My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Working on a home project? Post it here.
Locked
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Fri Aug 15, 2014 4:46 pm

ISY-994 - AUTELIS - INSTEON - DASH BOX - GREEN EYE MONITOR: MONITORING & CONTROL
Its been a very long road and the journey to integrate the above devices have almost finally come true. Much work and progress has been seen from all listed companies stated above. :P

With lots of help from people from all around the world in various forums. I have been able to craft some programs to monitor, react, and control, many aspects of the home and its attached devices. With the first phase of the 1 wire temperature sensor deployment in the home and having the ability to extract the temperature for all areas of the home via the Autelis Bridge & Dash Box.

I have been able to do the following and apply it in a practical manner that makes life easier, safer, and just fun! :mrgreen:
ENERGY MONITORING
So way back in the day many of us have come home to a dead fridge / freezer. The amount of wasted food that equates to real lost dollars is something non of us ever want to go through given the hard economic times. :evil:

My first project was to monitor the run time of the fridge and the defrost cycles. This would allow me to fine tune the internal settings for each unit. Below is a perfect example of my fridge running for ever, then going into defrost mode, then running forever again!

All because of various silly things that could have been avoided: Door ajar, blocking the internal rear vents, inserting hot food, etc.

With all of these devices integrated I can receive notifications of such conditions and react to them.

Image
HOT WATER HEATER
Below is the Dash Box energy tracking of the HWT. As you can see for that day it turned on three times. In a moment you will see how this same data is ingested into the ISY-994 Series Controller to track, alert, and control my Insteon network.

Image
ISY STATE & INTEGER VARIABLES
Below is a ISY Integer Variable (ID 22 GEM Hot Water Cycle Count) that tracks how many times the HWT has also turned on (cycles per day). As you see, it also recorded the HWT turned on three times that day.

Image

To add even more power and awareness the ISY has been programmed to track all the appliances in the home which calculates the total run time in seconds, minutes, and hours. This gives me insight as to the expected (normal) run time of an appliance or device.

Below is a State Variable in (ID 108 GEM HotWaterRuntimeDailyMins) which indicates three cycles equates to 27 minutes.

Image

This image capture is of the ISY State Variable that captured the sump pump activating. The system recorded that the sump activated for 48 seconds.

Image

When comparing that data to the Dash Box the time and duration is exactly the same! :mrgreen:

Image

This is a short video of the ISY-994 Series Controller counting the minutes the fridge is running for.

http://vid941.photobucket.com/albums/ad ... da0c0b.mp4
DAILY REPORTS
At approx midnight each day I receive a daily report indicating the total run time in minutes and how many cycles have occurred for every device or appliance in the home which you see below.

Image

Image
THRESHOLD LIMIT ALERT
To aid in more insight and awareness to this. Another program in the ISY monitors the run time of all the devices in the home. Should a predefined threshold be over the set limit an e-mail will be sent out to the end user.

The ultimate goal is to control those devices and bring them on line / off line to reduce energy consumption and protect the home against a faulty device.

I am currently working with a fantastic person named (Xathros) on the ISY forum to fine tune this program so it will let me know how much longer the device is running past the set limit. With out his expert help and assistance in crafting such powerful and wonderful programs I could not have gotten as far as I have.

I can not thank Xathros enough for his time, patience, and never ending support in my endeavor to automate my home.

Once that program gets hammered out I will be all knowing! :lol:

Image
ISY PROGRAMS / GEM ENERGY DATA
This is another program from Xathros which allows me to take the inbound energy data from the GEM, and allow the ISY to process it, to do something else on the Insteon network.

Image

There are seven programs that monitor, control, and react to the GEM's energy readings. The ISY will indicate the state of any of the programs of either true / false (on / off) via the colored indicators in the files.

As indicated up top the power of this program allows me to track if a device is on, how many times, and for how long. At the end of the day a report is sent out to let me keep track of the homes over all health.

Once I have been able to sort out various bugs and fine tune these programs to my environment the Insteon integration will commence.

Image
BLOCK HEATER CONTROL
This all started off by wanting a better mousetrap! I had asked the forum members to come up with a better block heater timer for me. This would allow more logic and smarts and take into consideration the actual temperature of the garage.

Image
HVAC CONTROL
This is another great little program I am currently testing out to control various HVAC related devices in the home. This program was crafted by another great ISY user named apostolakisl. This program can be modified to allow the user to apply either a time limit or duration.

Image

I have decided to use a period of time (7:00 AM to 5:00 PM) for some devices in the home vs letting the program run for a set time of 4 hours for example.

Image

Image
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:41 pm

DASH BOX - SD MEMORY CARD UPGRADE PROCESS

WARNING: The following steps outlined below is not endorsed or supported by Brultech at this time. Opening the Dash Box will void any in warranty coverage you may have. Data loss may occur and the file system may also be corrupted by this process.

Using the steps listed below is at the end users risk entirely.

NOTE: There is no guarantee that Brultech will assist you in the above endeavor if approached. As this leaves them in a highly liable position should the DB become bricked or damaged in the process.

Please respect them if they so choose to decline in helping you to complete this task.
I was asked by a good friend (Barry G) if the steps of upgrading the Dash Box's Micro SD card was documented or not.

It wasn't until now . . . :lol:

If the above warning message has not deterred you from performing this upgrade please continue to read ahead. Early releases of the Dash Box (DB) before May 2014 had a 8 GB Transcend class 10 Micro SD card. This provided the DB with approx 12 months of granular minute data.

Brultech offers a Dash Box Exporter v1.2 for the end user to extract the data from the DB. It is recommended that individual months be exported one at a time. This process can take many hours to complete so please keep this in mind should you wish to travel down this path.

The software can be obtained from the following link: http://www.brultech.com/home/software/i ... etsoft/1/4

For me this process seemed too complex and time consuming. In the big picture this entire process would have to be done every 12 months. Which I can safely tell you all that isn't something I am going to waste my time doing! :mrgreen:

So I reached out to Brultech and inquired if there was a method to upgrade the Micro SD card in the DB. Ben replied back that there was but the following steps are not supported or warrantied to work should the system fail while attempting so.
WHAT YOU NEED:
1. Micro SD class 10 memory card.
2. SD Memory card adapter.
3. Small Phillips screw driver.
4. Win32DiskImager / imageUSB software.
5. Open port 9500 in your router for remote access.
MEMORY CARD:
Brultech indicates all of the DB units that are in production use the Transcend branded Micro SD cards. They have had great success and no failures to date. If you're able to obtain and purchase this brand please do so. All newer DB now include a 16 GB Micro SD card so this offers you almost two years of energy data.

Lucky bastards! :x

Image

I was not able to find any retailer in my city that carried this brand. So I went with the Lexar company that has been field tested and proven to work. I selected a Lexar 32 GB class 10 UHS-I memory card as they are readily available from most retailers and proven to work.

This memory card is also regularly discounted at Staples, Best Buys, Future Shop, etc. This 32 GB card was purchased for approx $23.XX.

Image

This card has extremely fast transfer read / write speeds and supports 1080P & 4K video.

Image
MEMORY CARD ADAPTER:
Unless your computer system supports a Micro SD memory card. You will need a SD card adapter to insert one to the other into the host computer system that is performing the imaging. Below are some of the SanDisk and after market adapters I have on hand.
Image
PHILLIPS SCREW DRIVER
You will need one small Phillips screw driver to remove the two set screws holding the outer casing from the main PCB.

Image
REMOVAL PROCESS:
Power down the Dash Box by removing the power supply and all related cables from the unit. Wait for the DB status LED to go out completely.

Wait another minute (60 seconds) to ensure the super capacitor with in the DB is fully discharged.

