This is using X-10 to communicate with the HA system (HAL) but I’m wondering if we can come up with a similar system for Vera. It would be great to know if a car just got home AND if the car has been home. Essentially we would need to create a scene with 3 states, Away, Just Arrived, and Home. Plus a way for the sensors to communicate with Vera.
i was under the impression that X10 could be integrated into Vera/Z-Wave?
I think it was supposed to but I haven’t read of anyone that has actually done it.
Vera 1 UI2 “Voice Announcements Coming Soon” ;D
There were a couple of other users using Dragon Speech or Dragon Dictate that could be used to do the same thing. I’ll look for the link.
FYI, as of .1245 X-10 still does not trigger/execute Z-Wave scenes.
http://bugs.micasaverde.com/view.php?id=1364
JOD.
*Edit. http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=6596.msg40956#msg40956
[quote=“JOD, post:4, topic:168436”]Vera 1 UI2 “Voice Announcements Coming Soon” ;D
There were a couple of other users using Dragon Speech or Dragon Dictate that could be used to do the same thing. I’ll look for the link.
FYI, as of .1245 X-10 still does not trigger/execute Z-Wave scenes.
http://bugs.micasaverde.com/view.php?id=1364
JOD.
*Edit. http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=6596.msg40956#msg40956[/quote]
Having the house talk to you (welcome you) would be cool but I’m actually looking for a way to tell the house that a car just got home or is home…or away. Things like having Vera automatically adjust a/c controls when a car arrives home, turn all the lights off when no car is home or shut off my wife’s outlets in her bathroom when she’s away. It can all be done but having a way to automatically let Vera know if you’re home or not would be great. Some of it could be done with just door sensors in the garage but most of it couldn’t.
After reading how he did it a few times I think it might be done in a similar way that someone (I have it book marked on my home computer) created a garage door opener/closer. I’ve also read about setting static IP address’ in your smart phone but as I recall iPhones need to be awake for that to happen.
@woodsby’s ActiveRFID.
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=3855.msg19388#msg19388
JOD.
*Edit. you could also use @Ap15e’s SND to send yourself an email and use a text to speech program to announce a car pulled into the driveway.
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=6656.msg41726#msg41726
@mbairhead,
Optical sensors, (active) RFID (as mentioned by @JOD), and HomeLink have come up. I think ‘perfect’ Home/Away detection is hard. (What if you go gas up the wife’s car while she is in the bathroom? ;D)
The ping sensor plugin works quite well with my BB on a static address, although I’ve not used it for this in ages. I wanted to the same thing really, but seeing as though my wife has an iPhone it wouldn’t work as the WiFi goes off in standby. If you do have an iPhone then you may be able to get round this if its jail broken.
You could also wire your car with some cheap device that has WiFi included, like a wireless bridge perhaps and permanently power it!
[quote=“strangely, post:8, topic:168436”]The ping sensor plugin works quite well with my BB on a static address, although I’ve not used it for this in ages. I wanted to the same thing really, but seeing as though my wife has an iPhone it wouldn’t work as the WiFi goes off in standby. If you do have an iPhone then you may be able to get round this if its jail broken.
You could also wire your car with some cheap device that has WiFi included, like a wireless bridge perhaps and permanently power it![/quote]
And then explain that to the police when youre pulled over… hahah no Sir, im not wardriving! Really im not!
@strangely, as for the ping sensor, how do you reset/untrip/re-arm it after its triggered? cant get that to work properly…(already posted it in the official thread
You mean make the running man disappear from red to blue and standing? If thats what you mean by untrip then it works fine for mine, and I didn’t have to anything special.
I’ll take a look at the other thread anyway.
[quote=“strangely, post:10, topic:168436”]You mean make the running man disappear from red to blue and standing? If thats what you mean by untrip then it works fine for mine, and I didn’t have to anything special.
I’ll take a look at the other thread anyway.[/quote]
Yes thats what i mean, but i want to set it up so it gives a notification and then resets automatically.
As it is, i have to manually untrip it and even that doesnt work flawlessly…
[quote=“strangely, post:8, topic:168436”]The ping sensor plugin works quite well with my BB on a static address, although I’ve not used it for this in ages. I wanted to the same thing really, but seeing as though my wife has an iPhone it wouldn’t work as the WiFi goes off in standby. If you do have an iPhone then you may be able to get round this if its jail broken.
