Submission by David Pullen – Some of you will know that I am a big fan of the VIOM from Phaedrus. I use 4 VIOMs to control my heating, some windows and blinds, led lights, electromagnetic locks and also to take inputs from motion detectors and a variety of other devices.
The current product really has a tremendous amount of functionality, specifically:
- 16 digital and 4 analogue inputs (10 bit resolution)
- 16 virtuals that can be used to hold a state
- 16 digital outputs with 10 pin headers for connection to relay, opto-isolator and display modules
- counters (16 bit) and high/low latches for each input
- serial port
- HTTP server
- email generation in response to specified events.
- 10Mbps ethernet interface
- embedded xAP.
The board is roughly 11cm square with the serial port at one end and the ethernet interface at the other end. The Netiom slots straight into a xAP network using the Basic Status and Control (BSC) schema and has some additional Netiom specific commands and responses.
The Netiom is initially configured via the serial port using a small interface application provided by Phaedrus. The Netiom can request the IP address from a DHCP server but I prefer to allocate fixed IP to devices like this. The inputs and outputs are all given default names (eg output.1) but can be renamed to something more helpful such as office.pir. All these changes are made through the interface application. As soon as the programming link is removed the device leaps into life and starts issuing xAP heartbeats and status information.
The digital inputs can be directly interfaced to TTL and CMOS outputs but the voltage should not exceed 5 volts. I find most of the inputs I use are simply clean contacts that pull the input down to 0 volts, eg PIRs, pressure mats, door and window sensors, etc. The analogue inputs cover the range 0 to 5 volts (and must not exceed 5 volts).
Measurements are referenced to the internal 5 volt supply rail that, I understand, has an accuracy of 5%. The reported values are in the range of 0 to 1023. You can set the hysteresis and “on state” levels for the analogue inputs and counters (driven by the change of state of the digital inputs) to ensure that xAP messages are not issued too frequently (see the screenshot below). You can also set the frequency of the xAP BSC info messages by setting the update period on the same screen. It is also possible to set the Netiom to send all the BSC info message at the same time rather than one at a time. Since there are 102 nodes it will usually take 102 * update period to complete all the info messages.
It is also possible to set anti-bounce values for each individual input should it be necessary. All the settings can be saved to a file so that they can be restored if required.
The digital outputs are open collector and can be used to drive relays (with back emf suppression), leds etc. I tend to use the relay modules (8 relays per module) also provided by Phaedrus to drive my devices. The relay modules simply plug into the 10 way headers. I noticed that Phaedrus have also released an opto-isolator module that could be very useful for many HA applications.
I am using the Netiom with Homeseer (as with the VIOMs) and as soon as it starts sending out xAP messages, they are picked up by the xAP conduit in Homeseer as new devices on the network. With a few mouse clicks for each device (rather a lot, in total, for the Netiom as there are 102 nodes!) the Netiom becomes fully controllable by Homeseer with immediate status feedback.
You can also control the Netiom directly via its inbuilt web server through the default web pages or even develop your own pages. Rather handy if your controller is down or you don’t want to depend upon some central intelligence. The web pages need to be downloaded via the interface program over the serial port (see below).
New pages can be created and added to the list or substituted for existing pages. The following commands and dynamic tags are available:
Commands
- Turn all or single outputs on or off
- Clear all or single counters
- Turn all or single virtuals on or off
- Clear all or single high or low latches
- Send a message to the serial port
- Toggle all or single outputs
- Toggle all or single virtuals
Dynamic Tags
%00 Last serial message received.
%01 to %04 Analogue input 1 to 4 value (0 to 1024)
%05 State of digital inputs 1 to 8
%06 State of digital inputs 9 to 16
%07 State of outputs 1 to 8
%08 State of outputs 9 to 16
%09 State of virtuals 1 to 8
%10 State of virtuals 9 to 16
%11 to %26 Input 1 to 16 counter value (0 to 32767)
%27 State of inputs 1 to 8 low latch
%28 State of inputs 9 to 16 low latch
%29 State of inputs 1 to 8 high latch
%30 State of inputs 9 to 16 high latch
%31 Insert device name
%41 to %56 Input 1 to 16 status
%61 to %76 Output 1 to 16 status
%81 to %96 Virtual 1 to 16 status
%99 Add a carriage return/line feed pair
The performance of the Netiom xAP is quite amazing. I was unable to provoke any untoward behaviour during the testing and I believe Kevin Hawkins saw message rates of over 3000 per minute when stress testing. Response to messages is virtually instantaneous and commands issued to control multiple outputs at a time result in almost perfectly synchronised clunks in the relays.
I can see the counters being useful for monitoring energy consumption. The analogue inputs can of course be used with many different input devices and I am planning to use some of them for light sensors.
The serial port can act as a gateway allowing serial commands to be issued across the network to a locally connected device using xAP. The Netiom can be set up to prepend and/or append specific characters (eg STX, ETX). xAP allows messages to be sent to the serial port in text or hex format.
The following BSC message would send the “PON” command out of the serial port (Power on for a Panasonic plasma)
xap-header
{
v=12
hop=1
uid=FF411100
class=xAPBSC.cmd
source=mi4.homeseer.dptestserver.Master
target=phaedrus.netiom.location:SerialPort.Out
}
output.state.1
{
id=66
text=PON
}
The email functionality appears to work very well although the email message is not dependent upon the trigger. Emails can be generated according to a variety of different scenarios, specifically:
- low or high input
- analogue input above or below preset amounts
- a serial port message
but the email is always the same format so you have to check the message in detail to determine what triggered it. However, you can configure the subject and message to be whatever you want by modifying and downloading to the Netiom the files esub.cgi and email.cgi as for the web pages (see above). All the same dynamic tags are available as for the web pages. The carriage return/line feed pair are specifically aimed at the email format. I don’t foresee using the email trigger very much but I am sure that there are some people who will find it very useful.
I understand from Roy that he does have plans to add further VIOM functionality to the Netiom is later releases, eg the ability to trigger outputs from combinations of inputs, but at the moment the inputs and outputs are independent.
Overall I think the Netiom xAP is a fantastic device at an extremely reasonable price (currently £69 plus VAT). It doesn’t have the state engine of a Web Brick (another excellent HA enabling product) but it packs in an amazing amount of functionality and slots seamlessly into a xAP network. It is certainly a great addition to a growing range of products that will make DIY HA that much easier. I am always running out of IO and this works out at about £2 per IO unit! If you are already using xAP then just buy one! If you are not using xAP then I think this device is a great reason to get started.
I should state that I have no connection to Phaedrus other than as a happy customer and beta tester.
Netiom-Xap : www.xapautomation.org
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