While sitting down touch the case of the DB this will ensure any ESD from your body is discharged. I have a ESD mat and wrist connector when ever I am performing sensitive electronic repairs. If you have such tools please do use them and follow all best practices for ESD handling.

Image

If not, performing the above step will help reduce any possible ESD discharge which could damage the DB main PCB board. Remove the two Phillips set screws from the front where the connectors are as you see below. Place the screws in a magnetic tray, cup, what ever.

Image

Slide out the main PCB slowly from its metal casing. Place the main board to the side and lay flat on the table.

Image

Press on the end of the Micro SD card, and it will eject from its housing.

Image

Insert it into the SD Adapter and get ready to copy and image the new Micro SD card.

Image
IMAGING & TRANSFER:
You have two choices of software to copy and transfer the image from one card to the other. Brultech uses the Win32DiskImager software in their production. I did not have any luck using this software at all and many others complained about seeing the same corruption and error messages I did. :|

After screwing around and wasting about 12 hours with the above software. I gave up and decided to use a proven imaging copying tool from the past. I use imageUSB software because its field proven and also has the added bonus of validating the image that was copied.

YMMV so you can decide what works for you or not.

It goes with out saying no matter what software you use. You need to ensure the OEM memory card is left intact and not allowed to be corrupted. Failure to make an exact copy of the target data could leave your entire system bricked and with out a operating system and its related energy data. :geek:

This is the link to the Win32DiskImager: http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32di ... p/download

The other one you will need to hunt on the Interwebs for. :lol:

NOTE: Both imaging software tools are intended for Windows 7 and earlier. Those using Windows 8 may see never ending problems with these tools. Its best to find a Windows 7 computer to do the imaging process.

1. Insert the (old) Micro SD card into your host computer.

2. Launch the imaging software tool of choice. Copy the data from the old Micro SD card and save the image to the local machines desktop for easy retrieval.

3. Insert the (new) Micro SD card and launch the tool again and follow the steps outlined by the respective tool for transferring of data. In the imageUSB tool select verify write. This adds more time to the process but guarantee's that the data was copied exactly bit for bit and no errors are present.

4. Once the data is transferred to the new Micro SD card. Using the Windows eject icon, eject the SD card from the OS. Complete this step before removing the memory card from your computer.
BOOT UP AND CONFIG PROCESS:
1. Remove the Micro SD card from the SD adapter.
2. Insert it into the DB and ensure it clicks into the housing.
3. Insert the DB's main PCB back into the metal housing and secure.

4. Plug back all the cables and apply power to the DB. If it boots up you're golden go to step 6, if it doesn't you're screwed. :lol:

5. If the system does not boot up you will need to perform the imaging process again until the system does boot up.

6. If the DB does boot up and you see all of your old data and the system operates as expected. You can then engage Brultech to assist you to expand the file system. This process can take 30 minutes to several hours so let Brultech complete this process before you do anything to the system.

7. If the file system expansion is successful Ben will be able to confirm this and shoot over the percentage and the volume left on the drive.

8. Enjoy four years of energy (Minute) related data on your Dash Box (DB) and not have to worry about doing a data export ever again! :mrgreen:
REMOTE ACCESS:
You will need to open port 9500 for Brultech to gain access to your Dash Box. This will allow them to remote in and perform the file system expansion. Please ensure port 9500 is open on your router, firewall, anti-virus software to complete the final steps.
CLOSING REMARKS:
Since the memory upgrade the DB is faster to boot up and load. You may also find that when performing a search for historic data it is also faster. I also noticed the wireless stick became active faster once this upgrade was completed.

It was noted in the original thread that the file system expansion option (button) may be incorporated into the DB in later releases. This will help both the end user and Brultech from having to schedule a file system expansion session and opening port 9500.

I would like to once again thank Ben at Brultech in helping me get this Dash Box upgraded in short order.

MICRO SD UPGRADE - DECEMBER 2, 2015:
During this years 2015 Black Friday sales event Best Buys had some great deals on Micro SD cards from Samsung. They had two Samsung capacities of 64 GB & 128 GB respectfully going out the door for rock bottom prices. Given the low prices for these high quality memory cards I purchased two 64 GB sizes and four 128 GB memory modules! :lol:

Image

Image

The first Samsung 128 GB Micro SD card arrived at my door on Tuesday December 01, 2015. These Samsung Micro SD Cards are class 10, UHS-I, with 80MB/s Read, 20MB/s Write performance rated.

Image

Samsung indicates these memory cards are water proof, magnetic proof, X-Ray Proof, and Temperature Proof. They back this fine product with a no questions asked 10 year warranty.

Image

Of course yours truly the all mighty Teken couldn't let this opportunity go bye with out considering the possibility of upgrading my Dash Box. Speaking with Ben at Brultech he indicated the maximum memory size the team has tested at that time was 64 GB.

So there was no guarantee that the 128 GB capacity card would work. :| :(

Image

Undaunted, I decided to take a huge gamble and complete the above process. With nail biting waiting, eyes affixed to the monitor, simply watching the hour long process unfold. I can in this instance, state the migration of my existing DB data from the 32 GB memory card to the much larger capacity 128 GB Micro SD card was a resounding success! :mrgreen:

Image

The previous 32 GB would have provided my system 4 years of minute data if left in place. Given I am adverse to doing any kind of manual back up and figured if this upgrade worked this new 128 GB card will ultimately provide my system 16 freaking years of minute data! :mrgreen: :P

Speaking to Ben we both joked that the Dash Box hardware was more likely to fail long before the actual DB was filled with 16 years of energy data! :lol:
DASH BOX - SYSTEM STATISTICS:
In previous firmware versions of the DB the system was able to show the end user a tab that indicated the various stats of the system. This feature has been removed as its being reworked in newer releases.

In the interim the end user can use the following URL to generate the same information. I have high lighted what each field means for clarity sake. The purple field indicates the DB IP address and the URL you need to enter into a web browser.

The blue field indicates the up time the system has been running for since the last reboot. The orange field indicates the *current* memory capacity left on the card. The green field indicates how many days can be stored if one GEM is connected to the DB system.

As you can see with almost two years of existing data migrated over I have 108.864 GB left which translates to 4966.9 days, or 13.605 years of minute data storage to look forward to! :mrgreen: :P :D :lol:

Image
CLOSING REMARKS:
It should be noted there were a few issues I ran into and glad Ben was on the other side taking care of things in this migration process. As one of the bugs I found in the existing DB platform the system requires that the computer system time be accurate.

I have a computer that spends most of its time in a power down state and thus the internal MOBO battery has since lost charge. This causes the computer to boot up with some random date and year like 1980 etc. :x As the DB does some kind of correlation with the users computer system time having a out of band date / time will cause the system to throw a flag.

Essentially the DB at the top header will declare an error in the status LED. Normally the system would perform a NPT time sync upon boot up and may have very well self corrected itself. But I jumped the gun and tried to perform a manual time sync to the NPT time server and more than likely this caused the flag to stay in place and could not be cleared by me.

Hence why this entire memory upgrade process should be left in the hands of the Brultech team to ensure any faults are resolved and the system is fully operational in short order.

Since I have been blazing a trail in the Dash Box development for others to follow. We can at least confirm that migrating to a 128 GB Micro SD card is possible and the system will accept it. It should be noted that the highest quality memory should be used in this case. As there are way too many variables that can impact this process from going wrong.

Once again I have to extend my thanks and appreciation to Ben and the Brultech team in facilitating this validation process and upgrade!

