally we programmed the Z-Wave Home Automation controller and created the scenes and configured the smart phone app and also a handheld keyfob, so that the client can go into “cinema mode” at a touch of a button which turns off the main ceiling lights and turns on the LED colour lighting. Also the client can select a “normal mode” by pressing a different button which turns back on the main ceiling lights and turns off the LED lighting.

Using either the smart phone app or the handheld keyfob the client can select pre-defined LED lighting scenes to choose different colours. See the demonstration video below.

Z-Wave Handheld Keyfob

Smart phone app for RGBW lighting control

Here you can see the finished room, with the ceiling mounted speakers, LED strip lighting in the new false ceiling recess and LED backlighting behind the new false chimney breast. These are RGBW LED lights so the client can pick any colour that suits their mood.

Below the wall mounted TV you can see the cabinet for the AV equipment.

Here you can see the floor sub-woofer speaker and the AV equipment such as the surround sound amplifier (AVR), SKY TV box, Playstation 4 and a Western Digital media player for movies and TV shows.

Our high-end cinema rooms tend to have a Kodi Home Theatre PC and a Home Storage Server (NAS).

All in all the client was very pleased with the outcome and happy with everything we had done.

Demonstration Video

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on www.yorkshireautomation.co.uk for FREE no obligation quotation.

Multi Zone Heating System Using Danfoss Z-Wave TRV

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 11:49:00 +0000

Todays post is about how to create an even more efficient heating system with the use of Danfoss Z-Wave TRV (Thermostatic Radiator Valve)

In your typical home we have a single boiler with multiple radiators and a single thermostat controller which is usually located in the hallway. The biggest problem with this arrangement is that once the temperature has reached the set point in the hallway, that is when the heating will be triggered. This means that even if the rooms are heated up to the the required temperature but the hallway hasn’t, then the boiler will continue to run until the hallway has reached the set point.

We can add traditional TRV to help each room reach a set temperature and this then means the temperature is then normalized throughout the house. This helps to save energy as once the room reaches the desired temperature then the heat supply is shut off and diverted to where it is needed.

These traditional TRV are manually operated valves and once you have set the temperature setting then it will continue to work at that temperature. During a typical day the downstairs is occupied and upstairs is unoccupied. So if the heating is turned on then the whole house will receive the heat from the boiler and start warming up the whole house, so unfortunately the upstairs is also being heated when it is not required. This means wastage.

By adding the Danfoss TRV instead and including them into your Z-Wave home automation network we can program in a schedule setting and adjust the required temperature setting for the upstairs rooms to a lower value during the day and to a higher temperature for the evening as required. This means that we are not wasting energy by heating unwanted rooms of the house.

By adding the Danfoss Z-Wave TRV to each radiator we can create a simple multi zone heating system enabling greater control over the temperature of individual rooms within the home.

If you are interested in purchasing home automation products and services contact us for pricing and more details.

Budget Wall Mounted Tablet for Home Automation Control

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 11:43:00 +0000

Here is a cheap little project I did at home, using an old Android tablet I had laying around and a cheap box photo frame and a long white USB cable for powering the tablet.

I am using the excellent ImperiHome Android app which can be used to control various Z-Wave gateways such as Vera and the Fibaro Home Center 2 and some others.

With the ImperiHome app I can control all aspects of the home automation system such as lighting, curtains, heating etc however the main use for this wall panel will be for entry and exit. To be able to arm and disarm the house / Z-Wave alarm system.

ImperiHome has a very useful feature and this is the ability to lock down certain scenes or devices with a pin code. So for example when I press the Welcome Home scene or the Disarm House scene you are prompted to enter a 4 digit pin code like a traditional alarm panel.

Another nice feature of ImperiHome is the screensaver option, so after a set amount of time, 1 minute in my case the screen will go black / dark.

I have configured the Android tablet to never go to sleep so it will always be on and the WIFI will always be up and running, you just need to tap the screen once to display the ImperiHome app and away you go you can then control the home automation system instantly.

ImperiHome also has an option to start the app at startup. so if the tablet loses power or is restarted the ImperiHome app will automatically launch again.

Kitchen Cabinets Z-Wave Colour Changing LED Lighting

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 09:30:00 +0000

In this post we will show you how we can install for you colour changing under cabinet lighting for your kitchen. Many people have a standard light coming on but we can go a few steps further and give you an array of colours to choose from.

What we did was put some RGBW strip lighting under the wall cabinets and take the cable through the cabinet to above the wall units. We then put a single Z-Wave RGBW module and connected the power supply and the LED strip lights.

Once that was complete we added in the Z-Wave module to the Fibaro Home Automation controller. Here you can see that we can now set our colours or create some programmes and/or favourite colours as well.

Not all family members are big technology fans and some may not want to use the phone app or tablet app to control the lights, they may require something more simple and straight forward.

Fibaro Home Automation APP – RGBW Controls

With this in mind we added a key fob remote control, this is a wireless Z-Wave remote and does not require line of sight to function.

The remote has four buttons but importantly can be used to give us eight functions. So we programmed one of the buttons as on/off, and the remaining three buttons gave us options for six colours.

My wife loves this as she has the under cabinet lighting she has been wanting for a long time and now has six colours to choose from and all from using a simple remote control.

Of course later on if she wants to change the colours that is no problems at all and we just go into the Z-Wave controllers configuration page and make the changes to six different colours.

