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

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WEATHER FLOW SKY BETA:

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PROJECT TITAN WATER HERO - SMART WATER METER: PRODUCTION UNIT DEPLOYED

On November 07, 2017 I received the final production sample of the Water Hero system. I had a few false starts on the controller due to poor QA but that has all been sorted out today. There are still some pending items that need to be addressed but for what I am doing right now the system works fine.

Below is the little shipping box that arrived from America to Canada.



Enclosed in this specific parcel was the main controller and power supply. Normally you would receive both those items along with a paper manual, water sensor, CAT5e, and a Water Hero bracelet. All of that came prior during the false start so I'll show case each item below.



The main Water Hero controller which looks completely different than previous generation of hardware. This one is white with rounded corners vs the blue which looked just like a square box.



The front of the unit has from left to right the 5 VDC power input. RJ45 port to connect to the water meter sensor, the next port is to connect to the automated shut off valve, next is the I/O ports for future use like connecting to a security alarm system.

Lastly, is the pulse outputs to connect to the GEM.



The side of the housing is very hard to tell are three clear option buttons. Next to them are three multi colored LED's to indicate status of battery, WiFi, programming, errors, etc.



I powered up the controller so the forum members could see the LED's on the far right. As noted up above the description offers very little insight. As they say, a photo offers a thousand words!



The water meter sensor that attaches to the water line meter. This was a prototype so please ignore the rough condition its in. The device is extremely easy to install you literally just place it around the water meter and secure the Velcro strap.



This part was fabricated using 3D modeling so its a little rough. But expect to see the final injected molded units to be of much finer quality.



The handle is where you insert the other end of the CAT5e Ethernet cable. During our development process I encouraged the team to use something standard like this. As this would ensure a off the shelf cable which could be used of any length to meet all user needs and environments.



The Water Hero system is powered by a 120 VAC PSU that outputs 5 VDC at 2 amperes. The system has a integrated lithium ion cell to offer back up power during a grid down event. In my Alpha / Beta tests I was able to cycle open & close the water shut off valve more than 50 times before I stopped the test.





The system comes with a three foot length of CAT5e Ethernet cable to connect to the water meter sensor.

WATER HERO - CLOUD HOSTED PORTAL:

In another thread entry I'll go through the entire on boarding process and how to link the system to the water hero portal service. For now I will simply recap the information I published early on in this projects thread.

The system has two dry contact outputs which can be used to send a pulse when the feature selection is enabled. For this project both of the dry contacts will be sending the water consumption pulse for the entire home to two dedicated GEM's.

As seen below the values were defined to Liters vs Gallons and the pulse width used to obtain those readings. In my case 0.26 gallons is the value translated into metric liters. A 800 ms pulse value was found to be the ideal working range the GEM found acceptable.

During the install process I forgot to enable pulse output 1. I must have wasted a good 35 minutes checking wires, polarity, and swapping out ports until I realized the output to the Water Hero was still disabled!!



These are the preliminary alert options the Water Hero system is cable of monitoring and generating. The system can be configured for alert only, reactive shut off of the main valve, or the both.

Important to me was the ability to send email and true SMS. As many other systems use a email relay system to mimic true SMS.



There are several utilities and calibration tools to help fine tune the system if required.





The dashboard offers real time water flow gauge, temperature, and home & away toggles. There are many pending updates to come in 2018 ~ I look forward to them! Along with the iOS smart application that will offer more features and graphing insight.



As of this writing there is no long term historic recall that a user can obtain. This is why I pushed so very hard for direct integration with the Brultech Green Eye Monitor (GEM).



The Water Hero wrist band from the company.

BRULTECH DASH BOX - MONITORING, TRACKING, HISTORIC RECALL: THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION

As noted up above the limited charting provided by the Water Hero web hosted portal service was not enough for me.

I am truly not a fan of the whole cloud first vs local first.

It comes as no great surprise that Brultech Dash Box fills any possible need or wants in terms of charting, graphing, and long term historic recall. The major benefit is all of the data is held securely locally with no dependence on the happy cloud!!

Ben & Paul have continued to push the limits of vulnerable Dash Box (DB) to offer more than it was ever designed to do. Its been a complete honor and privilege to have helped the team in the development process over the last eight years. Having a small hand in the process to identify bugs and push for more features has been my primary goal.

Brultech, is a Canadian company that shines far above those toy like products that pretend to be a energy monitor . . .