Virtual Beers for the Brultech family . . .
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Fri Nov 28, 2014 6:18 pm

ISY-994 IZ PRO ENERGY RELATED ISSUES:
During the last two years of trying to integrate the ISY with the GEM. There have been some consistent problems being seen. To date there hasn't been any forward movement in identifying or resolving these issues. :|

I am hoping very much that in Beta 5.XX which is due next year will address some of the feature disparities and resolve some of the on going issues I have seen, and endured.
DEVELOPMENT:
Currently development of the Energy Module for the ISY has come to a screeching halt. Its safe to say nothing worth mentioning has appeared for the last two years for the module. In the image below there is a field called *Current Current* to date this box has never worked in reporting the amount of current / amps the house is using.

Image

The next issue relates to energy values that are available from the drop down list that can be applied to programs. To date, channels 1 & 2 can use Amp, Volts, Watts, KWH, Polarized Watts from the list.

The remaining 30 channels only have the two options which are Watts & KWH. Having the ability to select all of the listed energy options would prove extremely helpful in crafting programs and allow flexible monitoring.

There are instances where the current / amperes need to be measured opposed to watts. There is also circumstances where the end user has a dedicated circuit that is generating power (NET Metering) and having the ability to monitor and track polarized values would be beneficial.

As it stands the above options are not available. :|

Image

A long time feature request has been having the ability to reset the counters in the GEM. As you can see there is a option to reset the counters but this is a manual method. There is no method to add this to the programs and have the system reset all the counters for the end of the month.

The current work around is to set a reminder on my smartphone and do this task at 12:00 AM each month. :cry:

Image

Failure to reset the counters each month in the GEM will affect the Total Energy column in the ISY. This impacts any programs that rely on the KWH total which you see in red. So if your intent is to track the total energy for that month for the furnace and have some kind of action performed by the Insteon network. This would cause a false flag to occur.

Not good if devices are going to be turned on / off.

One of the features I had requested was to have another Energy Total counter which recorded the daily KWH consumed. Opposed to what you see here a rolling counter that in essence is a global counter. To be fair I am uncertain if a individual channel counter can be reset or that a daily counter could be added.

But, then again this conversation hasn't progressed very far when asked.

Image
PROBLEMS: SPIKES - UNKNOWN VALUES - FALSE FLAGS
So now we are getting to the meat of the problems I have been seeing and trying to determine the root cause. For the past several years I have been receiving alert messages that my solar array is outputting insane amounts of power.

Image

These values sometimes are reported in the range of millions, and billions of watts. As of this writing I have not seen further spikes in this channel. Some of the things I did to be proactive was to include all listed companies to the alert message.

So, in essence they see what I see and receive the same notifications. The importance of doing this is having factual data to reference to. Nothing is better than receiving e-mails with time stamps along with the output from the system itself. :lol:

One of the things I have also done is limit the voltage range the system is monitoring. I am unsure if this has played a role in not receiving the alerts. Opposed to simply hiding the problem because two conditions must be met before the flag is set to true.

In this screen capture if it isn't obvious its 8:XX PM in the evening pitch black. There is no sun, the inverter's are asleep, the circuit has been disconnected from the grid.

I will be updating this test to see what bares fruit.

Image

This same problem also appeared in my sump pump circuit. As you can see there is no way such a power output could have been achieved on any scale.

Image

This is another example of the same issue on the sump pump.

To try to isolate and confirm what I was seeing the following things have been deployed and put into place. I have systematically placed monitoring equipment on key circuits that are showing these erratic and unknown values to appear.

The following steps have been performed and completed to help isolate, reduce, and stop these spikes.

GEM: PT Voltage has been measured and calibrated against a high quality true RMS DMM. CT parameters have been calibrated against known measured loads. CT's have been replaced for the circuits impacted by this. UPS and filtering systems are in place.

Additional line measurements via point of use CT's are in place to confirm and collaborate the primary circuit wattage.

Image

The next problem I have seen is where the ISY has reported my refrigerator is in a negative wattage condition? as seen below :roll:

Image

One of the things I did to confirm if this condition existed was to program the ISY to take the same data from the DB and record the value when the message was sent. As can be clearly seen in the message below the DB shows a power output of 111 watts, where as the ISY at the time of the alert indicates a power value of -136.63 watts?

Image

The next issue is receiving alert messages that my dryer has been turned on / off. I have many programs that monitor and alert me to the current status of the appliances in the home. This helps the family members know when the next load is done and budget their time accordingly.

This clearly can't be done if the person is receiving a message at the wrong time due to a false flag condition. What is strange is that the program(s) absolutely work in terms of telling me when something is turned on, or is completed and goes into standby, or turns off.

The issue here is random as you see below, supposedly the dryer was done at 1:01:25 AM. :shock:

To further illustrate how impossible this could be is the shear fact the power to the breaker is turned off! :? I have done this to several circuits and waited to see what happens. Of course it happens even with no power flowing to the device which clearly indicates this is not a power spike in that circuit.

Image

The next problem appears to be the system at random times reports a low / high voltage condition when none exists. Over all this particular problem does not happen very often and other monitoring devices I have at my disposal never reflect this issue.

Image

Image

Finally, we have one of the most frustrating things I have encountered just in this last year. Below is a screen capture of the energy readings from the GEM to the ISY. Pretty much anytime now when I am in the Admin Console when I am sitting there the energy readings will simply just stop coming in and the system will stop updating the UI. :x :evil: :|

Image

Being a long time manager, technician, and just a over all handy man in various industries. Its fair to say I have lots of common sense and technical know how to first trouble shoot, diagnose, repro, and deploy a fix.

I have from the ground up re-imaged ISY, my computers, replaced countless pieces of network related hardware, and combed the interwebs. To date I have not found any reason why the energy readings stop streaming into the ISY.

People have often asked me *Teken how do you know its simply not the GEM causing this delay in power values from streaming in??*

Well that is indeed a valid statement and question that needs to answered. I know its not the GEM because the same data is streaming into other devices in my network and to the cloud. For the sake of eliminating possible things that could be a contributing factor.

I have systematically removed every device from the GEM and only allow the ISY to communicate. The problem persists with this set up. I have replaced the Zigbee card, brought the entire device one foot from the ISY to GEM module, same problem.

I have disconnected every piece of electronic gear in my entire house that could possible cause any RFI/EMI that could cause interference, same problem.

I have even brought in a RFI / EMI meter to confirm my home is completely dead and void of any interference, same problem. Multiple computers spanning four different work sites using Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, all show the same problem.

Going into the Dash Box, SEG, and a local Data Server all show no dropped COM's or missing data, ever.

Fast forward to November 2014 even with every firmware update this problem persists?? :?:

So, why did I just state all of the above with such clarity and exactness? Because its not just the energy readings that stop coming in. Its the entire ISY UI stops responding to user interaction or commands.

Reviewing the Level 3 Error Logs show the system simply stops. Why? I don't know why and have removed every program to see if the UI freeze stops, it doesn't. So, when people ask what have you done? Well, pretty much everything that can be done and more.

More details to come . . .
APRIL 02, 2015 UPDATE:
Well it looks like after what seemed to be eternity many of the problems I have been seeing have on the surface been resolved! :P

Paul at Brultech and Michel at UDI have finally determined how Zigbee packets coming from the GEM and how they are handled and translated in the ISY Series Controller. Have on the surface been able to resolve two issues.
OUT OF BAND WATTAGE:
Alpha 4.2.29 firmware was installed on March 30, 2015. Since that date no out of band values have been reported by the ISY Series Controller via e-mail alerts. These out of band alerts impacted voltage, solar, fridge, dryer, sump, and dish washer.

It has been two solid days and nothing has come in or has been recorded. :mrgreen:
ADMIN CONSOLE CONNECTION:
Another apparent side of effect of patching up the Energy Module has been the restore of being able to stay connected to the Admin Console. This issue was two fold in that in the past I was able to stay logged in and review live events of status and energy readings for an entire day.

