Indigo Domotics

Posted: **Thu May 10, 2012 10:32 am**

Hmmmm, and here I was thinking that as a Q&D hack pending the next update, I could just disable the plugin and go into the convertrainfalltounits code with the script editor and change the 25.4 to 2.54, since the totalranfall, yeartotal, monthtotal, and even the rainrate values were all consistent with a bogus divide by 10 (I poured the equivalent of not quite half an inch of rain through the gage in just over a minute and the rainrate was listed by RFX as 2.27 (in/hr?) when it should obviously have been something just short of 30... But you are saying that you think it's somewhere else. And BTW, it looks like if you live in Austin, you're about to get a chance to test YOUR gage on some live data...

Posted: **Thu May 10, 2012 10:50 am**

Somewhat off topic, and for that I apologize, but is there somewhere posted as to what exactly all of the device states mean for each type selected?

For instance... I'm assuming that (GUST) for a wind gage is for the last 24 hours... maybe it's the last hour?

Also... for min/max temp and humidity on a temperature type, I'm assuming that is the last 24 hours?

Just wasn't sure if this type of stuff is published or we have to do some experimenting on our own to figure it out.

Also of note, my temperature gage reads to the 1st decimal place yet my readings with this plugin show only a whole number value for both temperature, is there a reason why we can't enable temperature to the 1st decimal place or is this also due to the metric to imperial conversion?

Posted: **Thu May 10, 2012 10:51 am**

Robert/Bert - it just started raining here so I started looking and something is definitely not right: the rain sensor is showing 14.65 total for the previous week. We had NO rain until just a few days ago

Other than that, the plugin is showing currentDayTotal as .28 inches and my weather station is showing .29 so that seems close enough. currentWeekTotal is showing 2.05 which lines up with what the weather software I'm using (WeatherSnoop) shows for the week. That is, btw, also the total for the current month - but the plugin is claiming 16.7 inches which is significantly wrong.

Posted: **Fri May 11, 2012 4:49 am**

jay (support) wrote:
Robert/Bert - it just started raining here so I started looking and something is definitely not right: the rain sensor is showing 14.65 total for the previous week. We had NO rain until just a few days ago

Other than that, the plugin is showing currentDayTotal as .28 inches and my weather station is showing .29 so that seems close enough. currentWeekTotal is showing 2.05 which lines up with what the weather software I'm using (WeatherSnoop) shows for the week. That is, btw, also the total for the current month - but the plugin is claiming 16.7 inches which is significantly wrong.

I set up data logging once a minute on the critical items to a csv file and pulled the results this morning, since we had a nice little rain yesterday afternoon and another round of thunderstorms roll through late last night... the main purpose in getting the RFX btw was that I suspect that the mast I am using for my Davis VantageVue is flexing in high winds and underreporting rain; here are the csv files from the logs of the WeatherSnoop(Davis) and RFXCom(OSI) for the period from 1 pm yesterday to 5 am this morning; kind of peculiar that the RFXCom shows rain RATE changes without showing any accumulation...OK, it won't let me append the files; let me try imbedding, even though the post is going to be long

Davis

RFXCom/OSI

Posted: **Wed May 16, 2012 10:08 pm**

johnpolasek wrote:
Hmmmm, and here I was thinking that as a Q&D hack pending the next update, I could just disable the plugin and go into the convertrainfalltounits code with the script editor and change the 25.4 to 2.54, since the totalranfall, yeartotal, monthtotal, and even the rainrate values were all consistent with a bogus divide by 10 (I poured the equivalent of not quite half an inch of rain through the gage in just over a minute and the rainrate was listed by RFX as 2.27 (in/hr?) when it should obviously have been something just short of 30... But you are saying that you think it's somewhere else. And BTW, it looks like if you live in Austin, you're about to get a chance to test YOUR gage on some live data...

What firmware version does your RFXCOM show in the Event Log (when Indigo first connects to it)? The firmware history notes show a change related to rain total values on version 35.

The firmware is upgradable, but you have to use RFXCOM's utility to do it which runs on Windows. Using Mono is an option on a Mac, but it is pretty buggy.

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 4:37 am**

So do I need to contact RFX for the firmware upgrade?

