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Lieven Hollevoet edited this page Sep 22, 2014 · 1 revision

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VSCP (Very Simple Control Protocol)

I wrote a library for Mister House to connect it to a VSCP network. This is a proof of concept and it not yet available in the MH codebase.

For more information about VSCP, please visit http://vscp.org/

Introduction

The VSCP network consist of "intelligent" devices and this makes handling these in MisterHouse a little tricky. Because the VSCP network can be completely self contained, devices on it can be the initiator of events (commands), or the receiver of events (commands). (Or both!)

When MisterHouse is connected to the VSCP network, it will be able to see all the messages on VSCP bus, but in most cases the different devices will interact with each other without any intervention of MisterHouse. Example: The VSCP network contains buttons and lights, but MisterHouse is not a required part in order to control the lights. However, depending on configuration, MisterHouse is able to "see" when a certain button is pressed and/or Mister House is able to control the lights directly. This makes it possible to set up a very flexible home automation with MisterHouse, while MisterHouse itself is not a single point of failure for critical parts.

Please read the great VSCP pimer or be sure to understand how VSCP operates! You need to understand the different types of events (Control-events and informational-events) on the VSCP network in order to configure MiserHouse!

Prerequisites

In order to access VSCP modules from within MisterHouse, you need the following things:

  • VSCP modules to be controlled
  • Working VSCP daemon
  • Working interface to the VSCP network
This document only describes the VSCP_Item library and its configuration. Information about VSCP can be found on the VSCP website and/or the VSCP mailinglists.

MisterHouse Configuration

The following configuration variables can be set into mh.private.ini

    • vscpd_host**, defaults to "127.0.0.1"
**vscpd_port**, defaultst to "9598" **vscpd_proto**, defaults to "tcp" which is the only one supported.
    • vscpd_username**, defaults to "admin"
**vscpd_password**, defaults to "secret"

Debugging

You can enable debugging by adding "vscp_item" to you "debug" variable in mh.private.ini

Supported object states

The VSCP_Item has the same properties and methods as Generic_Item. In addition, the following states are supported;

Toggle

Every VSCP_Item object has a property "send_toggle", which is 0 by default. By default, when an object is "toggled", MisterHouse will only send "ON" and "OFF" states to the VSCP network. If "send_toggle" is set to a value that is true, MisterHouse will use the "toggle" control to the VSCP network. In order for this to work, the VSCP module needs to support it.

Brighten/Dim

The "dim" control will be used on the VSCP network, with the VSCP code to dim/brighten 1 step. How much "1 step" is, is determined by the VSCP module and might be configurable through the VSCP configuration utility. (VSCP Works.)

Numerical values

The "dim" control will be used on the VSCP network, with the statevalue as dimvalue. Please note VSCP only supports values from 0 to 100.

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