Prior to Alpha 4.2.29 I was hard pressed to stay connected from seconds to minutes never mind hours! :evil:

I have been able to stay connected and view streaming energy readings in an excess of three plus hours with out a single drop out. This aspect can not be understated because when a person is coding and looking for a change of state in the programs and nothing is changing.

This leads to confusion and a lack of confidence of what is actually happening in the system as a whole. So the connection appears to be more solid and streaming energy readings in the Admin Console are timely and accurate. :mrgreen:
VARIABLE MISCOUNTS:
Some where down the line of various Beta updates the system has started to miscount. I have hundreds of state / integer variables that track and count when things are on, off, duration, cycles, and run time.

For what ever reason (loosely speaking) the system ignored extremely small wattage changes. But now even the most minute drop in wattage triggers a change in state. This unknown sensitivity was the root cause of my variable miscounts! :|

Below is a perfect example how powerful the DB / GEM combination is. Using the *Real Time Data* option this is a instance where the fridge dropped off for just a few seconds.

Image

Zooming in and expanding the time interval for this session clearly shows the (average watts) being well above my set threshold of 105 watts. In this case the image capture shows the fridge overall was consuming between what I have come to expect from 109 - 111 watts.

Which is obviously impacted by voltage rise / fall.

Image

As we look closer its apparent during the fridge cycle the appliance dropped off to 104 watts. This in effect caused the preset threshold of the fridge monitor program to restart and add in another cycle to the daily count! :|

I have since recalibrated my programs with a lower starting wattage to ensure any dips in line voltage or power draw does not cause this miscount to happen again. I have to thank once again Ben at Brultech for helping me and also pointing out this issue.

Having the ability to monitor, track, capture, and recall live events as they occur is simply amazing to me. Its safe to say Brultech has pushed the envelope of their product and offered the end user one of the most versatile and powerful data loggers in the open market.

With out Brultechs help and insight I may have never found what was causing all of these miscounts which in the big picture made me lose confidence in the ISY Series Controller. :cry:
Image

With this knowledge and insight at hand I can continue to redeploy my Home Automation project with more confidence.
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:45 pm

BLEU STATION GEO LOCATION:
Since getting into HA many years ago, one of the missing links has been a solid method to determine when a person is present, home, away, or in a given room.

There have been various ideas and solutions which help assist in identifying a persons (general) location but none of them have any consistent accuracy or reliability. After doing some on line research I was able to find a company called Two Canoes Software.

They are the maker of the Bleu Station as seen here:

Image

Image

I purchased four of their Bleu Stations for various rooms, areas, zones in the home. The primary task for one of the units is presence detection when approaching the home. The idea behind this specific deployment is to determine which person is approaching the house. Upon confirmation it will open the garage door and activate various Insteon scenes in the home.

This can be from changing the status of the homes TSTAT from away (low temp settings) to home (normal occupied temps). To lighting the preferred path for those entering the home, and turning on the hot water tank, and opening the main water line shut off valve.

The system comes with a mini USB stick and a 120 VAC power plug as seen below:

Image

Image

Once the mini USB stick is docked to the power adapter it can be placed in any room that requires presence detection.

Image

These first two units will be placed in the office, secure room.

Image

The remaining two are dedicated for the garage and the kitchen:

Image

Prior to receiving the (above) PSU for the micro USB adaptors I was intending to use a few spare Black Berry USB cell chargers as seen below:

Image

As can be seen above the PSU for these USB devices are rather bulky and large. If you have read this massive install thread you will know I have many USB enabled outlets through out the home now.

So given their presence I will be just installing them into the top USB outlet which offers a much cleaner look and with out the hazards of being knocked around.

Image
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:46 pm

GEO PLACE HOLDER
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:46 pm

GEO PLACE HOLDER
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:46 pm

GEO PLACE HOLDER
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:47 pm

WATER HERO MONITOR:
Last year (2014) I was able to get on to a KS project that would allow me to be a Beta tester for a new product coming on to the market called Water Hero.

Being a Beta tester would allow me to provide critical feed back and user based information to help resolve technical issues, or to make the product even better, and more user friendly. The Water Hero is the first ever plug and play whole house automated water shut off valve system.

Which does not require the end user to cut any pipe! :P

Image

There are essentially two physical parts to this system. The first part is a strap on water flow meter which houses all of the critical electronics's (brains) of the unit from the Wifi board, CPU, humidity / temperature sensor, to the magnetic field monitor that tracks the spinning metal water dial in your meter.

In the past, if someone wanted to track the water consumption in their home they really had two choices. One was to cut out some pipe and install a very expensive third party water meter that had a pulse output. The other solution was to find a optical sensor that would watch (see) the spinning black dial on the meter and output that information via pulse output to the GEM.

To date, none of these solutions have been user friendly or easily obtained by the general public. This doesn't even address the massive costs to get a plumber to cut the pipe and do the actual install. The optical sensor solution also assumes you're able to find the correct device and then kludge together all the parts and the required PSU etc. :|

The Water Hero water monitor does a lot more and incorporates a massive amount of possibilities and features. Some of them are still in the works, but none the less indicates a device which is future proof with lots of potential for many down the road such as I. :mrgreen:

Some of key features and some others to come down the pipe line are:

- Compare day to day and month to month usage.

- Track billing period water usage. Avoid billing shock.

- Assess the performance of your water use appliances.

- Pay for upgraded appliances with savings you calculated with Water Hero.

- Acquire data to support efficient user behavior (Teenage daughters are always persuaded by data.)

- The Water Hero sensor detects magnetic pulses produced by the flow meter in your municipal water meters.

- Each pulse represents a fixed amount of water.

- The on board microprocessor compares water flow to user limits. Continuous flows over limits trigger alerts or automatic motor shutoff.

- The Microprocessor connects to your home WiFi network which connects to the cloud, where intensive analytic are preformed

- Battery backup provides for continuity of protection

Image

This is the second part of the Water Hero. This is the shut off motor that simply requires the end user to clamp the unit to the copper pipe and align it to the handle. Based on our first preliminary teleconference it was indicated the device by default will open / close the valve once a year.

This would ensure the unit was operating correctly as well as confirm the valve handle was free and not seized.

It was discussed that the user could open / close the unit at will. Should it be required and also schedule open / close events based on their personal environmental or needs etc. We are currently tracking efforts to determine (confirm) the handle position and the open / close state.

More details to follow in the next few months.

Image

The most powerful aspect of the Water Hero system is the cloud based monitoring service. With a smartphone App the end user can see the daily, weekly, monthly, water consumption via charts and graphs. The App will allow e-mail alerts, and ability to open / close the main valve etc.

Long term plans are to make this device Z-Wave compliant. So it can be easily integrated into new or existing HA solutions on the market. One key thing I indicated to the vendor was to have the ability to output the water data directly via a (pulse output) to the GEM.

This would allow me, and others, to have two sources of chart & graph tracking opposed to just the Water Hero cloud based services. It was also expressed that the API for this device be (open source) and that key elements not rely on the cloud and that 90% of the basic and advanced features be locally accessible.

This would address those concerns of people who did not have Internet access or may lose connectivity down the road. In its base configuration the system does not rely on the *Cloud* to operate it simply relies on it to track the consumption and generate the charts / graphs etc.

The primary goal of opening / closing the water main is local and functions with out network connectivity etc. A few other key features of this unit is having the ability to monitor the local temperature and humidity of the basement.

This would allow the system to detect and monitor for a low temp freezing condition. Once detected the system could shut off the water main to reduce the situation of exploding pipes. The humidity sensor along with monitoring could alert you of a humid condition and activate a dehumidifier or worst case make you go down stairs and turn one on. :lol:

Image

All of these great features and more will be coming this year and I look forward to working with the team and producing a fantastic plug and play solution that anyone can have and install.

