Homeseer 2

To control all devices via different remotes, I use software that has the abillity to controll all domotica devices that are in the house. This piece of software is also called "Home Automation Software".

Homeseer comes in different flavours:

• Homeseer 2 (the actual software you need)
• HSPro (Homeseer 2 + HStouch + Various plugins)
• HStouch (software for creating a customized interface)
• Various Plugins (Plugins to integrate Homeseer 2 with 3rd Party hardware and software)

I am using the HSPRO version of Homeseer because of it's extra abillities to create your own touchscreen interface and make this work with almost all touchscreen interface available.

What is also a big + is that Homeseer developed a special Iphone Plugin to control Homeseer 2 trough your Iphone. This is also 1 of the plugins that comes with the HSPro package.

Besides the Iphone Plugin there are also 3rd Party plugins. These plugins can either be offered on the 3rd Parties website or can be downloaded on within the Homeseer package itself. For some plugin's you will need to pay a small fee and some plugin's you will get for free.

The plugin's that I am using to control some of my devices at home are:

• RFXCOM Processor Plug-In (RFXCOM)
• IRTrans
• SIP Connector Plug-In
• iPhone/iPod Touch Plug-In

The scripts that I am using are:

• RFXCharts
• DJ Twitter Script

RFXCOM Processor Plug-In:

This plugin is used to manage the equipment provided by RFXcom within Homeseer 2. For now I only use it to integrate the 433.92MHz RFXmitter (2-ports LAN version) with a 433.92MHz receiver (master) module (with antenna). The transmitter (or RFXmitter) is used for the control of my Harrison (electrical) curtain rails. The receiver is used for my 433.92MHz RFXMeter with 1 RFXPulse module together with the lightly adjusted Reflective-Optical sensor to send pulse information to Homeseer 2. More on this can be found on my RFXcom page. I am using this method to track my power consumption and see the in a chart (RFXChart). The chart has the option to see the power consumption hourly, daily, mothly or you can select the period yourself.

IRTrans Plug-In:

This plugin is used to manage the equipment provided by IRTrans within Homeseer 2. I only have 1 IRTrans device to control some of my InfraRed devices. To do this I use the IRTrans Ethernet Module.

SIP Connector Plug-In:

This plugin is used to accept voice calls. These calls are terminated with a build in SIP client and a build in Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu. This IVR can be adjusted to your own needs. The end goal is to control devices that you have in Homeseer 2 with your phone my dialing a phone number . You can do things like for example turn all of your lights off at home, if you you doubt if you left a light on or not.

iPhone/iPod Touch Plug-In:

This Plugin speaks a bit for itself. It allows you to use your iPhone or iPod in combination with a special developed App so you can control your Homeseer devices from your iPhone/iPod. With HSTouch tyou can create your own iPhone/iPod screens to make it look even more slick. A nice movie on this can be found HERE.

RFXCharts script:

With the RFXCharts script you can generate all kind of charts. You can generate charts from the information you receive within Homeseer2 like temprature, rainfall, humidity, weight, power consumption and much more.

DJ Twitter script:

With this script you can automatically sent twitter messages based an a specific event that is happening. A good example is if you want sent a twitter message when your doorbell rings.

Last Updated on 21-12-2009