Below is quick snap shot of what this incredible energy monitoring data server is capable of. This image capture shows the DB is able to show the entire day, weeks, months, years, of water usage.

From minimum, maxim, and daily average.



The next tab provides insight to the total water consumption and renders the same data in a bar chart. Like the other tab you can select any day, week, month, year, or custom range to view.



The next tab offers a live view of the real time water consumption in the home.



Brultech's Dash Box offers the user the ability to create custom charts and graphs that can be linked to any other channel in the system. As seen here both GEM's are tracking the global water consumption in the home.



Another chart that tracks the daily water consumption trends.



The power of the DB is having the ability to compare previous day(s) consumption. Knowing this sort of historic data will allow a person to modify their behavior, track potential leaks, consideration of time of use for watering the grass, flowers, during cooler periods etc.



Nothing motivates a person more than seeing the dollar and cents of their consumption. Using the Brultech Dash Box its accurate, precise, and easy to view and understand.





And of course who doesn't like a big fat f^cken gauge to see what's happening?!?!

The DB is configured to display all eight pulse channels in real time. This just so happens to be just one of them inside a custom dashboard.

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PROJECT TITAN - MICRO LCD PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT SYSTEM: THERE'S A PI FOR THAT

On August 21, 2017 I embarked onto another project in hopes of finalizing my reactive voice announcement system named Julie U.S. The primary goal has been to deploy a local, secure, low energy, and networked device that offered connectivity to local vs cloud based resources. It would have a local remote, display, and access buttons.

Lastly, it would offer multi way input / output and audio jacks to power small efficient speakers through out the home.

As of November 07, 2017 this project begins . . .



The system that I purchased came with the DAC, Amplifier, Remote, Stand Offs, and 3D molded case. Unfortunately there were a few false starts as they shipped me the wrong color case and the main DAC had some button and display issues.



Fast forward a few weeks later we have another set that came super fast from Hong Kong.



This is the main DAC with a OLED display as you can see it offers local control to select, skip, and increase volume. No need to be on a computer or break out a smart phone to make changes.



The back of the board to show case the components, RCA jacks, and I/O pins which attach to the RPi.



Plastic stand offs to secure the DAC, Amp, to the RPi.



This is the test rig that will help me validate, test, and deploy this new smart PA system.



The custom 3D plastic case to house all of the components together.



I decided to complete a dry fit to ensure the entire assembly would fit correctly. It was pretty tight but it did in fact fit inside together.





As noted the first PCB had some QA issues and one of the buttons were off center which made it near impossible to put the assembly in and then put the button back in place. And than make use of it so this little guy will reside in out of sight location.

Poor bastard . . .



With the new black case in hand this will offer that stealth install I am looking for. In another thread entry I will detail a custom Smart IR system that is in works. Once this IR project has been finalized every old school piece of Audio / Video will be at my finger tips!

I am a Alpha / Beta tester for this company and look forward to show casing the technology and the people behind it ~ Stay Tuned!

Once this new system is deployed it will be controlled via Insteon, Amazon Echo, and Dash Box . .

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PROJECT TITAN - MICRO LCD PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT SYSTEM:

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PROJECT TITAN - MICRO LCD PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT SYSTEM:

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PROJECT TITAN - SMART IR SYSTEM:

Add line text ~ Blah

In 2018 the journey begins on the next generation of smart IR connectivity. Watch this space and follow along as I document the concept, development, and integration.

Coming to a city near you . . .

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PROJECT TITAN - SMART IR SYSTEM:

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PROJECT TITAN - SMART IR SYSTEM:

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PROJECT TITAN - SMART IR SYSTEM:

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UBIO LABS - APPLE LIGHTNING CABLE: A BETTER ALTERNATIVE

Last week I ran into a problem where I awoke to find my iPhone 5 uncharged and blinking away. The display showed a lightning cable icon and the battery level at a 1% critical level. Given this phone has been heavily used for five long years in my mind it was just a expired battery. I had a couple choices and that was either shell out the money to replace the battery or just replace it with a brand new one.

Unfortunately the latest generation of iPhones in my mind simply miss the mark on key features and value. Lets not even get into the insanity of actually shelling out $1K for a phone ~ You got to be f^cken stupid to do that.

Undaunted no matter how many times I inserted the cable it wouldn't charge. This was using a 3rd party cable I received from my girl friend many years ago as a X-MAS gift. So I decided to break out a brand new Apple OEM cable that I had on hand.