So instead of being boring and having just one colour we have six!

Blue Colour:

Red Colour:

White Colour:

Purple Colour:

Below is a short video showing the remote and lighting effects in action.

Don’t forget to visit us at www.asmarterhome.co.uk for more home automation ideas and FREE no obligation quotations.

Emby Media Server–Why you should be using it

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 11:01:00 +0000

I’ve not done many articles lately, but I have been working on beta testing for the Emby / Kodi integration. If you are an XBMC / Kodi user or not? Emby Media Server is well worth taking a closer look at!

What is it? Emby is an Open Source Media Server and Client applications solution which was previously named Media Browser, which initially started life as a 3rd party Movie / TV Shows views add-on for the now dead Windows Media Center platform.

In a nut-shell Emby can be used to centralise all your media content, manage its metadata and artwork, access your content on a multitude of different devices, share content with family and friends and more!

The Emby Server can be installed on Windows, Linux, NAS, MAC, FreeBSD. I have it installed on my WHS 2011 server and I removed MyMovies.dk which was still on there for legacy MCE metadata. One of the great things about the server side of things is the ease at which metadata and artwork files are automatically downloaded and can be managed using the metadata manager for example. Its pretty much 100% seamless, you add new content that is correctly named and structured and the Emby server does the rest for you.

No more messing about with 3rd party metadata managers or with several different metadata add-ons in Kodi such as the Artwork Downloader or CDArt Manager, those add-ons are made redundant. As is MYSQL as a centralised database for Kodi, with the Emby add-on for Kodi and the Emby Server back-end these replace and also make MYSQL redundant.

Emby client apps include: Kodi, Windows Media Center / XBOX 360 (MCE Extender), Android TV, Roku / Now TV boxes, Amazon Fire TV, some Samsung Smart TVs and Emby Theatre which is their stand alone Windows client application. Also you can use the Emby’s web browser GUI to cast content to your Chrome Cast device, Emby also supports DLNA.

So plenty of apps to play with and then there are the mobile apps which include: Emby Web Client (HTML5), Android, iOS (Under development and coming soon), Windows 8.1 / 10 and Windows Phone.

As you can see its a very impressive list of client app options! I am personally using the Emby add-on for Kodi, this is still in beta and I have it installed on two test PCs only at the moment and not installed on my main OpenElec HTPCs which are connected to the TVs in the house. I am also using the Android mobile app on several tablets and the Windows 8.1 / 10 app on my new Windows 10 touch screen laptop. I have also setup the Roku app on a Now TV box for a relative so they can access content remotely over the Internet.

And that is another killer feature of Emby the remote access side of things, in native Kodi media center there is no easy way out of the box to open up your content for remote access when you are away from the home. This is where Emby really shines and the Emby Server will ensure that the vast majority of your content can be played on remote devices either by transcoding on the fly to suit devices such as tablets and phones or by allowing Direct Streaming where possible. For example another family member of mine now has a remote Kodi installation on their PC and they can direct stream movies from my server here with no transcoding required for most video formats that Kodi can play natively.

Other Emby features include cloud sync (this is a paid for option which there aren’t too many) where you can choose to sync some of your content titles up to the cloud to services like Dropbox. Mobile sync is another feature, I’ve not tried this but presumably you could choose to sync down a movie for example to your mobile devices local storage for offline playback. Parental Controls and user management to easily share content with family members and fiends. There is also an inbuilt Live TV side to Emby, which I believe only currently works for HDHomeRun network tuners.

However I am still using DVBLogic’s DVBLink Server as the back-end for my Live TV and Kodi using the DVBLinks PVR add-on for Kodi links in to this. However there is also a plug-in for DVBLink on the Emby server, this then enables Live TV to then be streamed to the various Emby client apps, some features fall under the Emby Supporter / Donator category like being able to see all your TV channels in the electronic program guide. But most of the core features of Emby are free and do not require supporter access. Other Live TV Emby plug-ins for back-end TV services include ServerWMC, Media Portal, Next PVR, TVHeadEnd, VU+.

Some screen shots:

Emby HTML5 Web Browser GUI

Home

Movies

Movie Info Page

TV Shows

TV Show Info Page

TV Show Seasons

Season 1 / Episodes

Episode Info Page

Music Albums

Album Details / Tracks

Album Artists

Artist Info Page

Summary

To wrap this up then, Emby is well simply excellent, the forums are active and helpful to new users. There are parts of the system which are still under heavy development such as the Kodi / Emby integration and the iOS app, however there are stable versions available for Kodi if you don’t want to be on the cutting edge with the beta releases.

I would say Emby is a replacement for Windows MCE / MyMovies.dk, Plex and probably a whole other bunch of media center related software. Try it out and it won’t be long until you think how did I live without it?

Z-wave Doorbell - Version 2

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 15:19:00 +0000

Some time ago I wrote about my Z-wave doorbell project using a Z-Wave.me iTemp device and my existing doorbell chime and push button, see that previous article here for full details.

Well that chime and button were really old to begin with and have recently packed in and stopped working. After reading some wired doorbell chime kit reviews on Amazon I decided to purchase a Byron 1217 kit normally around £15 currently only £7.99 at Screwfix here. The user manual for the Byron 1217 unit can be seen here.

Critically this new doorbell chime only takes 2x D type batteries which are 1.5 volts each totalling 3 volts, whereas my old chime unit took 4x D type batteries totalling 6 volts. This meant I had to also purchase a new 3VDC miniature relay as my old relay was rated at 6VDC on the coil.

