Awards; Rewards & Incentives .....

[ndh]

Nothing very detailed yet, but we have been thinking of adding some interactive aspects to the forum as a way of rewarding people for their involvement and sharing of ideas, applications etc.

The sort of thing we are thinking about is:

• Annual Awards - Best Overall Contributions; Best Application; Best \'Big Idea\' etc.
  
• Quarterly Best New Application / Interface?
  
• Special Offers - you may need to move quickly though

We will be interested to here your ideas on this please. I will coordinate on behalf of Cytech.

Reply here or post email to info-uk@cytech.biz

Just to get things started......  First 3 UK Trade replies (with or without any comment /content) will get 2 x Comfort T-Shirts & 20 x BRAND NEW Colour Brochures. I\'ll post winners here.

Nigel

[garym999]

Oh go on then...

Ideas; Many of these have been mentioned by myself and others ...

Comfort finishes - End user components should give a high quality look and feel with decor plates where appropriate. After all this is what the client sees for his money

Properly intergrate the Micro Door Phone concept that I developed

Comfort has had the lead for a long while and should have a fully developed Ethernet interface by now after all there are a couple of modules already. It should provide status and control pages via web, have event/alert emailing, programming access, 2-way serial TCPIP command line comms,  Ethernet based expansion modules (UCMs), online Firmware upgrades, MP3 voices and sounds  etc. etc. Also proivdes easy touchpanel access via the many browser based panels. 

Utilise bus wiring for sensor nodes and PIRs etc. This will help keep the wiring runs down. Also should allow for modular expansion. Look at Dynalite, EIB, C-Bus as examples. Comfort is already there in a way with its RS485 backbone just needs to broken out a bit more.

With the two items above in place Comfort could become a good enviromental monitoring and control station again stealing the march on the competition. Certainly the UK market place and govermental pushes will only raise the profile of energy monitoring and management.

So when can I buy Comfort G3 with this lot?

[ndh]

Gary,

Thanks again for your input. I meant to reply a bit earlier than this - just noticed the date!

I like your idea of connecting sensors to the bus - I had been thinking a \'bus coupler\' would be good, somewhere between a RIO & SCS, probably without any outputs. So it could function for wall switches and sensors.

Which reminds me, I packaged a Clipsal Bus Coupler with a stainless steel single gang plate and switches a while back.  Must post the photos some time.

Parcel on its way.

Nigel

[garym999]

Yep, sure Cytech would want to protect the comfort bus as it is integral to releiable option but a bus interface in the form of a UCM should do the trick.

Depending upon the type of bus sensors available I don\'t see why we should be limited to just inputs. I2C, SMB and One wire all have multiple devices that can be attached.

Look here for some ideas of where this might go....

http://www.aagelectronica.com/aag/en-us/dept_2.html

With one wire devices in the form of iButton devices there is even the ability to have electronic keys for door entry etc.!...

http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/ibutton/ibuttons/

 

[ndh]

I particularly like the latter because a RFID solution from Oz will not become RoHs complaint for the foreseeable future.  Chiu?

Nigel

[garym999]

The two items I mentioned are effectivley the same, just different packaging. These are one wire 1W devices. So on a single bus we start getting a huge range of posibilites.

First on the list would be:

DS18S20 which gives us temp monitoring, room by room, external etc.

DS2406 for remote switch detection / switch control (PIRs, DualTEC PIRs with each sensor seperatley addressed, remote relay control)

DS2423 for counting (gas, electricity, water, metering etc.) (eg: house unoccupied, gas flow or water flow detected raise alert.)

[Home]

Yes great idea Nigel

Best contributer; most contributed; worst contributer!

I could suggest some prizes..... race trac day..... visit to Cytech factory...... free Comfort part for the following year........