Upon plugging in the iPhone the same cable icon and flashing 1% battery level was present. At this point I was committed to choose one of the two options I listed above. After getting back from the gym and I won't lie it was on my mind the whole time as I pounded out the weights.

I decided to hunt down one of several lightning cables in the house but found out many of them were off site being used! Pissed off I rummaged through several rooms until I came upon my daughters spare cables for her iPod.

I looked up in the sky and prayed to the Apple Gods something other than what I saw would happen. In complete shock and amazement when I inserted the cable the bloody thing beeped and the charging light came on?!?! I ran back to the kitchen where the OEM cable was and inserted it into the phone, nothing . . .

No beep, no charging icon, nothing . . .

I grabbed the 3rd party cable and saw the exact same results?? Swapped that cable out and used my daughters iPod cable and it immediately beeped and flashed the charging icon. So there was obviously something wrong with the 3rd party cable who knows what. But that brand new $30.XX cable from Crapple???

Really Apple come on that cheap ass cable costs three times more so there better be some quality behind it!! Obviously not in this case and there was no way I was going to shell out $30.XX for a short ass cable ever again.

As seen below the 3rd party cable is on the left and the Apple OEM one is on the right.



Since I obviously needed a new lightning cable I recalled my favorite Costco store had several 3rd party cables on the shelves. The two other brands on the shelf really didn't hit the mark for me for different reasons. As I roamed the isles I was thinking the third item would probably be a complete failure in the same.

After looking at the product and handling it I was satisfied it would meet my needs. Below is the Ubio Labs Lightning cable which comes with two six feet armored cables along with a dual 2.4 ampere folding charger.



It may be hard to see but the entire cable is surrounded by a mesh like material to provide extra wear ability to the product. The cable is heavy and appears to be well made and the fact its six feet long simply hit the mark and usability for me.



As noted up above the package came with a dual USB 2.4 amp high speed charger for a total combined output of 4.8 amperes.



One thing I have learned over the years is no matter who the third party maker is you really need to test out the product for a prolonged period of time to determine that infant mortality. In my personal experience if something is going to die it will do so with in 90 days of hard operations.

Most often something will show itself with in the first to 30 days of use.

After 48 hours of none stop use one of the cables stopped working. Just to confirm it was indeed the cable I plugged it into other hardware in the home with the same results. I was only moments from returning the product back to Costco because they have the best customer service of any retailer I know.

I decided this would be a good time to test out how this company handled their warranty and service after the sale. On the box was a direct email to an American location which really shocked the hell out of me to be honest. I fired off a email to include the UPC, Package, and Costco receipt and explained what had happen. Within one hour I received a reply literally from their customer support team apologizing for the bad cable and indicated a new one would be shipped ASAP!!

This my friends is where the rubber hits the road . . .

Absolutely no bull sh^t, no sorry too bad go bring it back to the store, etc. Just we are sorry and a new cable is enroute and let us know if there is anything we can do to make this better.

I've never seen this product manufacture before at Costco but can say moving forward this companies product will be on my short list if and when needed.

UBIO LABS - APPLE LIGHTNING CABLE: 7 DAYS LATER

The remaining charger and cable has been going strong under 24.7 around the clock usage and testing. The dual USB charger has been used on anything in the home that takes a USB power supply. It never gets hot or stops working and the second cable hasn't skipped a beat on any of the Apple products thrown at it.

I will circle back at the 30, 60, and 90 day mark to let the members know how it fairs after these long term tests. The true test is if it makes the next few years like five and in my books if it does this is a killer deal for something that costs under $30.XX for two 6 feet cables and a dual high output 4.8 ampere charger.

When you compare that to the single cheap ass Apple OEM cable which literally costs $30.XX plus!!!

UBIO LABS - APPLE LIGHTNING CABLE: WARRANTY EXPERIENCE

November 29, 2017 true to form the Ubio Labs sent out the replacement cable in record time and traveled clear across America to Canada in five days. I received a SMS that the package was delivered and stored in the community mail box.



Inside was a nicely bundled six foot Apple Lightning certified cable just waiting to be used.



The mercury is below -10'C and the cable was outside for many hours. I thought it best to let it acclimate before removing the cable from its rubber band. I've seen too many cables literally shatter and break like glass when its below freezing.

I'll circle back in about five hours which is plenty of time for the cable to be at room temperature.