Comfort UPNP <-> SmartThings <-> Amazon Echo

[lwillerton]

I really appreciate your hard work Matt as I am sure everyone else will do.I have wanted to video the art of the possible with the comfort system and publish this on youtube, or at least what I have achieved. However, I spend more time playing with the system rather than sharing the possibilities with other customers / potential customers. I will do my best to get a video done before the June and include what you have done here along with the new kit I have purchased.

I think Chiu has suggested that you try and do a commercial offer, I am not sure what that would look like, but if I can get this to work I would consider paying a sensible price for the solution.

I was considering control 4 but I feel this community could easily be a control 4 beater. We just need to share our achievements.

Best Wishes

Lee

[Pgordon]

mattbrain wrote:

Hi Lee et al;

Again, apologies for the delay in the next release - it\'s really close, just putting the final touches in place.

To keep you in the picture, we have done an awful lot in the background, some of which will be evident in this release - and lots of other stuff which will be announced over the next few weeks.

I anticipate the release will take place early this week, and will be in the form of a Raspberry Pi Disk Image - full instructions for writing this to an SD Card will be provided - you will need an SD Card of at least 4Gb but 8Gb is recommended (as not all 4Gb card are actually 4Gb and those few bytes they shave off may mean the image doesn\'t fit).

The image also provides full web management of the interface - no more command line jiggery pokery - a demo of the interface (just to prove how close we are) can be seen here:  http://www.alphawerk.co.uk/cytech/demo/index You will notice that this includes the ability to update the configuration, start and stop the service, send diagnostics to us for review and even update the software to future versions just by clicking a button.

Absolutely *fabulous* - can\'t wait. I hope this project goes from strength to strength. With such a versatile & flexible interface I can\'t even begin to imagine the possibilities for all the various things Comfort could start to interface with.  All my lights (well, pretty much all of them) are on CBUS, and with the Comfort-UCM-CBUS I have good integration & control from Comfort, but really no other way to hook CBUS into the overall HA (or alternatively you could say no way other than through comfort to hook the rest of the HA system into CBUS). Since Comfort is at the epicentre of my HA system, this hasn\'t been a problem thus far, but as more & more new & exiting HA devices come out I have been looking on enviously from the sidelines, because they don\'t/won\'t/can\'t easily integrate. (This is a personal ideology that I have adopted for a fair few years now... if it doesn\'t play nice with what I already have, then it\'s not coming into my HA system - hence I have no smart locks, no smart bulbs etc.) I\'m just not interested in some or other device which claims to be smart just because it has it\'s own smartphone app which can control it, but won\'t talk to devices outside of its own ecosystem... 
I\'m especially intrigued by your mention of using SONOS to announce doorbell events.. - something I have wanted to implement for several years now, - can you elaborate with any details on just how you are achieving that? Does it work \"elegantly\" - by which I mean deal gracefully with whatever the target SONOS speakers may already be playing? (pause current playback, announce event, resume playback from same source... etc.)
I\'ve got all my \"bits\" back from the UK now, - just need to nip out & buy an 8GB microSD card for the Pi in the next couple of days, so hoping to start setting this up in earnest this coming weekend...
Cheers Matt, and keep the good stuff coming! 

[Pgordon]

Hey Matt.
I have all the various bits & pieces in place now. the Echo dots are in & running well. the ST hub is sat on the network ready & waiting, and as I write this, I\'m installing the latest Rasbian build on the Rasberry Pi.
No doubt when I get to the end of the Pi install, I will then have a big \"what now\" moment, and I\'ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
But I\'ve been thinking ahead a little bit...  you see in my house, all my lights are on CBUS, and with the CBUS UCM in Comfort, I have full 2-way control & status of all my lights. Comfort controls various lights in response to PIR activations and mode state changes etc. however, most human interaction with CBUS is via wall switches, many of which are set to trigger CBUS scenes. What I really want to do is enable voice control of lighting scenes via Alexa. I figure I can likely boil down the number of required scenes I need Alexa to command to maybe half a dozen or so... so I figure that I will probably need to code each of those scenes as responses in Comfort, then using your sterling efforts I hope I can trigger those responses by voice... but will I be able to do that in a \"friendly\" way? i.e. I don\'t really want to have to say things like \"Alexa, turn on Comfort Response 142\" - I\'d far rather be able to say something like \"Alexa, turn on lounge scene watch TV\" or something similar...
I\'m hoping that between the UPnP drivers on the R-Pi, and the Smartthings system, I can abstract out specific Comfort responses to meaningful command names that can be spoken to Alexa.
Is this kind of scenario possible / easy?
TIA
Paul G.

