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logbuilder
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Joined: February 03 2009
Location: United States
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Posts: 22
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| Posted: February 03 2009 at 04:32 | IP Logged
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Hello everyone,
This is my first post. I have been learning about home automation and discovered the powerhome software. Sounds really powerful.
I'm trying to design a system for my house. Let me give you a bit of background.
This house is pretty much a weekend house for me. My primary residence is 90 miles away. I'm trying to design a system for the following two reasons:
1. It would be really nice to be able to see what it looks like up there. It is in the mountains and sometime access is limited due to snow. I'm wanting to be able to 'see' what it is like before going up.
2. Since it is a remote site, I am concerned about security. I want to build a system that has 4 outside cameras and 1 inside camera.
As mentioned, the site is remote so only internet access is via satellite which is pretty slow and I also have bandwidth restrictions. I do have a phone but that is extremely slow and any outgoing call will be long distance. I already have the HVAC system on a telephone access unit so I can call it from my cell phone and turn the heat up before I visit. It is all Honeywell gear (thermo and tele access unit). That works well.
For security functionality, I want each camera to send in a still picture (not a video due to bandwidth) to a remote webserver (I already run one so that is not a problem). I would do that several times a day. If any camera detects motion, I want it to send in a pic of what it is seeing and then also turn on 4 sets of outdoor floodlights if it is night. It should send pics every 15 seconds as long as motion is being detected. Additionally, it will send me an email with the alert that motion has been detected. I can handle the display of the stored images on the remote webserver.
First I began researching the camera stuff. Looks like I can get outdoor rated infrared cameras with composite feeds. I've see the Honeywell line of dome cameras with IR and they look nice. I'll use siamese cable to each one which will allow me to power them from one location rather than running power to each one. Those will go into a 8 port composite board so that gets the video into a PC. For software, I was thinking WebcamXP. It looks quite capable of sampling each camera periodically and sending via FTP to my remote server. Also, it seems to handle detecting motion. From what I can see, it also can send emails. Might even consider turning on a loud siren. Note that the place is remote enough that there would be no need to call police. They would take way to long to get there. But, there are neighbors somewhat nearby. Mostly, I want to scare off any intruder and get his pic.
During my research for the controlling of the outdoor lights, I ran up on X10 and insteon protocols and associated switches. Never knew about that stuff. Really neat. So clearly if I put an X10 switch on each of the outdoor lights, some sort of X10 based software would be able to turn them on/off.
Now I was wondering how do I trigger the lights when motion is detected? That got me to Powerhome. Looks like the WebcamXP software can send an alert/trigger to Powerhome and a macro could run to turn on the lights. I didn't exactly see it but I would assume I could tell Powerhome to turn them back off in 15 minutes or so.
So am I on the right track? Anyone see any flaws? Suggestions for improvement?
If you think this will work, I'll probably get just a few components to prove out the concept. I'm sure that will create more questions regarding setup and triggers/macros.
Oh, BTW, I have talked to some local security companies and they don't seem to know squat. Their only solution is a bunch of cameras hooked up to a DVR that you remotely access. That doesn't handle floodlight control or alerting not to mention that due to the slowness and bandwidth limitions of satellite, you could never view video remotely.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
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onhiatus
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Joined: May 12 2004
Location: United States
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Posts: 279
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| Posted: February 03 2009 at 17:29 | IP Logged
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What you are describing would certainly work.
I use the free versions of webcamXP to update from one usb web cam - it works great. I have not used it to send messages to powerhome, but I understand that works as well.
Powerhome could turn on x10 or insteon swiches when it receives a message from the cam software, it could also send an email, etc. It would be easy to have the lights turned off x minutes after the last motion was detected.
X10 (and I believe insteon) also make motion detectors. In fact you can get motion detector flood lights that turn on automatically and send an x10 message that ph could trigger on.
The problem (and beauty) with this stuff is that there are many, many ways to do the same thing. Get ready to get involved... Powerhome can be a bit daunting and has a pretty steep learning curve. But once you get the hang of it you can do pretty much anything.
I can control everything in my house via email...
Good luck and have fun, Tony
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Topic: Need help designing a home system