OMRON ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS G5V-1 3DC RELAY, SPDT, 1A, 3VDC

Miniature coil relay pin out diagram

Here’s how I wired up the new Byron doorbell chime unit to the Z-wave.me iTemp device.

Pins 2 & 9 on the coil relay (no polarity) connected to terminal 2 on the back of the doorbell chime and to the negative terminal of the right hand side battery, at the front of the doorbell chime.

Pins 1 & 5 on the coil relay (no polarity) were then connected to the dry input connector on the Z-Wave iTemp device which you can see in the picture below.

Note: I wouldn’t actually recommend the Z-wave.me iTemp device as it uses batteries far too quickly, instead if you are doing a new Z-wave doorbell project I would recommend using a Fibaro Door and Window sensor and the dry input connector on that device instead.

This time as the Byron 1217 chime unit is much smaller in size than my old one, I mounted the coil relay in a surface mount 1 gang box.

Here you can see the Byron 1217 chime unit. The wire on the right of the chime unit is going off outside to the push button, the wire in the corner of the walls going up, is heading towards the Z-Wave.me iTemp device which is mounted in my living room as it also acts as a temperature sensor.

This time I used a lot smaller and thinner cable running under the ceiling coving heading in to the living room and to the Z-wave.me iTemp device. Last time I used some CAT5 cable which was much thicker.

Here’s the other side of the internal wall in the living room, where the Z-wave.me iTemp device is mounted.

Blanking faceplate installed on the 1 gang surface mount box which contains the coil relay.

Finished installation.

New push button installed outside, the button came with the Byron 1217 doorbell chime kit. The chime doesn’t go ding dong as I thought it might have, it sounds like a bicycle bell and can only be heard for the duration that the button is being held down. However its perfectly fine for the money spent.

OK so now everything was wired up it was time to test it again, looking in the Vera UI my binary contact device was GREEN i.e. not tripped.

Upon pressing the doorbell it changes to RED i.e. now tripped

After a short while the binary contact device should return back to green.

So now what? Well you can now trigger Vera scenes based upon when this binary contact device is tripped. So for example I have added LUUP code in to a doorbell scene to send a popup notification to all the Kodi HTPC’s / TVs in the house, that there is someone at the door, video / audio playback is also paused, also if its night time and the lights are dimmed the lights will automatically brighten up to 100%.

I also have a Logitech Squeezebox (SqueezeLite instance) in the kitchen announce through the kitchen speakers, using Google Text-to-Speech “There is someone at the door”.

Summary

Once you have Z-Wave enabled your existing wired doorbell the possibilities are endless, have a Vera scene send an email notification or send out a SMS text message notification to your phone for example, this could also be integrated in to any front door IP CAM and even send you a picture of who is stood at your door!

Tip - go for a Fibaro door / window sensor rather than a Z-wave.me iTemp and you should be good to go.

If you are interested in purchasing Z-wave Europe home automation products, please contact us directly here for bespoke prices and discounts.

Z-wave Immersion Heater Project – Home Automation with Vera

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:42:00 +0000

I thought I’d write about my latest Z-wave Home Automation project, to be able to control the immersion hot water heater with Z-wave / Vera. The reason for needing to do this is because our gas central heating system is very old and currently we are unable to have water only turned on with the gas. So in the summer months we rely on the electric immersion heater, which I often turn on and then forget about and I have been known to leave it switched on for days, which isn’t good! Ideally I need to invest in getting the boiler and plumbing sorted out, but in the mean time this project is really going to help.

Once the immersion heater can be controlled via a Fibaro 3KW relay module, I can then schedule some scenes in Vera to automatically turn on the immersion heater at 6am for twenty minutes, so we have hot water when getting up.

Here you can see my new Immersion Heater device in Vera UI5.

My initial plan was just to wire in the Fibaro 3KW relay insert module in behind the immersion heater switch in the kitchen.

However my concern was that the immersion heater uses around 3KW and that the Fibaro relay module would be operating at its upper limits, so a safer and smarter solution was needed. I then thought about also using an additional more heavy duty relay and to have that one handle the heavy load and just have the Fibaro relay switch on and off the additional rely.

So I spoke to my new electrician friend Ahmer Mohammad, who is also a home automation enthusiast (his website "A Smarter Home"), and he also sells and installs Solar Thermal (hot water heating) systems via his renewables company "Solar Sparks", which is based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.

With his advice and installation instructions I was able to purchase a suitable relay and install everything and get it all up and running. I’d also like to thank user “RexBeckett” on the Micasaverde Vera user forums, who is one of the well known experts on there, for his input and advice on the project also!

DISCLAIMER ALWAYS SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE FROM A CERTIFIED ELECTRICIAN FOR YOUR OWN INSTALLATIONS

Here is the wiring diagram I was working from, which was approved by the Electrician:

Here is a photo of the SSR and information about the terminals:

And here are the written instructions from the Electrician:

Use a junction box or heavy duty 20A connectors for the 'lives' as only 1 is coming out of the switch but you need to connect to 3 places.
same with neutrals as only 1 from switch but you need to connect to 3 places as well.
Live from switch connects to:
live in Fibaro
IN in Fibaro
on 1 of the output terminal in the relay
Neutral from switch connects to:
neutral of Fibaro
neutral of the relay (INPUT SIDE)
neutral of the immersion
OUtput 1 of the Fibaro connects to the Live of the relay INPUT side
Live of immersion connects to the switched out terminal of the relay
principle
turn switch on this acts as our isolator for this whole system so don’t need to turn mains off if ever need to change or alter Fibaro, relay or immersion
Fibaro becomes live and ready to accept z-wave commands
Fibaro will then turn the relay on or off
the output contacts of the relay will close or open respectively
when relay contacts closed the immersion is on
nice and safe as we previously discussed.