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 4:54 am**

The latest RFXrec433 (receiver!!!) firmware version can be downloaded at: http://www.rfxcom.com/downloads.htm

Important: enable only the protocols you have to use!! If more protocols are anebled the receiver becomes less sensitive.

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 5:24 am**

matt (support) wrote:

The firmware is upgradable, but you have to use RFXCOM's utility to do it which runs on Windows. Using Mono is an option on a Mac, but it is pretty buggy.

I've got a win7-64 laptop available; hopefully the utility doesn't have any issues with that; if it fails, I guess I can always try to pass it through to the XP virtual box we keep running for a buggy security camera that only talks ActiveX...

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 9:38 am**

You can install mono and try it - it worked for me after several attempts. Terrible user experience though given the mono bugs, etc...

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 10:01 am**

RFXflash and RFXmngr 7.0.0.2 and up are written for .NET 2.0 and it will operate without any problem on a Windows System.
I have tested both programs on Ubuntu Linux with Mono and this works also.

Jay what are the problems you experienced with Mono?

Posted: **Thu May 17, 2012 10:16 am**

Several issues:

1) Mono often just won't launch so it takes a couple of tries.
2) The UI frequently doesn't redraw correctly - so you can't see where to click. Most times you have to restart the app but sometimes resizing the window will get it to draw correctly. This is especially bad in RFXmngr which has lots of buttons and tabs. Fortunately you don't have to use that to reflash - though the RFXflash app has the same issues even though it has fewer controls.
3) Controls (buttons and popup menus, etc) are often dead - click away and nothing happens.
4) Using it requires going to the command line (not something most users are comfortable with). Requiring opening a terminal window should be the option of last resort - not a standard procedure.

In general, it's a terrible user experience for non-technical users - inconsistent and daunting. We've spent a lot of time making sure that Indigo is as simple and consistent as possible given that Home Automation in general is a complex topic. That's how you develop a larger user base - by using the KISS principle.

Whenever someone switches to Indigo from a competitor the first reaction is always that Indigo is so much easier to use. That's the kind of reaction we want for users using any of our recommended solutions. It's why we spent so much time developing the UI part of the plugin API - so that developers could easily put a happy face on configuration and control of their devices, events, and actions.

Posted: **Fri May 18, 2012 5:22 am**

b_weijenberg wrote:
RFXflash and RFXmngr 7.0.0.2 and up are written for .NET 2.0 and it will operate without any problem on a Windows System.

This statement appears to be incorrect; it may work on a 32 BIT Windows system, but on the Win7-64bit system it apparently still has the "Big Endian LittleEndian" bug that so many OTHER pre64 device drivers did when the 64 bit OSes first came out. I just trashed the flash rom to the point where the RFX will no longer connect to the RFX utility in either 32 or 64 bit, meaning I can't enable any protocols or try reflashing the device. :cry:

Hope I don't have to send it back to Europe to get it back...

OK, this is interesting; I hooked it back up to the Mac, just hoping, and IT CAME BACK, with rev 41 firmware and all the protocols still activated... so apparently the only thing I have lost is the ability to reflash it again and the ability to use the windows utility to unset the protocols I'm not using.

Posted: **Fri May 18, 2012 5:33 am**

We use a Windows7 64bit system to develop and test RFXmngr and RFXflash.
We also test this on a 32 bit Windows XP and Ubuntu system and we did not discover any problem!

There should be no need to configure the protocols using RFXmngr.
It is prefered that the plug-in initializes the protocols used in the RFXtrx433/RFXrec433. I will check with the developer if this is implemented.

Note that you have to connect the USB before you start RFXflash, the RFX is not detected if you start RFXflash and after that the USB.
RFXmngr can be started before you connect the USB.
Only 1 application can connect the RFX at the same time. If you have connected the RFX with RFXmngr than RFXflash will not detect the RFX.

Please contact rfxcom support if you are not able to select the RFXrec in RFXmngr or RFXflash.

Posted: **Fri May 18, 2012 7:07 am**

b_weijenberg wrote:
It is prefered that the plug-in initializes the protocols used in the RFXtrx433/RFXrec433. I will check with the developer if this is implemented.

Yes, I implemented this -- the user can choose which receive protocols to activate in the RFX.

Posted: **Fri May 18, 2012 10:28 am**

Does the RFXtrx plugin work with the RFXCOM LAN TCP/IP 433.92MHz transceiver?

Indigo Domotics

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