In my case, the AD2PI works perfectly with my Vista 20P with one unique qualification - I have to keep the AD2USB connected to the Vera3 USB port although the AD2USB is no longer connected to the panel. Without it, there is no way to define the IP address and port required to make the AD2PI work, Even if the IP address and port are entered and you disconnect the USB cable, the AD2PI stops working.
Ok, well I guess this isn’t very popular. I am now more desperate for some insight. I have been using the ad2usb device for over a year and I love it. However I am challenged to get the internet to my alarm panel where I can connect the ad2usb. Well, yesterday lightning fried my ad2usb unit and I will be buying another one very soon. If the ad2pi is capable of doing what the ad2usb was doing but do it wirelessly, then that is what I want. I have only heard of the raspberry pi while trying to get arduino working (which i never did). So, if someone could at least let me know enough to help me decide which unit to get, I would be grateful. I guess I would also want to know if I would have to do any reconfiguration of the ademco app because right now I really just need to get my alarm back onto very. thanks.
The migration to the AD2PI from the AD2USB, at least from the Vista 20P side, is fairly painless. Disconnect the alarm wires from the AD2USB and connected them to the AD2PI and that is it. Remember to unplug the panel from the power and remove the battery before disconnecting and connecting the panel. The panel doesn’t really like it when you mess with the wires with the power on.
Select ‘Configure’ from the menu. On the “Serial & Socket” tab, select 'Socket Client Enabled".
Enter the IP address for the AD2PI - the device would have secured the address from your DHCP. You will need to go to your router’s DHCP allocation table to find out the address.
Enter port # 10000
Select the 'Setup AlarmDecoder" tab and confirm or enter your AlarmDecoder keyboard address. MAKE SURE this is the same address used by your AD2USB.
Enter/select the details for the expanders and relays, if applicable.
Click "Upload Settings to the ‘AD2USB’. Don’t worry about the the fact that is using the AD2USB name. It works.
Close the 'Configure" dialog box.
Select the ‘Logs’ from the main kaypad screen
Select ‘Restart AD2USB’ from the tab. Again, ignore the ‘AD2USB’ label.
Now to Vera and this is were I am having issues. Therefore, I will share what worked for me, which is far from perfect, but at least it works. If anyone finds out how to fix it, please share:
Make sure the UD2USB is connected to the USB port, even if not connected to the alarm panel. If Vera doesn’t detect an active USB port, it will not show the serial port configuration parameters. I have not tested it, but this might work with any USB device attached.
Select the ‘APPS’ tab from the menu
Select the ’ Develop Apps’ from the menu
Select 'Serial Port configuration"
On the ‘Used by device:’ pull-down, select the alarm panel device (NOT the partition device)
Enter the IP address for your AD2PI, the same as in step 1 above, in the ‘IP address:’ field.
Enter 10000 in the ‘Port:’ field
Ignore everything else as it has not effect on the AD2PI (e.g., baud rate, bits, etc.).
Click on ‘Save’ and that is it. Everything should be working. Of course, reload, refresh, all the normal things you do with Vera…
Again, the hardware part is very straight forward. Is the plugin configuration that needs fixing.
Hope this helps and hope the instructions are clear. I am horrible writing them!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that up. It is very helpful. Did you buy the package of the ad2pi with the raspberry? Or better state, is that what I would need if I don’t have a raspberry pi? And do I understand correctly that it will then connect wirelessly to my network?
I purchased the AD2PI network appliance (http://www.alarmdecoder.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/39). It’s a hardwired IP device so you will need an Ethernet connection to a switch for it to work. However, if you connect it to an Ethernet to wireless hub, you will have the wireless connection.
I have a similar setup with a AD2USB plugged into the USB port of a Raspberry PI and the Pi on my network. I was able to get the Vera3 to see the PI by loading ser2net on the Pi using hugheaves instructions in this post:
My one problem was that even when using the modified lua file I wasn’t able to get the Vera to see the pi on the ip:port. I needed to go into my serial setup field and enter the Raspberry Pi ip:port (and the 115200,N,8,1) into the GC100 serial port information section that was created when I added a GC100 unit to the system. The Vera3 doesn’t actually talk to the GC100 serial port, it goes directly the the ser2net connection on the pi and all of the communications work.
I don’t know if you can install the GC100 app on a Vera3 without actually having the device. If it’s possible that would solve the issue of needing to have the USB port active.