I shall report back once more information is hashed out and testing is under way.
JANUARY 18, 2015 UPDATE:
Dan along with the Water Hero team have released a update about the progress of the system. I have appended the details in its entirety here.

Printed Circuit Board: We have redesigned our original PCB and a small batch of our improved version 1.1 PCB’s are currently being manufactured. We should have them later this week. The main changes are a better voltage regulator and an added circuit to check for the backup battery health.

Water Hero Plastic Housing: We are currently on our third redesign of our plastic housing. After each redesign, we get a very high quality commercial grade 3D print which our Industrial Designer can outfit with the PCB and backup battery to further tweak the design.

Microprocessor: Our original Water Hero prototype used the Spark Core, an impressive WiFi connected microprocessor from our friends at Spark. Spark continues to make great strides in their product development and plans to launch their Photon line in March, 2015. The Photon will have much greater power and performance in a smaller form factor thanks to their P∅ module, and we’re very excited to report that we will be incorporating the P∅ into your Water Hero! Once we get the P∅’s we will immediately begin testing and redesign our PCB yet again.

Shutoff Motor: Our shutoff motor has been very durable, but Alex, being the consummate Mechanical Engineer, is performing added reliability testing to make sure it’s battle tested for you. He is also tweaking the design to incorporate some great ideas from our community.

Software: We’re on our second version of the Water Hero app and have added software personnel to accelerate the build-out of our frontend as well as backend database and cloud infrastructure.
MARCH 26, 2015 UPDATE:
Newly minted Boards 2.0 are inbound for testing, replacing both our venerable bread board proof of concepts, and our Boards 1.0 designed for Kickstarter.
The Boards 2.0 are designed for production, and take into account a myriad of product improvements suggested to us by our Kickstarter backers. Improvements both silly simple and arcane which will improve the user experience, reliability, assembly, and more than scratch the itch of the home automation enthusiasts. (and you know who you are)

How, pray tell, have we made this an even better mouse trap? Unfortunately, like Flubber, we’re keeping it secret at least until we fully test the boards to make sure all the components are behaving and playing well together. Stay tuned for the next update.
Honestly, we are thrilled.

Has anything been lost in Board 2.0? Probably. While the temperature sensor is felt to be mission critical, the humidity sensor is on the bubble, and likely will not be included in the final design. We've upgraded the temperature sensor, but we paid for the upgrade by eliminating the nice but unnecessary humidity sensor.

While hardware turns the corner for the home stretch, software development continues with the transition from a hackathon project to a fully hardened and scalable software universe. Most recently, power outage protocols, basic leak detection and base leakage rate calculations, the web version of the App, and text alert protocols have all been locked down. While we will be adding and tweaking software features forever (it's the nature of the beast), April looks like the beginning of testing for the pre-production hardware + software working together.
APRIL & MAY 19, 2015 UPDATE:
It's been a busy period at Water Hero, with lots to report
We can now let you know about many (but not all) of the product upgrades we teased in the last Update.

PRODUCT UPGRADES
Rechargeable Batteries
Disposable 9V batteries are being replaced by rechargeables, eliminating the need for the annual battery replacement, and eliminating battery anxiety.
Special thanks to Kickstarter backer Mohammed, who first suggested the upgrade.

LED Indicators

Just what every 21st Century appliance needs are blinking indicators. Sure, no one was asking. But we came through anyway.

Toys for Hobbyist

These are features specifically for the many home automation and home quantifier hobbyist who measure, crunch and visualize their electrical power, home climate, and now water data in new and creative ways.

Pulse Output

Whenever a pre-defined amount of water is used (ex: 1 gallon) a pulse or “ping” is transmitted through the User’s Pulse cable to the User’s in-home data collection hub where it will be collected and tracked.

Serial Output

A Serial output is similar in concept, except that the data is the full hi-resolution Water Hero data we normally would send to the Cloud. The User keeps this data locally on a dedicated PC, and crunches to their heart’s content.

These enthusiasts could drive the development of all sorts of innovations which will migrate to the rest of the Water Hero community.

Valve Status Reporting

Big thanks to Kickstarter Backer Patrick, who suggested the addition of Valve status reporting. We are working closely with our supplier to get this feature integrated for our Kickstarter Backers. Fingers crossed.

A Valve status report feature would have our little valve motor report the valve position “OPEN”, or “CLOSED” back to the Cloud, and then to you (if you wanted) while you sip Pina Coladas at your Goa Beach shanty.

This is part of a larger strategy to automatically exercise your ball valve (OPEN to CLOSE to OPEN) once each quarter (or monthly for stiff valves) to keep your valve loose, limber and spry.

Now you will know the readiness of the system to “act” in an emergency before there’s an emergency.

If the upgrade cannot be integrated in time for Kickstarter shipments, a semi-automatic valve exercise option will be used.

IN OTHER NEWS

Vic Berry joins the team as VP of Software Development. Vic led the Bose Mobile Application Group, and in a prior life developed foundational wireless mesh sensor technology.

Following our 2nd place showing at the Harvard New Venture Competition (reported to you last period), we won $120,000 of BlueMix Cloud Services from IBM, which allows us to fully leverage their Jeopardy TV Gameshow playing, medical ailment diagnosing, “cognitive system” Watson. We’ve shifted over to Big Blue. Says our Mark Henderson: “In migrating our stack over, we made a programming language pivot from Scala to Node.js, and our database layer from PostgreSQL to Mongodb.”
That's Mark for you.

We’ve had a few delays that we are working through.
-Supplier issues, including one related to customizing sourced hardware
-A firmware coding issue that we solved with the new hire.
This has shifted the field testing we planned to start at the end of April to the end of May.
There may be an implication for the 1st phase Kickstarter deliveries in August but we are formulating a plan to minimize these.

Water Hero will be reaching out to some of our Boston-area Backers as early as next month, to temporarily take pre-production sensor units to help us collect real world water usage data, which will be used for algorithm testing.

SURVEY
So far we have a 79% response rate for our Survey. That means that 21% of our Backers might have to walk, drive or fly to Beverly Massachusetts (USA) to pick up their Water Hero when they are ready. We're just a little north of Boston.
Of course you could just get your survey in, and we would then know where to ship your unit. Your shipping address comes to us on the Survey.
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:48 pm

NOVEMBER 17, 2015 UPDATES:
As we get closer to wider field tests, and our hardware and software people slay smaller and smaller dragons, new ones still pop up (fractal-like).......but we're getting there.

There’s much to report with this Update.

Our Circuit Board Designer polished off the design of Water Hero’s new board.
The board designs were reviewed, corrections made Water Hero ordered a short run of boards from a Pacific Northwest fabrication house. Continuity testing at Water Hero followed by final assembly of a handful of units by our contract PCB assembler, Light Speed Mfg in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Image

New Circuit Board (before populating with components)

Light Speed populates the board with the nearly 100 different surface mount and through-hole mount components.

Image

Populated PCB Board For Testing

The assembled Circuit Boards are back at Water Hero getting hammered by both full time and contract engineers in search of any sort of bugs needing a stomping.

A couple of issues found so far will require tweaks to the board. The balance of existing boards will be patched up and assembled for additional employee field tests, while we await a larger PCB board run for lab and beta testing, some of which will likely go to Kickstarter beta testers.

At the same time, we continue to look at different enclosures with the help of our industrial designer.

Image

Roll out update: While we are still looking for a soft roll out to targeted Kickstarter beta testers in December, a firmer schedule awaits the results of the ongoing testing.

In other news.

Our provisional patents were converted to non-provisional patents, while we prepare to start the cycle again with a new batch of provisionals.