You could also wire your car with some cheap device that has WiFi included, like a wireless bridge perhaps and permanently power it![/quote]
That’s actually a great idea, for $20 I can get a USB powered wifi dongle that I can plug into the cars with a static IP. I’m a big fan of jail breaking the phones but my wife isn’t such a fan so that wouldn’t work.
If my local PD is sophisticated enough to know I have a wifi device wired into my car then I’m sure they’ll understand what they’re looking at when I showed them some antique a/b wifi bridge plugged into a power port in the trunk with nothing for it to “speak” to. Plus I like the idea of my cars having an IP address, though I don’t know why, it just makes me smile.
What I was wondering is…with these cheap RFID readers, can they read the smart pass already in my windshield? They have unique ID’s already, we just need to discover what they are.
The dongle would probably need a computer to do anything. You’d probably want a standalone device as @strangely suggested, and power it from your car. And not drain the battery. 
A $30 USB stick sounds like a perfect excuse and companion for a carputer
Im standing with @oTi@ on this one… just a stick wont be enough, youll need something that the IP can actually assigned to, not just the WiFi ETH controller.
exactly, hence the carputer
http://www.customcarputers.com
To save complication its why I suggested the WiFi bridge originally.
Should have clarified, a USB powered bridge, there’s a few out there pretty cheap and won’t need a power inverter to run them.
I’ve been down the carputer road in the past and won’t do it again. It sounds fun but what a pain in the butt. Of course I had the touch screen molded into my console, which means there was no going back after that. My iPhone and the stock nav in my truck do everything I needed from a carputer.
Sounds like a perfect use for the old Vera1, if its collecting duct somewhere. Otherwise there are cheaper options.
I thought about the home/away solution for the car and I might still use @Woodsby’s RFID just for fun, but currently I am fine with the Door Lock codes being my way of identifying home and away. I will never leave the house unlocked, so each time I leave I have the choice of hitting the lock button (if I am leaving with someone home) or inputting a code that launches an All-Off command. Conversely, the same thing could occur when I return and unlock the door.
I know that a lot of the stuff we do, we do because it is fun or because we can…not because we need to. Because of that I’ll keep watching these solutions and ideas. I just have this fear of unintended automation, like accidentally triggering a scene by driving down a back street within radio distance or something. Entering my lock code isn’t really an extra step in my day and it provides similar results.
You got me thinging about using a camera though, so it could be dual purpose for monitoring and for triggering scenes based on driveway occupancy. I had posted about Sikuli before in the main forums but it went unnoticed. What about using Sikuli and a webcam like in this video to alert or fire a scene when the car (Panda) is gone or returns:
This is done with 3 or so lines of Sikuli code, but it might not work at a distance or have enough detail to work. Also you don’t want someone to pull into the driveway and get a false trigger, so maybe a low camera that could identify each license plate of the car for positive ID.
[quote=“shady, post:18, topic:168436”]Sounds like a perfect use for the old Vera1, if its collecting duct somewhere. Otherwise there are cheaper options.
I thought about the home/away solution for the car and I might still use @Woodsby’s RFID just for fun, but currently I am fine with the Door Lock codes being my way of identifying home and away. I will never leave the house unlocked, so each time I leave I have the choice of hitting the lock button (if I am leaving with someone home) or inputting a code that launches an All-Off command. Conversely, the same thing could occur when I return and unlock the door.
I know that a lot of the stuff we do, we do because it is fun or because we can…not because we need to. Because of that I’ll keep watching these solutions and ideas. I just have this fear of unintended automation, like accidentally triggering a scene by driving down a back street within radio distance or something. Entering my lock code isn’t really an extra step in my day and it provides similar results.
You got me thinging about using a camera though, so it could be dual purpose for monitoring and for triggering scenes based on driveway occupancy. I had posted about Sikuli before in the main forums but it went unnoticed. What about using Sikuli and a webcam like in this video to alert or fire a scene when the car (Panda) is gone or returns:
What if you have 2 cars on the drive?
Read my edit 
and use license plate identification?