Parts I needed for the job:

1 x Fibaro 1* 3KW relay insert module (Note- these are now discontinued and have been replaced with the newer 1* 2.5KW FIBEFGS-212)

You can purchase Z-wave Euro devices from us directly, contact us to discuss your personal requirements and we can then offer bespoke discounted pricing.

1 x Solid State Relay which I purchased off eBay. You can buy these without the heat sink, I bought one that came with the heat sink.

Single Phase Solid State Relay SSR-40AA 40A 150-350V 24-480VAC w Heat Sink

Here is the specification of the SSR

Product Name
Solid State Relay + Heat Sink

Model
SSR-40AA
Material
Metal, Aluminum, Plastic
Rated Load Current
40A
Input
AC 150-350V
Output
AC 24-480V
Total Size (Approx.)
8 x 5 x 8cm / 3.1" x 1.9" x 3.1" (L * W * H )
Color
Black
Weight
190g
Package Content
1 x Solid State Relay
1 x Heat Sink

1 x Double Pole Switched Fused Spur, to replace the 1970’s looking switch that was in my airing cupboard, where the hot water cylinder tank is located.

This is the old switch in the airing cupboard I replaced and don’t ask me why the walls in the airing cupboard are pink? I didn't paint them that colour!

1 x Single Dry lining box 35mm bought from Screwfix here.

1x Electrical enclosure box 180 x 110 x 100mm from Screwfix here.

1 x 20A Junction Box also from Screwfix here.

I also needed some twin and earth socket wire.

Installation:

First step was to ensure that the switch for the immersion heater in the kitchen was turned off, to isolate the circuit upstairs in the airing cupboard. Then I started to remove the existing ON/OFF switch in the airing cupboard, that connects to the immersion heater at the top of the water tank via a flex cable.

I then knocked out a new hole in the wall for the new dry lining box. The cable you can see is the existing cable that comes from the immersion heater wall switch downstairs in the kitchen.

Here is the back of the switched fuse spur, I connected the existing cable in the wall to the Live and Neutral IN and the earth cable to one of the earth connectors.

I then added a short piece of new twin and earth cable to the Switched Fused Spur – To the Live and Neutral OUT and earth to the other earth connector. This cable will be fed back through the dry lining box and connected to the new 20A junction box that will be placed and hidden inside the stud wall.

Feeding the new cable back through the dry lining box.

Attaching the new cable to the Junction Box. Live, Neutral and Earth, the various connections needed as shown in the wiring diagram, will all come from this new junction box.

I then starting checking out the enclosure box, to see where it would be mounted on the wall and where I needed new holes in the wall for the cables to come through in to the box

My Dad always told me make sure its level!

I made two new holes in the wall behind where the enclosure box will be mounted.

I also cut out all the access holes of the box for air flow, as I was worried about how hot the SSR relay would get? The heat sink does get hot and you can’t leave your finger on it for too long!

In this picture you can see I have added two new pieces of twin and earth cable and looped them round in the two new holes and out through the larger hole for the dry lining box.

Next step was to connect the ends to the Junction Box.

As per the wiring diagram, I also needed one extra Live cable, so I also added a single Live cable from the junction box and looped it round to one of the holes in the wall, to go in to the enclosure box. I also at this point, wired in the neutral and earth cables from the immersion heaters flex cable in to the junction box, I don’t have photos of this step.

In this photo I have put the top on the junction box.

Next I mounted the SSR relay in to the box, I had to drill two small holes in to the base of the box and using some nuts and bolts secured the SSR in to the box.

I then cut the excess off the bolts with a hack saw.

I then pushed the junction box in to the larger hole to hide it in the stud wall and started to connect up some of the cables to the SSR relay.

At this point you really need to start following the wiring diagram, to work out which cables are connecting to where on the SSR and to the Fibaro relay unit.

I mounted the SSR upside down, which just seemed easier as far as the wiring was concerned.

Once I had completed all the wiring and triple checked everything, I turned back on the power and tested I was getting power to the various live cables with my little screw driver that lights up.

It was then time to add the new Fibaro 3KW relay to Vera. So I put the VeraLite in battery mode, pressed the plus button and then pressed the button on the Fibaro module three times.

Here is a picture of the SSR powered up the red light comes on.

Here is the completed installation, minus a bit of pink paint as I had to fill in and tidy up the wall around the fused spur.

In the Vera web UI I could then see two new _Appliance Modules devices has been added. One is a child device and the other is the father or main device.

The reason you get two new devices, even though its only a 1* 3KW relay is because:

“The child device is for the S2 input. It allows you to use it as an extra input which can be useful if you need some way to signal Vera with some state.
The S1 input would switch the output and thus control the SSR directly.”

As the child device isn’t needed in my setup I hid the device using the following method:

You can hide it using the command:

luup.attr_set("invisible","1",123)

Replacing 123 with the device number. In UI5, this needs to be placed in Startup Lua. In UI7, it apparently sticks if run once in Test Luup code (Lua).