After wading through the dense “patent-speak” several times, I honestly think I might have injured myself.

The 4 month long, Boston based, Mass Challenge Accelerator came to a close October 28, sending 128 Start-ups out to the world with the directive (and we may be paraphrasing here) “Go Forth and Multiply!”. Great mentors and fantastic resources.

Image

Water Hero Demo Setup for the Mass Challenge Awards Night

The demonstration kit approaches perfection. (see in photo above)

A beach cooler, battery powered pump, valves, meters, transparent hoses, and a handle to carry it all. A big improvement over the original kit which leaked water from every connection.......which is a bit awkward for a leak detection / protection company.

In preparation for our big reveal, the new website has been launched. http://www.waterheroinc.com. The “Detroit Ice House” TV news screen-capture on the home page, has been a standard part of our dog and pony pitch for months. Rarely does a home self-destruct so photogenically, nor demonstrate so clearly the risks associated with indoor plumbing. For the website, we decided to kick it up a notch. To add a spiffy morphing Before to After animation, an old friend was convinced to drive over and spend a Saturday morning lining up sight lines and taking pictures.

Go to the website to see the results.
(Special thanks to Jim Doran for the photo. It's what friends do.)

Detroit Ice House

Image

Our new full assembly renderings were polished off by the industrial designer, also for the website. Our products will not likely be doing their work in the clean-room perfection of these hyper-real, superbly lit, renderings.

Image

The basement as we wished it were.

Much more likely they will be working in places like this, where one of our bread board units continues in employee field testing.

Image

The basement as it is.
DECEMBER 16, 2015 UPDATE:
Hardware Debuggery

We are still debugging our most recent printed circuit board (PCB) design. This has been a much more difficult task than we expected, partly because we now have over 200 components our our PCB and have moved from a two to four layer board. Nonetheless, our engineering team is hopeful of having this completed this week.

We will then redesign the PCB to fix a few problems we discovered, and send it off to our PCB board manufacturer to spin new boards. We should receive them next week, and will have these new boards populated with components locally.

As a result, no Beta sensor units will be placed in December, as we had originally planned.

While demo-units and employee field test units have been running nicely for many weeks using "development boards", the next stage in field and beta testing requires stability of Water Hero's custom PCB boards (photos shown in last update).

As soon as we hit out of the "rough", we'll provide another update.

Thanks for your patience, and Happy Holidays!


Surveys

A surprisingly high number of Water Hero backers have not returned their survey (found on the Kickstarter website), and therefore will not be receiving their purchase. Our only way of learning where to send your purchase comes to us via the survey. Please respond. Thank you.
FEBRUARY 14, 2016 UPDATE:
Image
Mass Challenge Hardware Showcase February 9: Plumbed version shown

We’ve come so far and have lots of great progress to report. That said, it’s been much longer, costlier and more difficult than we had planned. We appreciate your patience and thank you, our wonderful backers, who joined our dream to end water leak catastrophe, and bring the tools of water conservation to everyone.

We’re pleased to report that our Engineering Group has reached electronic, and communication stability, and solved the final nagging bugs in Over-The-Air (OTA) update capability. With OTA updates, every new tweak and adjustment and every newly finished feature released from Engineering, get’s pumped down the Internet “tubes” through your WiFi, to your Water Hero sitting in your basement.

OTA had popped back onto our radar when it refused to cooperate after the transition from development hardware to custom hardware. It would only accept one OTA cycle, and not the infinite OTA cycles we were aiming for.
Until OTA bugs were wrestled to the ground and beaten into submission, we could not expand Early Beta testing beyond our staff. Now we can.

The WiFi module has been functioning like a trooper with our staff units, but we know that in the field there will be homes of a size and construction that will challenge the limits of our transmission range.

Our brain-trust of Wireless RF (Radio Frequency) consultants recommended that we move the WiFi transmitter away from the 5 lbs. (2.3kg) cast brass water meters, (which, by the way, is the official definition of an electrical ground). So we did, resulting in yet another delay, but also improved power, range and an antenna that could be moved clear of reception gaps and obstacles.

Water Hero is now split between the magnetic field sensor on (or near) the meter, which is connected via the included Cat5e cable to the Main Controller Board, which can be affixed to the wall or overhead floor joists.

Rendering of our off-the-shelf generic box in a fantasy blue. Won't be blue. Cord will be longer (and likely blue). Sensor enclosure on right is prefinal.

Image

Shutoff, not shown in this "Sensor Only" configuration

Rendering of our off-the-shelf generic box in a fantasy blue. Won't be blue. Cord will be longer (and likely blue). Sensor enclosure on right is prefinal. Shutoff, not shown in this "Sensor Only" configuration

Work continues on concepts and configurations to extend range.

We have gone through numerous PCB versions, prototype runs, tweaks, adjustments, and improvements of boards and components, never quite reaching nirvana. But 5 weeks ago, while we held our collective breaths, 11 units of our umpteenth PCB iteration, rolled out of the factory into lab and field testing. When, from the general direction of Engineering, was heard, “Holy $%&#!”, we knew that finally, we had turned a corner.

This week 70 more units roll off the line for expanded lab testing, field testing, certifications and a slow ramp up of Early Beta Testing. With hardware finally nailed down, engineering can pivot to software, and the development of both vital and value added features.

Each feature, as approved, to be pumped down the lines to the field units in situ.

In parallel, we are reviewing the size and layout of the new smaller Sensor PCB board for a more“finished” product. The Cat5e is currently soldered (welded) to the board out of an (over) abundance of caution, which is a process that can’t remain in production because of cost, time, and our supplier will kill us if we don’t change it.

We want to change to a simple, plug-in connector (standard RJ45), reduce the board size, and improve an already easy installation.

Within a couple weeks Water Hero will be submitting for FCC approval.

The Main Controller Board PCB is also a much larger form factor than we will have in the future and uses a less-than-completely-elegant off-the-shelf enclosure, with as they say, “radio good looks”. Early versions, including Early Beta units for Kick Starter, will be in this form-factor, with this wall-mounted off-the-shelf enclosure. Once fully tested, we will be ready to invest in a more consumer-centric design.

We are seeking Early Beta Test volunteers to receive the current form factor (though without motorized shut-off) to help us gain experience with the unit in the field, identify and iron out kinks in the installation, installation instructions, programming, ease of use, and leak detection, alerts and leak response.

If you are interested in being an Early Beta tester please email back at:
beta@waterheroinc.com

We are seeking 20 Early Beta testers in this phase.

Though Water Hero is non-invasive, Beta testing might be slightly time invasive. For example we may ask you do things, try things, and then try that same thing again. We might ask you about water usage or lack of water usage that we see back at Water Hero HQ. You might be asked to test WiFi range, cycle various water usage appliances, or run the tap until a leak is “detected”.

These Early Beta units will ship without Shutoff, for two reasons:

As we learn about and adjust the leak detection algorithm in the real world, we do not want to be actually shutting off your water. Once we feel that “False Positives” (i.e. detecting a leak, when there is no leak) have been minimized or managed through programming, then we will send you a motorized shutoff to arm your leak protection (at least for backers who have ordered the shutoff).

Small hiccup in our Motorized Valve Shutoff. The currently specified shutoff requires too much electrical current for our PCB board. Though a bit of a low point for us when we discovered it, we continued to plow forward, discovering 3 options.

A 2nd version of the actuator from the same supplier: waiting to receive and test Two more amazingly powerful motors from a second supplier which have shown favorable results in early testing, but which still require a valve clamp to be designed.

So while our Kickstarter Early Beta’s testers are testing the Water Hero platform in the real world, we will be perfecting the shutoff for ease of installation, and improved compatibility with the platform. Once the shutoff reaches our standards we will ship the motors out.