[mattbrain]

Hi Paul

Thanks for your note - and absolutely it can be abstracted out - this is one of the key features.

When you install the SmartThings elements you will find an option on the Comfort Bridge device called \'Add Response Device\' - this will allow you to create a virtual switch which will allow you to assign responses to an On and Off function which can be named however you choose. Running discover devices on the Amazon echo (once connected to SmartThings and properly permissioned) will then find those devices as \'native\' devices - which means they don\'t need an specific echo skill to initiate - allowing you to say \'Alex, turn on the cinema\' (if the device was called cinema) or \'Alex set the lounge cinema mode on\' (if the device was called lounge cinema mode). Alexa is pretty clever so the sentence structure if fairly flexible.

In terms of installing Raspbian - I would suggest you hold fire, the new release is undergoing final testing and I want to get it out the door this weekend - you don\'t need to do all the command line jiggery pokery, just create an SD Card from the image i\'ll publish, plug in and open your web browser to it - I\'m just in the process of writing the installation and usage instructions...

Thanks,

Matt

[mattbrain]

Hi All

So after much procrastination (for which I apologise), please find a link to the new version below:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4178....0.img.zip

Unzip the file and follow the generic instructions to write your SD Card here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentatio.../README.md

One the SD Card is written, pop it into your Raspberry Pi, plug it into the network, give it a few moments then open a browser to http://alpha-uhai.local/ or http://alpha-uhai/ which will take you to the management interface. From there, click on the instructions tabs to complete your setup.

Capabilities

This release is focused on improving the usability and installation of the software. It has support for Zones, Outputs, Flags, Counters, Alarm Mode and Status, triggering Responses and a Doorbell virtual device.

When first installed and configured it will provide me (alphaWerk) with anonymous usage data - this is very high level and does not include any information regarding your comfort system, but rather just whether the interface is operational.

You can register the installation from the web UI which will allow you to share more detailed information, as you can do when uploading configuration - this is entirely optional but if you choose to do so, will help us identify issues.

Registration will also allow us to communicate directly with you, which we promise to limit to only information about the solution (such as updates, known issues etc). Updates can be made, with user consent, directly from the Web UI. To be absolutely clear, whilst we do receive a limited amount of anonymous telemetry data, we have no mechanism for disabling or updating an installation remotely without user input.

Note to installers:

You are free to offer this to your customers but may not charge for the software; you may charge for your time, the cost of configuration, supply of a Raspberry Pi and any other peripherals. This software is licensed to end users for them to use freely in their own environment. It goes without saying that we (alphaWerk) offer no warranty for the suitability of this software (which in part explains why it is free) which is all explained in the instructions. If you wish to make a small gift to us which will encourage further development, you may do so from the Web UI.

Finally, Mr Chiu and I are in discussions to make a commercial version of this product which will be very feature rich and meets the technical and reliability standards of the cytech system. This will likely be in the form of a dedicated UCM and will directly support a wider range of IoT devices. More information on this will be made available as development progresses.

Thanks again,

Matt

[wexfordman]

Hi Matt, Slychiu
Thanks for the update. With respect to the planned commercial version of it, there are a couple of questions maybe you could help with, mainly to help me determine if I go with the current solution or hold off for the later product.
1) As it stands, to get this working, I need an RPI and a smart things hub. I am also thinking of going the route of philips hue, so I will also need a hue hub to at least get hue devices configured before controlling them via smartthings/comfort 

2) So, I am now looking at getting the RPI, ST hub and Hue HUB (all on the wishlist once I get over the christmas overspend :-( )

3) The commercial version, you mention will more feature rich and a more relaible product. With respect to new added features on the commercial version, will these features be supported on the current platform going forward also ?

4) I have a spare UCM, so is it possible the new module would be a matter of adding the RPI onto the UCM board

5) Any rough estimate of availablity of the commercial version and/or beta versions of it ?

I know this sounds like a \"I want it, and I want it now\" type response (which it actually is, but not in a demanding way ;-) )
Regards,Eamon

[Pgordon]

mattbrain wrote:

Finally, Mr Chiu and I are in discussions to make a commercial version of this product which will be very feature rich and meets the technical and reliability standards of the cytech system. This will likely be in the form of a dedicated UCM and will directly support a wider range of IoT devices. More information on this will be made available as development progresses.