Thanks to RexBeckett for this information and solution.

Immersion Heater turned ON

House Power Usage when the immersion is turned ON.
(CurrentCost EnviR Energy Monitor integrated into Vera with the plug-in).

After installing everything and actually sitting down and using Vera to turn on the Immersion Heater and then watching the real time power consumption usage, I noticed something that looked odd.
I thought there might be a problem? After about 8 minutes of turning on the Immersion the wattage dropped from 3000 and something watts to 600 watts. I went upstairs to the box and the SSR was still lit up and powered on. Then several minutes later it had shot back up to 3441 watts. It would keep doing this as if the immersion heater was being turned on and off after so many minutes. I suspected that it must be a thermostat on the hot water tank but wasn’t sure. Both the electrician and our resident forum expert both confirmed it was likely due to the thermostat on the immersion itself inside at the top of the tank.

Here’s what RexBeckett said about it:

“Immersion heaters usually have built-in thermostats. These turn on and off to keep the water temperature fairly constant. Because they are physically close to the heater, they can cycle quite often even though the tank temperature does not change quickly. I would expect your energy monitor to show the change in energy use as the 'stat cycles.”

After leaving the Immersion turned on for twenty minutes or so I checked the water from the tap and it was nice and hot, so it was indeed all working perfectly fine!

Summary

I am very pleased with how this project turned out and I will now be able to schedule some scenes in Vera to automatically turn on and off the Immersion Heater early in the morning so the water is nice and hot for when we get up. We can now also turn on and off the Immersion heater using our mobile phones and tablets, even when outside of the house!

Here are a couple of screen shots of the new Immersion Heater device in the Vera mobile app Authomation HD.

Next and probably a more expensive job, find a plumber to sort out the central heating boiler properly.

KodiRemote for Micasaverde Vera Home Automation - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:05:00 +0000

In part one here I discussed the installation and setup for the newer project called KodiRemote for integrating Kodi Media Center and the Micasaverde Vera Z-wave controller. This is based on the older project XBMCState.
In part two I will look at creating some scenes in Vera and using the playback status updates sent from Kodi to Vera to automate some lighting and curtain control. In Vera I created three new scenes.

Kodi – Close Curtains
Kodi – Lounge Dim 25%
Kodi – Lounge On

Scene – “Kodi – Lounge Dim 25%”

On the Triggers tab of this scene I created four new triggers. I named them as follows:

Kodi – Video Resumed
Kodi – Video Starting
Kodi – Music Starting
Kodi – Music Resuming

So if any of these triggers are detected the lights will be dimmed down to 25%.

If we look at one of the triggers we can see in more detail how it works.

Under the “Device” field you select the KodiRemote device instance you would like to configure. As these scenes are for the Kodi HTPC in my Living Room I selected the #113 “Kodi01 – KodiRemote” device from the device list.

In the “What type of event is the trigger?” Select “Player State Changes”.

In the “Name for this trigger” field give the trigger a suitable name, in this example I called it “Kodi – Video Resumed”.

In the “Player State” field you select the playback state of Kodi, in this example I selected “Video is resumed”.

This means that when Video is resumed on the Kodi Media Center PC, this Vera scene with this trigger will then perform some action.

Here is another screen shot of the “Kodi – Music Starting” trigger.

So once you have created all your triggers we then need to complete the scene creation by adding our actions that Vera will carry out.

In my case I have some LUUP code that should be run when either one of the four triggers are detected.

I have also created a Virtual Switch in Vera using the Virtual Switch plug-in from the MiOS Marketplace here.

I named the Virtual Switch “Link Kodi to Devices?”

If the Virtual Switch is turned ON then Kodi Media Center is linked to the three scenes.

Kodi – Close Curtains
Kodi – Lounge Dim 25%
Kodi – Lounge On

If the Virtual Switch is turned OFF then Kodi Media Center is not linked to the three scenes and the automation of dimming or brightening the living room lights or automatically closing the curtains, will not happen.

E.G. By using a Virtual Switch such as this one, you can turn on and off the integration between Kodi and Vera which is very useful, as you might not want it to happen all the time.

In the name field enter a suitable name for the Virtual Switch.

In the Text1 field I entered the text “Linked = ON”.

You also need to make a note of the Virtual Switches device ID number in Vera? As we will use this in our scenes LUUP code.

Here is the Luup code from my “Kodi – Lounge Dim 25%” scene.

Basically it does the following:

1. Checks first to get the current status of the Virtual Switch with the device ID number 92. Is it on or off? 1 is ON 0 is OFF.

2. If that Virtual Switch device is currently turned ON then..

3. Run another scene to dim the lights 25%, in this case it runs my scene number 5 which is just a regular scene that dims the lights to 25%.

4. If the Virtual Switch was turned OFF then it would just end and not do anything.

Link_XBMC_to_devices = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:VSwitch1","Status",92)

if(Link_XBMC_to_devices=="1")then

luup.call_action("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1","RunScene",{SceneNum="5"},0)

end

Here is the “Kodi – Lounge On” scene triggers.

Kodi – Video Paused
Kodi – Music Stopped
Kodi – Music Paused
Kodi – Video Ended
Kodi – Video Stopped

So if any of these triggers are detected then the LUUP code in the “Kodi Lounge On” scene will be run.