It’s extraordinarily difficult to forecast innovation as evidenced by our recent overly optimistic updates. We apologize for missing promised deadlines.

We pledge, however, to provide more regular, monthly updates to keep you informed, while avoiding over-the-horizon predictions that we are not very good at. Thank you for your patience and support on this exciting ride.

EARLY BETA TEST VOLUNTEERS

Interested in joining our Early Beta field test team, and learning, from the inside, how the sausage is made?
Please email us at: beta@waterheroinc.com

KICKSTARTER SURVEY

Several of our backers have still NOT returned the survey.
They cannot be Beta testers.

Worse, they will not receive their production unit in the future, as we have no idea where to send it.
Alpha trials continue here at home and lots of feed-back has been provided to the team by me. I have identified issues which the team has quickly marked down for root cause and resolution. Thus far working with the entire team has been fantastic and look forward to breaking new ground in the software front. :D
MARCH 21, 2016 UPDATES:
This is the week we finally get to wider field testing, after a minor delay. The first 25 PCB boards (of the 70) were mis-soldered (Yah, that same soldering mentioned in the last update that we are getting away from).
A drawing error slipped through review. The 25 have been corrected.
The balance of 45 boards have since been populated and soldered, and in engineering for test.
As this is being written the first 10 complete Beta units are on their way from engineering.

Image

Image
The first 10 field test units ready to take the field. Arriving from engineering just before this update.

The first 10 field test units ready to take the field. Arriving from engineering just before this update.

In Field Test News

Last Week: President Dan and CPO Alex were in Dan’s basement installing a PRO-unit using Shark-bite fittings. Took about an hour, which included time to figure out how Shark-bites work, using a fancy new pipe cutter Dan got, and some minor rework, to add additional Teflon tape.

Image
Dan's basement Water Hero

Dan's basement Water Hero

This Week: Dan installs a second unit in DIY configuration on his Badger 25 meter. The Badger is seen at the bottom of the photo.

This Week: CPO Alex gets his replacement DIY unit for his Neptune T-10 meter. (finally replacing the geriatric Version 1 which was sent to Kickstarter Backer Patrick 4 weeks ago.)

Last Week: Kickstarter backer Patrick’s DIY unit, in test since January, finally died. It’s the loose wires of hand assembled cord set we believe, but we’ll have it back in engineering this week for test.

This Week: A shiny new DIY unit will be shipped to Patrick to get him back up and running on his Badger 25 meter.

Last Week: VP of Engineering Vic, was under his house installing a PRO unit. Vic is on “well” water, so he’s not immediately compatible with the DIY. As units become available Vic will have several configurations, including DIY, installed under his house on parallel bypass lines.
(Can we all agree that it’s better that we not tell his wife?)

Image
Vic's basement Water Hero

Vic's basement Water Hero

This Week: Software Engineer Chris should have a DIY unit on line on his Elster meter.
This Week: Test Engineer Eric should have a DIY unit on line on his Sensus meter.
This Week: VP of Marketing Peter is in California, and his meter is outside. Peter will be installing a PRO unit.

If staff testing goes swimmingly (which will never be Water Hero’s tag line) we roll with the first 5 Beta units (after Patrick) next week in the Boston area. Units may stay in one home, or be moved to other test locations after a week or two.

Testing will ramp up from there.

We were not clear enough in last month’s update. The Beta-test units are NOT the same units that will satisfy our Kickstarter obligation. So there’s no risk to being a tester. If you're still interested in Beta testing, email your interest to:
beta@waterheroinc.com

In Other News

Our Magnetic Field Sensor
The magnetic field sensor, which we use to sense water flow through your meters, is getting kicked to the curb by the supplier. They are getting out of the magnetic field business.

What to do? Do we buy a few thousand of the old sensors and make the permanent change later in the year, or do we bite the bullet now?

Our current supplier, we learned, sources the sensor from a chip manufacturer which remains in the business with cheaper and more capable sensors. Engineering is reviewing our options, and testing this new supplier's sensor. On paper, it looks good for a fairly simple substitution. We'll know shortly.

Boston Hardware Cup Semi-Final Winner
Water Hero has won the Boston Hardware Cup Pitch competition, + $1000 + a neat 3D Printed metal trophy (that may still be getting printed). We’ll show it off as soon as it arrives. We go to Pittsburgh in May to compete against 10 other start-ups, for, we imagine, a much bigger trophy.

Image
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Teken
Posts: 2700
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: My GEM, ISY, Dash Box, Insteon Home Automation Install

Post by Teken » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:48 pm

WATER HERO - SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 UPDATE:
We are pleased to report that Water Hero is now FCC certified! Kudos to Vic and our engineering team for achieving this important milestone and prerequisite for commercialization.

Image

Flow Only Beta Units in 3D printed housings shipping soon

We are also excited to announce that the initial Flow Only beta units in 3D printed housings will be shipping to a handful of our Kickstarter Backer volunteers at the end of this month.

We now have 100 fully assembled boards in 3D housings and will be deploying them in waves of 20 as beta field units over the next several weeks.

Software Update

These units will be running our V1.16 firmware, which we feel is quite stable now. We are also very close to having an initial release of our iOS app.

Housing Update

Tooling for our beautiful plastic injection molded main controller board housings and PRO Unit sensor board caps is in progress. We should see the initial samples toward the end of October.

Image

PRO Unit Sensor Housing Cap

We are still iterating 3D versions of our non-invasive sensor board housings for Flow Only Units. After lots of trial and error fitting a wide range of water meter brands, we believe we have come up with an excellent one-size-fits-all-meters first generation design, but will not commit to plastic injection molding tooling until after the 100 unit field test results.

Image

3D Printed Flow Only Sensor Board Housin

Image

Flow Only Sensor Board Housing is Adjustable
Major Product Update: Beta products available for fulfillment to some in early November!

Please note, this is a repeat of our last product update for those of you who may not have seen it, as it offers an option to change your order:

FLOW ONLY non-invasive units:

With the activity above, we now project to be able to ship units to those of you who ordered our FLOW ONLY Units this fall. This non-invasive unit clamps on the side of your existing city water meter, and gives you real time water usage data and can send email and/or text alerts (pipe break; temperature freeze alert). It does not include our non-invasive shut off motor. Please note that the FLOW ONLY Unit does have a connector for the non-invasive shut off motor, so this is a potential add-on down the road.

PRO invasive units:

We are also able to ship our invasive, professionally installed Water Hero PRO UNIT that is comprised of our own water meter and motorized ball valve shut off this fall. This is a great option for the 15% of the country on wells that don’t have a city water meter. It is also great news for the 60% of the country that does not have a basement; a plumber can now install the unit right where the water enters the house.

FLOW & SHUT-OFF non-invasive units:

Unfortunately, we are still not happy with our non-invasive Shut Off Motor. This has been a bigger challenge than we anticipated, primarily because of a wide range of ball valve shapes and sizes we have to clamp over. The other big worry is the condition of the existing ball valve we would try to clamp over; we are finding that in many homes, the ball valve has not been exercised in years and is calcified open. Either our motor will not have enough torque, or worse yet, we could snap off an old, poorly maintained ball valve.

The Bottom Line is that we are not abandoning our DIY Shut Off Motor, but need to allocate more time and resources to ensure it works effectively. We expect that it will be ready late this year and are making it so that it can easily plug into our FLOW ONLY Units.

So for those of you who ordered our FULL WATER HERO (basically, our FLOW ONLY Unit plus DIY Shut off) please accept our apology for this delay, and consider some options:

#1: Change your order to our FLOW ONLY unit: (special Kickstarter price of $79), and when we ship your order, we will also send a check for the price difference of what you pledged.

