HomeVision Supports UK CID

After upgrading my main PC’s motherboard I at last had 2 serial ports free (the new board has a PS2 type mouse connector). This meant I could finally start to experiment with my Solwise Caller ID box.

After some initial talks with Craig (of Custom Solutions Inc) he sent me the Caller ID version of the HomeVision software (this is a special version of the software needed for Caller ID for which there is a small charge).

The good news was that the HomeVision software was receiving data from the Solwise box, although as predicted by Craig the formatting of the incoming numbers was all wrong. The US format seems to be (XXX) XXX-XXXX and the software was attempting to apply this to the UK numbers. A quick phone call to Florida and Craig agreed to try and patch the software to allow it to recognise UK numbers properly. As always Craig’s support has been superb and he produced several version of the software to try, each being emailed to me the very same day I had sent my updated findings!

When the Solwise Caller ID box detects an incoming call it passes the data via serial port to the PC (the PC must be permanently turned on and connected both to the CID box and HomeVision for this to work). The HomeVision software then strips out the relevant data and tries to find a match for the number in the CID_NAME.TXT file (the format of this file is shown below).

0802-123456 = Marks Mobile
01846-234567 = Bob
01846-345678 = Jim

Although this file has to be typed up by the user, it proves to be invaluable. If the HomeVision can find a match for the number then it will display the name of the caller in addition to their number. During the initial CID configuration on the HomeVision software you choose a macro to run whenever a call is received. It’s this macro that determines if or how the CID information will be displayed on the TV. Below is the macro I use.

Video: Start external video mode
Video: Display caller ID on external video
Video: Set vertical screen offset to 10
Video: Set horizontal screen offset to 5
Wait 0:00:20.00 with timer #4 (Caller ID Timer), Then:
Video: Stop video mode
End Wait

So – as the phone rings the following text appears overlaid onto my TV picture.

PHONE CALL
Mark

NUMBER 01234 567890

It stays there for 20 seconds then disappears.

The software also produces a fill called CID_LOG.TXT This file records all incoming calls and which looks like this… Began Waiting for Call: 2/3/98 8:06:45 PM
2/3/98 at 8:07:01 PM: Private WITHHELD
2/3/98 at 8:13:48 PM: 01846-123456 Bob
2/3/98 at 8:18:05 PM: 01846-234567 Jim

At the time of writing CSI have just added an option to the Caller ID configuration screen (Software version 2.61) that will work for the UK with the Solwise unit.

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