1. Checks first to get the current status of the Virtual Switch with the device ID number 92. Is it on or off? 1 is ON 0 is OFF.

2. If that Virtual Switch device is currently turned ON then..

3. Run another scene to turn on the Lounge lights, in this case it runs my scene number 1 which is just a regular scene that turns on the lounge lights to 100%.

4. If the Virtual Switch was turned OFF then it would just end and not do anything.

Link_XBMC_to_devices = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:VSwitch1","Status",92)

if(Link_XBMC_to_devices=="1")then

luup.call_action("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1","RunScene",{SceneNum="1"},0)

end

So with these two scenes and the triggers that have been added to each and if the Virtual Switch is turned ON, then for example if I start playback of a movie in Kodi Media Center, the lounge lights will automatically dim down to 25%. And if I then pause or stop video playback the lounge lights will automatically brighten up to 100%.

Obviously we only want this to take place when its actually night time, this is where the Day or Night plug-in for Vera we installed in Part one comes in to play.

In the KodiRemote (Micasaverde Kodi Event) add-on for Kodi in the settings there, we need to specify that the various playback states are set to “Night”.

And finally I have a third scene in Vera for my Z-wave curtain rail.

I only have one trigger in this scene and that is “Kodi – Video Starting”.

Basically this scene closes the curtains if it is currently night? and if the curtains are still open? and if I start to play video in Kodi Media Center, then the curtains will be automatically closed.

Here is the LUUP code for the “Kodi – Close Curtains” scene.

1. Checks first to get the current status of the Virtual Switch with the device ID number 92. Is it on or off? 1 is ON 0 is OFF.

2. If that Virtual Switch device is currently turned OFF then just end and do nothing.

3. Checks to see if the curtains are currently opened or not? Device ID #107 is the device ID number in Vera for my Fibaro Blind Controller module.

4. If the curtains are open (which is 100) then..

5. Run another scene to close the curtains, in this case it runs my scene number 138, which is just a regular scene that closes the curtains.

6. End.

Link_XBMC_to_devices = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:VSwitch1","Status",92)

if(Link_XBMC_to_devices=="0")then return false end

are_curtains_open = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1","LoadLevelStatus",107)

if(are_curtains_open=="100")then

     luup.call_action("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1","RunScene",{SceneNum="138"},0)

end

These are the three regular scenes in Vera, that the Kodi automation scenes run when all the conditions are met. And these scenes ID numbers are the ones referenced in the various LUUP code above etc.

Summary

Well I hope this all makes sense as its quite hard to explain. But with the KodiRemote add-ons for Kodi Media Center and Vera, you can integrate the two together and have Vera perform actions based on Kodi’s current media playback status. I am sure there are various ways of setting up your scenes in Vera, I’m for example not using PLEG and tend to just add the LUUP code myself. But as long as you know how to create the triggers with the KodiRemote devices, then you can go about creating the actions for your scenes as you normally would.

Here is a short video clip showing "Video Starting" playback in Kodi. I then pause and resume the video a few times. The video quality isn't great, but you get the idea if you watch it.

KodiRemote for Micasaverde Vera Home Automation - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (CW-KID) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:53:00 +0000

I previously wrote about the excellent XBMCState add-ons for XBMC and Vera here, which enabled you to run scenes in Vera based upon XBMC’s current playback status of either videos or music. For example you could create scenes to have your room lights automatically dim down when a movie starts and then if you paused or stopped the movie the lights would automatically brighten back up.

Recently I discovered there is a newer project called KodiRemote which is based on XBMCState, but expands its functions in Vera and adds basic playback transport controls and navigational buttons, so you can now control Kodi Media Center from the Vera web UI.

For these buttons to work you must have the "Allow control of Kodi via HTTP" option enabled in the Kodi Settings -> Services -> Webserver. Port number should be 8080.

KodiRemote currently works with UI5 I believe and the developer says he is working on UI7 support for Vera. As I am running a VeraLite on UI5 this guide will be based on that version of the Vera Z-wave Home Automation controller. This article Part One, will cover the installation and setup of KodiRemote both on Vera side and in Kodi Media Center.
Part Two will probably cover creating scenes in Vera to work with KodiRemote for auto controlling your lights for example. I may also discuss how to setup a Virtual switch in Vera to specify if Kodi should be linked to Vera or not? Doing this you can turn off the integration between Kodi and Vera when you don’t want it to happen!

The setup for KodiRemote is more difficult than XBMCState as you need to SSH in to your Vera box to upload a file to it but I will demonstrate how I did this, we will also need to discover the root password for the Vera box to be able to do this. You can also see the developers setup instructions on the first page of this thread here. At the time of writing 17/04/2015 all the installation files you will need are also found on this thread and I will be linking to these, please note if you are reading this guide sometime later that these links may have changed which is beyond my control.

OK so lets get started and we will do the hardest part first which is SSH access in to your Vera box. Here are the developers comments about this, which is not allot to go on.

Requirements -

akb-json.lua (in Vera, Place it in /usr/lib/lua/)

1. Discover the root password (The following instructions were taken from this Wiki page here)

So how do we do this? Firstly we need to know the root password of the Vera box, I believe some Vera units have the root password printed on a sticker somewhere on the back, check yours first can you see it? If so write it down and make a note of it and you can skip this section. If not? Then you need to do the following to discover what your password is?