[quote=“xuniman, post:6, topic:181908”]I have a similar setup with a AD2USB plugged into the USB port of a Raspberry PI and the Pi on my network. I was able to get the Vera3 to see the PI by loading ser2net on the Pi using hugheaves instructions in this post:
My one problem was that even when using the modified lua file I wasn’t able to get the Vera to see the pi on the ip:port. I needed to go into my serial setup field and enter the Raspberry Pi ip:port (and the 115200,N,8,1) into the GC100 serial port information section that was created when I added a GC100 unit to the system. The Vera3 doesn’t actually talk to the GC100 serial port, it goes directly the the ser2net connection on the pi and all of the communications work.
I don’t know if you can install the GC100 app on a Vera3 without actually having the device. If it’s possible that would solve the issue of needing to have the USB port active.[/quote]
Wow, totally missed this thread earlier, and didn’t know the AD2PI actually existed.
Anyway, as xuniman said, give my modified AD2USB plug-in a try. It’s designed to directly support AD2USB over the network, and will do so without having to trick the old plug-in by having the AD2USB still plugged into the Vera USB port.
Let me know if you get it working, as if there’s enough demand, I’m guessing MCV would have no problem incorporating the changes I made into the official plugin.
hugheaves - have you tried using ser2sock with the Vera? The ad2pi and ad2usb with pi implementation that Alarm Decoder uses is based on ser2sock. Since ser2net only supports one connection we can’t use their web interface and the Vera simultaneously. It would be really nice if we could use ser2sock with the Vera so that we could use the Keypad app from Alarm Decoder without breaking comms to Vera.
I haven’t tried it, but it would probably work. There’s not much documentation on connection protocols on the Vera side, but I’m guessing that as long as ser2sock provided some sort of “raw” TCP connection with no other protocol data inserted, that it would work with Vera.
"So I just tested the webapp with ser2net and it functions fine. There really is no difference in protocol. There is one problem with running ser2net, though, and that’s the fact that it only supports a single connection so getting the Vera and webapp working together with that isn’t an option.
We don’t have a Vera here to test with, but I don’t see any reason why ser2sock wouldn’t work with the Vera. You’d just have to point it at the Pi on port 10000. I can see maybe the the informational messages causing issues, but that can be disabled with raw_device_mode=1 in /etc/ser2sock/ser2sock.conf or -0 (zero) on the command line. I would try the stock setup first, though."
I’m going to re-flash my pi with the Alarm Decoder image and see if I can get this working using the conf file entry he suggested.
[quote=“xuniman, post:10, topic:181908”]Scott over on the AlarmDecoder board sent this:
"So I just tested the webapp with ser2net and it functions fine. There really is no difference in protocol. There is one problem with running ser2net, though, and that’s the fact that it only supports a single connection so getting the Vera and webapp working together with that isn’t an option.
We don’t have a Vera here to test with, but I don’t see any reason why ser2sock wouldn’t work with the Vera. You’d just have to point it at the Pi on port 10000. I can see maybe the the informational messages causing issues, but that can be disabled with raw_device_mode=1 in /etc/ser2sock/ser2sock.conf or -0 (zero) on the command line. I would try the stock setup first, though."
I’m going to re-flash my pi with the Alarm Decoder image and see if I can get this working using the conf file entry he suggested.[/quote]
Let me know if you get it working. I actually didn’t know about Alarm Decoder until you mentioned it (it’s new since I bought my AD2USB), so I might give it a try as well.
Just a note from us at Nu Tech/AlarmDecoder - the ser2sock bundled with our AD2Pi Raspberry Pi image is compatible with the ser2net connection if you modify the configuration of ser2sock to support raw device mode (raw_device_mode = 1) or -0 on command line. This will allow the vera to talk to the ad2 device as well as other devices as ser2sock supports multiple connections.
It works great. I did have to add a mask to the keypad config to get it to ignore the empty second partition but other than that it’s working 100%. Kevin (mod) on there forum has posted a new topic describing the config change in ser2sock for the raw parameter to 1. I was going to post a link to your thread about the modified lua file for the app if you don’t mind. With both things implemented You can use the keypad app for programming and the Vera stays connected without issue. You can also Tenet to the ser2sock exposed port and use the ! command line setup for the ad2usb while the vera is running. This is a boon for ad2usb config changes that used to take stopping the luup engine in Vera for remote access.
