Two-Way Rako Integration

[Tas]

I\'m a currently programming comfort for my home, part of which is integrating it with a RAKO lighting system. The current firmware does not provide support for two-way communication with RAKO (you can\'t trigger comfort responses from RAKO keypads).

Anyone know if/when such functionality might be added to comfort. Is there any means of developing custom firmware? I\'m a software engineer by trade and currently developing my own RAKO control software... so I might fancy a challenge

Tas

[admin]

Cytech is constantly developing new UCM firmware to support other systems and Rako is definately an important one that is on the list, but we cannot give any time scales though.

[ndh]

I\'m pretty desperate for this. 

We have some non Rako lights etc. that need control and Comfort would be great for this.

Any more lobbyists for this out there?

Nigel

[Tas]

Hi Nigel!

Yes. I am still very interested in this.

Tas

[admin]

We have some non Rako lights etc. that need control and Comfort would be great for this.

Since you have non-Rako lights, you dont need a Rako UCM

To clarify, Comfort is able to control Rako, the UCM05 can be used to send commands to Rako. You can define a UCM as Rako, and this allows the Response Wizard to define Rako Commands to sent to the UCM05 connected to Rako

What we do not have at the moment is a two way interface like for Cbus and KNX but you often do not need that

B&S developed a plug in board for the UCM05 which provides a two way interface to Lutron in only 3 days, which is much faster than we could do it. You should contact Jon Mellor

[Tas]

Hi,

Does this mean two-way RAKO is no longer an important feature for Cytech to develop?

Thanks,

Tas

[admin]

It does not mean it is no longer an important feature to develop. There are many two way interfaces which can be developed eg Dynalite, Heating, Rako, enocean, Zwave. The reality is we do not have the resources to do these all at once. The one way interface should be able to meet most needs. Another way to acheive control by Rako switches is to activate a Rako relay or output which connects to a Comfort input

[Tas]

I really appreciate what you are saying. My application requires a much \'softer\' approach and Rako relays lacks the flexibility and cost constraints. As there is a 2-way RS232 interface there it seems the best solution would be support within comfort.

Is this something a third-party such as myself could attempt? What development tools would I need. I\'m a software engineer so maybe it wouldn\'t be hard for me to learn?

Many Thanks,
Tas

[admin]

Perhaps that could be a possibility, to allow third parties to access the firmware development for this type of interface. It could hasten the development of 3rd party interfaces. However we will need time to package the interface mechanism to allow this to happen. Are there others who have this need and are able to do it, ie with software development experience (in C) , preferably in embedded systems?

[rollem]

Hi Tas, Nigel,

As Chiu mentioned a few posts ago - we have developed a small daughter board that fits onto the UCM05. The unit basically listens to commands being returned on the Rako network via a RAV232+ and runs a defined response.

If Rako transmits room 1 scene 2 the converter stores 01 to counter 253 and 02 to counter 254. It then triggers reponse 240.

It is up to you what you do with that then. We normally have response 240 set flags based on whether the lights are on or off. For instance areas that are normally served by automatic lights (PIR sensed) can be over riden. When the user presses the rako button Comfort now knows the lights have been manually switched and therefore does not turn them off until the users presses the off keypad button.

Using this method you can effectively make a rako keypad control any Comfort funtion.

Does this meet your requirements?

Cheers,

Jon