In Vera UI5 go to the Account tab and login to your MiOS account. Now select “Tech Support” it should be disabled, now click the “Enable It” button.

You will then see something like the below screen shot, note I have blacked out my Vera units serial number, you will see your own serial number in these locations.

Look at this section and make a note of the number after you serial number, in this example its 305052
This is a temporary password to give us some SSH access to the Vera box.

Now we need a client program that we can use to SSH in to the Vera box, I use Putty on my Windows 7 workstation.

You can download and install Putty from here.

Open Putty, enter the IP address of your Vera box and ensure you have 22 in the Port field. Also ensure SSH is checked. Then click the Open button.

A black terminal window will then be displayed showing a Login As: prompt.

Enter the username: remote

Now enter the temporary password you discovered previously.

You should then see a screen like this one.

Now type in this command to discover your root password!

nvram show | grep pass

Where you can see the red line, is where your root password will be displayed, write this down and make a note of it.

You can now close the Putty program. Don’t forget to go back in to the Vera web UI and Disable the temporary Tech Support access, by clicking the “Disable It” button.

2. Uploading the akb-json.lua file to your Vera box

Here are the developers further instructions:

You'll have to SSH into your Vera.
perhaps scp will be a much easier.
go to your terminal window (Mac or Linux) and run something like this:
scp /local/path/to/akb-json.lua root@your.vera.ip.address:/usr/lib/lua/

OK so first you need to download the akb-json.lua file to your workstation PC. Go to the forum page here and download the akb-json.lua file from the first post, save it to your desktop or somewhere.

Now I am using my Windows 7 laptop as my workstation PC and I wasn’t sure how to upload the akb-json.lua file to Vera directly using Windows. The developer says use the terminal window on your MAC or Linux PC. I do have an Apple MAC here which is our family computer, so I could have used that machine. However I decided to use one of my Linux PCs, actually I used one of the Kodi OpenElec HTPCs to do this.

I used my Windows 7 PC workstation to connect to the SAMBA shares of the OpenElec PC, to do this I just used the Windows RUN dialog and entered \\192.168.X.X the IP address of my OpenElec PC.

I then copied the akb-json.lua file from my Windows 7 PC’s desktop and pasted it into the Downloads folder on my OpenElec PC.

Next I used Putty to connect to my OpenElec PC via SSH. This time entering the IP address of the OpenElec HTPC.

The default username and password for OpenElec are root and openelec

You will then see a terminal window like this one

Now type: cd downloads and press Enter on the keyboard

Now run this command to upload the akb-json.lua file which is located in the downloads folder on your OpenElec PC to the /usr/lib/lua/ folder on your Vera box.

scp akb-json.lua root@your.vera.ip.address/usr/lib/lua/

So it should be something like

scp akb-json.lua root@192.168.1.10/usr/lib/lua/

If 192.168.1.10 was the IP address of your Vera box for example.

You will then be prompted for the Vera units root password, which you wrote down earlier in the previous step.

If it works and the akb-json.lua file is copied up to the Vera unit it will look like the below screen shot and say 100%.

Success! you have now completed the difficult part of this guide, the rest should be much easier going, you can now exit the Putty terminal program.

Note:- I am no Linux guru and there are probably several other easier ways to get the akb-json.lua file uploaded to your Vera box, but this is how I did it.

3. Install the KodiRemote plug-in on to your Vera unit.

The KodiRemote plug-in for Vera can be found on the MiOS Marketplace here. Go to this webpage, ensure you are logged in with your MiOS account and select your Vera unit, then select Latest Release

And then select the Install button

The KodiRemote plug-in will then be pushed out to your Vera unit and installed.

When it has been installed if you go to the APPS tab in the Vera web UI you should see it listed as being installed etc.

You also need to install the Day or Night plug-in for Vera as this is also a requirement. Follow the same install procedure for the Day or Night plug-in from the MiOS Marketplace here if you don’t already have it installed?

4. Install the KodiRemote add-on for Kodi Media Center (or XBMC).

At the time of writing 17/04/2015 there are two download links on the Micasaverde forum page. One for Kodi Helix and one for presumably older versions of XBMC. Again these download links may change over time and be updated on the forum post, so it will be up to you to download and install the correct add-on zip files.

Kodi Helix add-on can be currently found on this post here named script.service.micasaverde.zip

And for other versions of XBMC the add-on named micasaverde.addon.zip can be found here. (I’ve not personally tested this one).

As I am using OpenElec 5.0.8 Kodi version 14.2 I downloaded the script.service.micasaverde.zip file to my Windows 7 PC workstation.

Again using the Windows RUN dialog I connected to the SAMBA shares on my OpenElec PC and copied the script.service.micasaverde.zip file in to the Downloads folder there.

Next in Kodi you need to install the add-on.

Note:- If you already have the XBMCState add-on which is named “Micasaverde XBMC Event” installed in Kodi / XBMC, you should first uninstall this add-on. To do this go to Kodi System Settings – Addons – Enabled Addons – Services find the “Micasaverde XBMC Event” add-on and uninstall it.

To install the new KodiRemote add-on which is named “Micasaverde Kodi Event” you need to do the following:

Navigate to System Settings – Addons – Install from ZIP file

Now browse to your Downloads folder on the OpenElec HTPC or to where ever you saved the .zip file, where your Kodi PC can access that file location.

