Subject: From: Date:

RE: [ecs] Smarthome USB Powerlinc Paul Fitch Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:01:45 -0500

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I e-mail Karen, the technical support person at Homeseer, and she said the
following:

"Smarthome MFG is the developer. The person that you want to talk to is
Scott
Klodowski at Smarthome MFG. You can reach him at Smarthome in Irvine, CA."

I'll give send him an e-mail next, asking him if he would be prepared to
provide the specifications to you as the developer of ECS.


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Fitch [mailto:pfitchjr@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 11:12 PM
To: ecs@netbloc.com
Subject: RE: [ecs] Smarthome USB Powerlinc


Yes, I noticed the revision stuff, but I think thats a flaw with Linux right
now, in that the USB portion of it is a moving target.

As for windows support, theres software out there that does talk to it.  I
might send some e-mails to the companies that have home control software
that supports it, and see who they had to sleep with to get the specs.  Home
Control Assistant, Homeseer, and Hal 2000 all support it, so the specs are
available.  I'll see what I can find out.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Gilmore [mailto:mark1@markgilmore.net]
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 9:41 PM
To: ecs@netbloc.com
Subject: RE: [ecs] Smarthome USB Powerlinc


Hi Paul,
I'm sorry, but this looks like a *major* hassle (plus Linux only, *and*
revision-dependent).
What I can't figure out is how they expect companies to support a device
without a protocol spec.

At 10:11 PM 2/10/2004 -0500, you wrote:

>Here is the section I think will do you the most good.  This is from his
>FAQ.  I'm keeping it here in the list because others might be interested.
>
>Q: How did you get the programming documentation for the PowerLinc USB?
>A: This was the most difficult transceiver to write code for.  I started by
>contacting SmartHome and they were very polite but said that they didn't
>have the time to provide the information.  The original PowerLinc Serial
>manual was somewhat limited and took a few days of experimentation to make
>work.  Imagine the number of technical support calls they would get by
>releasing programming information for a USB interface that few people have
>programmed to in the first place. I can't fault SmartHome at all because
USB
>isn't as simple as writing to a serial port and generally is not likely to
>be a simple weekend project for someone.  To write a transceiver driver,
you
>need 4 basic things: 1) the communications method for the device, 2) the
>translation table for generating the X10 signals, 3) the transmission
>communications sequence and packet format, 4) the receive communications
>sequence and packet format.  The communications method was easy enough to
>figure out by interrogating the USB device to find out that it was a HID
>class device which preferred interrupt mode for communications.  All of the
>documentation for USB drivers skips over how to communicate in interrupt
>form and always uses polling with bulk transfers.  Even the Synapse
software
>from SmartHome says that it uses polling.  I turned to the IBM Bluetooth
USB
>drivers that had an interrupt driven receiver and figured out how to at
>least write a receiver.  By complete accident I was just testing out the
>receiver to see if I could even load the module at 10:30pm at night when my
>main computer started sending the X10 signals to put the house to sleep.  I
>received all of the signals and found out that the receive protocol is
>incredibly simple in that it doesn't require any handshaking (identical in
>process to the PowerLinc Serial).  From there I turned on the receiver and
>sent enough codes on the line to figure out the translation table (minus
the
>extended codes).  The last one was the most difficult.  After banging
>against the device for a day thinking that the transmission process was as
>simple as the receive, I went to www.usb.org and found a link to USB
Central
>which had a freeware USB sniffer for windows.  I fired it up, fired up the
>USB Synapse software from SmartHome, and captured the USB traffic.  The
>protocol is similar in process to that of the PowerLinc Serial.  The actual
>data to be sent is very different, and the packet format is different, but
>the concept is similar.  After a bit of signaling, I was able to figure out
>what the fields were for the basic X10 protocol.  After about 32 hours of
>trial and error hacking with the device, I had the protocol documented, and
>about 4 hours later I had fully working drivers.  The documentation for
what
>I worked out is provided in the wish-1.4.0 and later packages in PDF
format.
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Gilmore [mailto:mark1@markgilmore.net]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 8:25 AM
>To: ecs@netbloc.com
>Subject: RE: [ecs] Smarthome USB Powerlinc
>
>
>thanks, Paul.
>i'll peruse the stuff tomorrow.
>
>At 08:00 PM 2/10/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >On the Smarthome page I found the following LINK
> >http://wish.sourceforge.net/
> >That link leads to a site with an absolute BUTLOAD of Linux X10 stuff,
with
> >Linux code for the USB Powerlinc.  Smarthome itself does not have specs,
>but
> >the guy that set this site up seems to have worked out most everything
you
> >would need to get Linux ECS working with the USB Powerlinc.  The Windows
> >version should follow, once you have an idea on how it works.
> >
> >Personally, I think that ECS supporting the newest PLC out there would be
a
> >good selling point.  Especially since most everything else X-10 is years
> >old.
> >
> >Take a look at the site, and if you are interested, I would be happy to
let
> >you use my USB Powerlinc to play with.  They are only $35 new, so I could
> >get another if there was a Discount in it for me on my copy of ECS<g>.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Gilmore [mailto:mark1@markgilmore.net]
> >Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 11:24 AM
> >To: ecs@netbloc.com
> >Subject: Re: [ecs] Smarthome USB Powerlinc
> >
> >
> >Hi Paul,
> >I might consider this if I can find a protocol spec.
> >Do you know where I can find one ?
> >Thanks,
> >
> >At 08:16 PM 2/9/2004 -0500, you wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Mark, have you considered this device?  I purchased one, and am
>considering
> > >running ECS on my XP machine.  My XP machine does not have serial
ports,
>so
> > >this seemed like a good idea<g>.  I would be happy to send my USB
>Powerlink
> > >to you for testing.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> >http://OmnipotenceSoftware.com
> >
> >
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>
>
>
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Mark Gilmore
http://OmnipotenceSoftware.com

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