Comfort Security System Plug-inThis plug-in is designed to act as a bidirectional gateway between the Homevision controller and a Comfort Security System, each of which is connected to the same PC. HomeVisionXL must be running on the PC, but no Comfort software is required for communications. As an alternative to using a com port, the Comfort can be connected to a LAN via the optional Ethernet interface. The plug-in will forward all communication from the Comfort system to the HomeVision main serial port. Similarly, binary instructions can be sent from the HomeVision serial port to Comfort.Note: The plug-in is not designed to be used with a Comfort system connected directly to a serial port of the HomeVision. Receiving reports and replies from ComfortA serial input event action can be created to perform functions based on the received data. The messages from Comfort can be recognized by the <STX> character (a character with binary value 0x03).Example: The following code in the Serial Port 1 Data Input event actions will popup a message in the Messages screen when someone presses the doorbell:
Serial port 1 (PC): Put binary value of char 1 into Result Value
Var #0 (Temporary 1) = Result Value
If
Var #0 (Temporary 1) = 3 (Comfort:STX)
Then
; Comfort report or response
If
Serial port 1 (PC): Serial input characters number 2 through 3 are 'DB'
Then
Serial port 1 (PC): Transmit string 'Display message "There's someone at the door"'
End If
End If
Sending commands to ComfortTo control the Comfort system from within a HomeVision schedule, Comfort commands can be issued by sendig the serial string "comfort:", followed by the two character command code, command arguments (if any), and carriage return + line feed. Note that the <STX> character should not be sent, as this is inserted by the plug-in, which simplifies the task quite a bit.Example: Before any communication can happen HomeVision will have to log in on the Comfort system. The following code will log in with a user code of 1234:
Serial port 1 (PC): Transmit string 'comfort:LI1234' Serial port 1 (PC): Transmit Carriage return and Line feed More information about the Comfort system commands and responses can be found in the Comfort Serial Command Interface document. Automatic Log inThe plug-in can automatically take care of logging in whenever it starts. To do this you have to specify the user code on the configuration screen. The plug-in will always logout automatically when it terminates (either when HomeVisionXL shuts down, or when the plug-in is disabled using the plug-in manager).Reading the Comfort event logAnother feature of the plug-in is that it can read the event log from the Comfort system and save it to a file. This can be done either manually or controlled by the HomeVision schedule. To instruct the plug-in to save the comfort log to file, your schedule must transmit a serial string as follows:
Serial port 1 (PC): Transmit string 'Save Comfort Log as "filename"' The file will be saved relative to the working directory that HomeVisionXL was started with, unless an absolute path is specified in the serial command. If configured, the plug-in will import a Comfort configuration (.ccl) file to obtain customized zone and alarm strings, which it will then use while decoding the log entries. |