#2: Change your order to our PRO UNIT: (special price of $199 for a standard unit that fits ¾” pipes, heavily discounted from our expected retail price this Fall), and we will charge you the price difference of what you pledged right before we ship. Note that this is invasive and has to be cut into the pipe.

#3: Continue being patient and hang in there: we are still developing the DIY Shut Off Motor that plugs into the FLOW Unit, making a non-invasive FULL WATER HERO. We will ship FULL WATER HERO to you once they are ready if you can continue to bear with us and be patient.

Please e-mail us at info@waterheroinc.com with your selection and/or any questions or concerns. Appreciate your understanding, patience and support.

The Round Up

We are very excited to now have FCC certification, which allows us to go to market with additional units. We are also excited to have achieved good product stability, which required designing, manufacturing and in-depth testing of several boards (our main controller board version is F) and extensive software development (version 1.16 firmware). We are committed to product quality and will not take any short cuts. As always, we thank our Kickstarter backers for your fantastic support!
WATER HERO - FEBURARY 21, 2017 UPDATE:
The latest news from the Water Hero team and the long road to final production seems to be fast approaching. As of this writing the insight about how much and when I use my water in the home has been quite insightful. Being able to identify how much each appliance consumes for water along with tracking water signatures has been a boon.

I am currently crafting water signature profiles which the ISY Series Controller will track, monitor, and offer alert notification should out of band readings be seen. Using the power of Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Julie U.S. has given me the ability to know when defined thresholds have been met or exceeded.

I am looking forward to testing out the smart application, open API, and direct integration of the system with various security and home automation systems. Its been a very long two years in the development cycle for the entire team. I am very proud to have helped the team in the development cycle and push the product to be the best in class water monitor and protective system. :P
FIELD TESTING PROGRESSES
80 Units Shipped

We have shipped 80 units of our 100 unit beta goal. We will be shipping the final 20 units over the next three weeks. Once again, a big thanks to our growing team of beta testers for our Flow Only and PRO plumber installed units! Those of you receiving future units can in part thank the early beta testers for a much easier account set up and WiFi pairing procedure. This update will detail some of these great improvements Vic and our engineering team have made in response to beta feedback.

Stable Electronics and Hardware

The electronics and hardware continue to be very solid. We thank our designers, engineering team, PCB suppliers and PCB assembly partner here in New England for their quality work.

Firmware Update

Our field units are now running v1.27 firmware, with v1.28 set to be released shortly. We are very excited about v1.27, as it is loaded with the most improvements ever. As mentioned above, some features make it easier to pair to your broadband Internet. We now populate 20 SSID’s, plus you can manually enter your SSID if it is hidden. We also added a signal strength indicator to the set up features. We now have a wider variety of LED patterns to help diagnose potential problems and have added a button on the setup screen that toggles a text area that populates information from the diagnostic log on the microprocessor. The goal here is to make Water Hero one of the easiest to connect IoT devices on the market. We have also improved our flow detection algorithm and increased the magnetic field sampling rate for better accuracy at high flow rates.

Other Software Updates

After the v1.28 firmware release, engineering will focus on finalizing our iOS and Android apps, then a well documented, fully featured API, followed by some more firmware feature additions.

Cloud Update

Our engineering team is also in the process of releasing a new version of our Web Interface, moving from v0.5 to v1.0. We are working to insure maximum uptime. We do have a number of monitoring systems in place. Eric has set up an active monitoring service, and we have built custom pieces of software to monitor system health and diagnose problems when they occur. These services will eventually be built into a customer service dashboard and mobile app to help restore services quickly.

Our primary design goal is to make the cloud self-heal when there is a problem so that no human intervention is required. Toward that end, our architecture will allow us to run redundant servers in parallel to ensure continuous data capture through some outages. In other cases our services are able to restore themselves automatically; the challenge here is to engineer things to avoid the potential for various forms of gridlock as they all restart together. At present, our cloud ecosystem consists of four separate servers running 14 distinct processes.

Housing Update

We received our evaluation samples of our Main Controller Board housing, and are happy to report the pieces fit well and look beautiful. We have placed an order for 1,000, and are looking at delivery in March.

The evaluation sample of the Pro Sensor Cap was loose, so that requires some modification to the tooling. Unfortunately, we lost several weeks with the Chinese New Year. The tooling modifications will be finished shorty, and we will get new evaluation samples next week. Once the Pro Sensor Caps are approved, we will order 1,000 of those as well. Here’s a photo of our Pro Unit with the new housings:

Image
Our P-100 Plumber Installed Pro Unit

Our latest iteration 3D printed Flow Only Sensor housing has received good reviews from our beta testers so we are now in the process of getting tooling quotes for this housing.

Image
Our K-100 Flow Only Unit

Supply Chain Update

For those of you that like to get a front row seat of the trials and tribulations of a hardware start up, we are also getting down the supply chain learning curve. And sometimes it’s a bumpy ride! A few weeks ago, we had a major supply chain hick-up as we were gearing up to order components to assemble more boards. In the past, we have never had problems finding components; this time, it was different. One key component with no alternatives was out of stock for 28 weeks. After scrambling for several days, we were able to find some (at a hefty markup) from a reputable parts broker. Lesson learned: we have reviewed our complete Build of Materials (BOM), and now are stock-piling the few components that have no alternatives.

On a positive supply chain note, we have just received a large line of credit and payment terms with a leading multi-billion dollar parts supplier and a board assembly house, so we can now start building a 1,000 unit hardware inventory to pair with the 1,000 unit housing order mentioned above.

Flow Only and PRO unit shipping update

We plan to complete our 100 unit beta field testing in April, and in parallel we will be building hardware inventory. So we anticipate shipping units to all of those of you who ordered or switched to Flow Only and PRO units this May!

Flow & Shut Off non-invasive units:

As mentioned previously, the development of our non-invasive Shut Off Motor has been a bigger challenge than we anticipated, again primarily because of a wide range of ball valve shapes and sizes we have to clamp over. The other big worry is the condition of the existing ball valve we would try to clamp over; we are finding that in many homes, the ball valve has not been exercised in years and is calcified open. Either our motor will not have enough torque, or worse yet, we could snap off an old, poorly maintained ball valve.

After testing several different motors and bracket systems, we have made some progress and are now targeting testing some prototype units in June. We will keep you posted on the progress in future updates. Here’s a picture of our current non-invasive shut off prototype:

Image
Prototype of Non Invasive Shut Off Motor & Bracket System

So for those of you who ordered our FULL WATER HERO (basically, our Flow Only Unit plus DIY Shut Off) please accept our apology for this delayed development, and consider some options:

#1: Change your order to our Flow Only unit: (special Kickstarter price of $79), and when we ship your order, we will also send a check for the price difference of what you pledged.

#2: Change your order to our PRO unit: (special price of $199 for a standard unit that fits ¾” pipes, heavily discounted from our expected retail price), and we will charge you the price difference of what you pledged right before we ship. Note that this is invasive and has to be cut into the pipe.

#3: Continue being patient and hang in there: we are still developing the DIY Shut Off Motor that plugs into the Flow Only unit, making a non-invasive FULL WATER HERO. We will ship the FULL WATER HERO to you once they are ready if you can continue to bear with us and be patient.

Please e-mail us at info@waterheroinc.com with your selection and/or any questions or concerns. We really appreciate your understanding, patience and support.

The Round Up

We are nearing our beta field goal of 100 field units. We are now running v1.27 firmware, with many nice improvements. We have stable hardware, and are building inventory, all of which move us closer to being able to ship commercial grade finished products this May! As always, we thank you for your wonderful support, feedback and encouragement.
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
Locked