Philips SBC370

Plugins & Plugin Development USB RFXtrx Transceiver
1

Hi,

Trying to get the RFXtrx plugin to work with some Philips SBC370 Sockets. I’ve added the sockets as Philips SBC devices, but I presume I seen to enable the appropriate protocol in the RFTtrx device settings within Vera. Problem is I’ve no idea which one it uses - the RFXtrx manual says ‘Lighting1’ - there’s a Lighting4 in the list but that doesn’t work.

Currently I’ve just got ‘AD (LightwaveRF)’ enabled. Anyone know which one to enable for these Philips devices?

Cheers

2

Enable ARC.

3

Philips SBC370 is only supported for transmit in Type2 firmware. See chapter 2.2.2. in the RFXtrx User Guide.
The transmit function does not need to have a protocol enabled.

To control the SBC370 use Lighting1 - Philips SBC
This can be tested using RFXmngr on a Windows system. I don’t know if this very old Philips SBC is implemented in the VERA plug-in!

4

Yes it is handled by the plugin. Just create the device with the correct parameters using the plugin UI and then use On and Off commands.

5

Thanks for the replies.

I’ve enabled ARC, then created a device of type ‘Philips SBC’ with house and unit codes to match those set on the plug. No joy - a device gets created in Vera ok, when you click the switch vera does it’s spinning animation for a few seconds, then the device remains in the off state on the gui. Plug doesn’t respond either.

I’ll dig out the original remote for these sockets and see if I can ‘learn’ the devices in that way. Will also try it later using the laptop so I can watch the rfxtrx and see if the activity led is doing anything when the signal is supposedly being sent.

6

As explained by Bert, no need to enable ARC protocol for SBC. Nothing is received by the RFXtrx.

Try first with RFXmngr.

7

Ok I get you both now - only need to enable the protocols if listening for something.

Have the unit (RFXtrx433E) hooked up to RFXmngr - and when trying to send an SBC command from Lighting1 tab it’s saying protocol not supported. Presume this is because I’ve an ‘E’ unit which comes loaded with the ‘Ext’ firmware by default - and for some reason Lighting1 is only supported in the ‘type2’ firmware.

Have flashed the ‘type2’ firmware into the unit and it seems to be working in RFXmngr now - next thing is to plug it back into Vera and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tips :slight_smile:

8

All seems well with the rfx unit and the Vera - not sure what the downside to the type2 vs ext firmware in the rfx is, but to be honest we’re only using lightwaverf so probably not much for me to worry about.

Thanks again for the help - much appreciated!