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13. Nov 2008, 16:45 CET | Link

Hi,

My company is member of the KNX association, and while I was checking the news, I've seen about this project.

First of all, as working in this field for quite a while, I'd like to say that an open source software MAY not increase the popularity of HA (I've seen post thinking that the only problem is commercial systems, and especially their prices). The main problem is working with... electricity ! HA requires some involvement into deadly power... There is also regulation to respect, mostly for your energy provider and for your home insurance. So, depending on the system you want (KNX, X10...), you need some professional background and tools (isolation procedures knowledge, protection helmet for example). The fact is most of deadly accident happens to amateurs, and they are 10 times more dangerous than in others work.

Well, then, my post was for a global remark. As far as I've checked on this website, I've didn't seen that much efforts on the embedded part.

On the software side :

  • Do you intend to use something like OSGi ?
  • Will the code be adapted to small systems with small resources (not higher than the jdk1.3) ?

On the hardware side :

  • Will it work on an embedded hardware platform ? Thing is that I've seen many projects (like KNX Live) which uses at least one computer... Talking about energy savings, I'm not sure that's helps... And many companies over the world are manufacturing ARM9 based platforms which consume and costs less...

Well, anyway, if you need some technical background on KNX, I can offer my help !

Best regards,

Mathieu

1 Reply:
13. Nov 2008, 19:04 CET | Link

Hello Mathieu,

Thanks for posting, here are my, for the moment, brief responses to the specific questions you had.

Do you intend to use something like OSGi

Yes.

Will the code be adapted to small systems with small resources (not higher than the jdk1.3) ?

For the controller itself, no.

For things like actuators, yes (not necessarily a JDK but a modern runtime anyway) but that's a longer term prospect. At the moment we are just building the home controller.

Will it work on an embedded hardware platform ? Thing is that I've seen many projects (like KNX Live) which uses at least one computer... Talking about energy savings, I'm not sure that's helps... And many companies over the world are manufacturing ARM9 based platforms which consume and costs less...

The home controller is going to be a x86 based thing. It will integrate with existing HA hardware like X10, KNX, or INSTEON. Right now on the software side we are just talking about the controller server. Not something we intend to put into a light switch (that comes later).

In KNX terms, think something like Gira home server.

Well, anyway, if you need some technical background on KNX, I can offer my help !

Thanks, much appreciated.

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