In my case I need to select the HOME FOLDER

Then I selected the Downloads folder

And finally selected the script.service.micasaverde.zip file that I placed into this downloads folder.

Once the add-on is installed in Kodi you can find it in the following location:

System Settings – Addons – Enabled Addons – Services and its called “Micasaverde Kodi Event”

Now right click the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on entry and select Configure.

Enter the IP address of your Vera unit and select OK. Now reboot your Kodi PC.

We can ignore the rest of the settings in here for now, as we now need to configure your first KodiRemote device instance in Vera, once we have done this we will come back to the settings in the Kodi add-on and complete the setup.

Note:- if you previously had the “Micasaverde XBMC Event” add-on installed for XBMCState, then you existing settings will still be present, some will need to be changed later.

5. Create and configure the KodiRemote Device instances in Vera

After installing the KodiRemote plug-in for Vera via the MiOS Marketplace, if you look in your Vera web UI, you should see that the first KodiRemote device instance has been automatically created.

In Vera UI5 go to the Devices tab and in the No Room section you should see the KodiRemote device.

This now needs to be configured to connect to the Kodi PC you just installed the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on onto.

Click the Spanner icon on the KodiRemote device, go the advanced tab and in the IP field enter the static LAN IP address of your Kodi PC.

Note:- On my setup I also entered the real MAC address of the network adapter card in my Kodi PC in to the MAC field. I separated with colons : This may be optional.

Now you need to make a note of the Device ID in the above screen shot it is #116, you will need to enter this ID number in the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on settings in Kodi later.

Give the KodiRemote device instance in Vera a suitable name. I have four Kodi HTPCs in my house and I named them KODI01 / KODI02 etc so for my Living Room HTPC I named the KodiRemote device instance “KODI01 - KODIRemote”

Here is my Living Room KodiRemote device instance, note I also assigned it to the actual room in the house where this HTPC is located.

Once you have configured this save and reload Vera.

Next you need to make a note of the Day or Night plug-ins device ID in Vera. Click the spanner icon and go to the advanced tab and write down the device ID number for the Day or Night plug-in.

At the end of this section you should have configured the first KodiRemote device instance with the IP address of your Kodi PC, given it a suitable name and assigned it to the correct room. You should have also noted down the KodiRemote device ID number and the device ID number for the Day or Night plug-in. We can now go back to Kodi and finish the configuration in there.

As I have four Kodi HTPCs I repeated this process and created a KodiRemote Device instance for each of the four Kodi PCs. To create further KodiRemote device instances, go to the APPS tab in Vera and select the KodiRemote plug-in and select the “Create Another” button.

6. Configuring the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on settings in Kodi

System Settings – Addons – Enabled Addons – Services and its called “Micasaverde Kodi Event”
Now right click the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on entry and select Configure.

Micasaverde Setting:

You should have already entered your Vera units IP address, next in the XBMCState device ID setting, enter the KodiRemote device instance device ID number you wrote down in step 5.

And also enter the Day or Night plug-in device ID as well.

I also recommend you enter 5 in the “Debouncing ended video event” and” Debouncing ended audio event”.

XBMC State:

I’ve never actually used any of the features in this section of the settings, but you can have the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on send status updates to Vera about which areas of the Kodi GUI are being accessed.

For example I just changed the “Menu Picture” option to YES. And if I then navigate in Kodi to the Pictures area of the GUI, then in Vera on the KodiRemote device instance I see the status has changed to “picture”

So presumably you could then use this as a trigger event in Vera to run a scene.

Player State:

OK Player State is the settings area we are really interested in!
I have “Video Title” set to Yes, this will send the title of the currently playing video to the KodiRemote device instance in Vera.

I have changed all the various video playback statuses to Night. This means that my scenes in Vera that control the automatic dimming and brightening of my living room lights will only happen if it is night time. More about these Vera scenes and setup will be covered in Part Two.

And again the same for the Audio (music) section I have the “Music Title” set to Yes and all the various playback states for music are set as Night.

Custom Menu Event:

I’ve never used this section of the settings, my guess would be that you can specify two additional Kodi Window IDs and have the status of those sent to Vera when you access those particular areas of Kodi.

For a list of Kodi Window IDs see the Wiki here.

After configuring all of these settings you may then want to reboot your Kodi PC.

7. Test your setup

That’s it for the configuration and setup in Part One. I recommend you now try playing some media content in Kodi such as a movie and a music album and then look in Vera at the KodiRemote Device instance, that is says UP and that the title of what media content you are playing can also be seen in the KodiRemote device in Vera. You can also try out the new playback transport control buttons for controlling Kodi from the Vera web UI.

Summary

In Part Two I will be looking at how to create Vera scenes and use triggers from the “Micasaverde Kodi Event” add-on and the various playback states of Kodi, for example to automatically dim and brighten Z-wave lamps based on Kodi’s playback status and if it is night time.

I am very happy to see that a new developer has picked up XBMCState and created KodiRemote based off it and hopefully we will see some new features in the future and support for Vera UI7.

As a final note- if you were previously using XBMCState, once you have created all your new KodiRemote device instances in Vera and connected them to each Kodi PC in the house, you can then go ahead and delete the old XBMCState device instances from Vera and then also uninstall the XBMCState plug-in for Vera, which is what I have done. You will then need to update your Vera scenes and triggers that were previously using XBMCState with the KodiRemote device instance(s). As I said I will cover this in Part Two coming soon.

Part Two Here