Thanks again,

Matt

YAY!!! - *** PLEASE MAKE IT HAPPEN!! *** :dude::dude:

[mattbrain]

Hi Eamon, Paul

Thanks for your comments; in answer to Eamon\'s questions:

1. True - the current solution is dependent on a SmartThings hub which acts as an abstraction layer.

2. Yup - I feel your pain, i\'m in the same boat to add support for Philips Hue. I need to get my hands on some test devices. 

3. The commercial version has to be a device which can be installed, configured and relied upon by any installer. Given the rapid pace of development of IoT and the incremental nature in which people add things to their house, it also needs to be end user customisable (for example when they buy a new Hue bulb). The current solution has a number if inherent weak links in the chain which we plan to address in hardware and software. As a result of this, the community version which have a subset of the commercial version from a functionality perspective - and if we are to keep pace with the continual innovation in this space we need to find a commercial model which will allow us to fund the ongoing development.

4. The community version can use any UCM which has an ethernet port (UCM/Ethx) - this does therefore mean it is only as reliable as the household network, RPi PSU (and in the case of SmartThings integration) broadband connection and SmartThings cloud services. The commercial version will use a custom UCM as well as the industrial version of the RPi (Compute module). This will allow us to directly connect the RPi to the alarm, power it directly from Comfort (and therefore have redundancy) and introduce a variety of measures to ensure it is robust and self recovering.

5. It\'s a little early to be committing to timelines, but it is fair to say both Cytech and alphaWerks recognise this is an import piece of development for the Comfort ecosystem and has the possibility of opening Comfort to new markets.

A couple of final comments from me - we are currently identifying which device families should be high priority. Whilst SmartThings has demonstrated the value this integration can bring, it is only generally available in limited markets (UK & US) and is still very much a hobbyist solution. I see Philips Hue as an ideal candidate for native support; it is widely adopted, low cost and available in many markets. If there are other obvious device families, please let me know and we can consider adding them to the roadmap.

I also need to explain why some devices may only be available in the commercial version. The cost of development and continued support for some device families make it impossible to support gratis - for example, proper IFTTT integration (rather than via \'maker\') requires both dedicated cloud server(s) and annual fee to integrate - and we need to find a way to fund it. It would be unfair to provide those services for free to users of the community version when it is being paid for by users of the commercial version. Having said all that, I am committed to continue to develop the community version wherever possible and from a purely development perspective, it is easier if they both operate from the same source tree.

Anyway, I hope all that makes sense - and look forward to your feedback,

Thanks,

Matt

[Pgordon]

mattbrain wrote:

One the SD Card is written, pop it into your Raspberry Pi, plug it into the network, give it a few moments then open a browser to http://alpha-uhai/ which will take you to the management interface. From there, click on the instructions tabs to complete your setup.

Hey Matt.

Problem straight away. Having booted up the image on the Pi, I have no DNS resolution for that URL - I guess I could delve into the routers dhcp logs & try to figure out what IP address my Pi has (almost certainly will be the most recent lease issued)...
However, I figured that I should just be able check it out on the pi itself... - since it\'s on my desk with KVM all hooked up...
I see that although its a raspbian build, it does not have the default raspbian username & password of \"pi\" and \"raspberry\" - so I can\'t logon to it... - I\'d very much like t be able to logon to the pi, and run a desktop GUI so I learn more about the Pi and Linux in general - since this is my only one...
I\'d also potentially like to maybe run other tasks on it too... - I\'m guessing the upnp stuff won\'t exactly be taxing the little thing... :-)
Is there an account available to logon with in this build?
Cheers.
Paul G.

[mattbrain]

Hi Paul

It sounds like it hasn\'t managed to properly get connected to the home network - DNS resolution should happen automagically if your router manages DHCP assignments. Can you confirm it is connected via Ethernet and the link light is active?

In terms of logging in, i\'m not it would give you much - its a trimmed down version of Rasbian in order to conserve system resources in order to allow it to run an any variant of a RPi (so long as they have an ethernet port). If i\'m honest, I wouldn\'t advise users to run anything else on the Pi as it may have an impact on the Comfort software and when it comes to troubleshooting - it\'s a case of the simpler the better.

I have locked out login via the terminal and ssh as a simple security precaution (given these are talking to the alarm and will have your pin code and comfiguration file stored on disk). However, if you do want to login, you need to modify the installation to run in single user mode; to do this insert the SD Card into a PC and add a space and a 1 at the end of the line in the text file \'cmdline.txt\'. If you then reboot the Pi with a keyboard and monitor attached you will be automatically logged in - you can then change the password to something you are happy with, and then revert the change and restart the Pi once again.

Hope this helps,

Thanks,

Matt