HowTo: make discrete power commands for a power toggle

[jtara92101]

Some IR-controlled devices (notoriously, Scientific-Atlanta cable boxes) only have a power toggle. They do not have "discrete" on and off commands. This wrecks havoc when using activity-based remotes. (I'm using Roomie Remote on my iPad).

 

Remote control solutions that use a central server can keep track of this on the server for multiple remotes. Single remote solutions can/could track power state, assuming they are the only remote used, but often don't or don't in all circumstances. I've seen solutions involving a little server running on a PC, but when you have an isy99, that seems overkill, doesn't it?

 

My configuration: iTach ip2IR (Ethernet to IR adapter) with an emitter on my Scientific-Atlanta 8240HDC cable box. isy99 also on my Ethernet. Roomie Remote on my iPad. Network Module installed on the isy99.

 

First, I created a network resource to toggle the 8240 power, 8240HDC.Toggle: TCP, (host address), Port 4998, Timeout 500mSec, C Escaped. The body is my IR command to the IP2IR:

 

sendir,1:2,1,58000,1,1,192,192,48,145,48,145,48,48,48,145,48,145,48,145,48,145,48,145,48,48,48,48,

48,48,48,48,48,48,48,145,48,48,48,48,48,48,48,48,48,48,48,145,48,145,48,145,48,2146\r\n

 

This sends the power toggle code for the 8240. Of course, you should substitute this with the correct code if you have a different device.

 

Then, I set-up three disabled programs. They have to be disabled, you only want them to run when they are explicitly executed.

 

8240.On? is an empty program. It's used to keep track of the state of the cable box. It's poorly documented, but running the "then" of a program sets it's state to true, running the "else" sets it's state to false. So, you can use an empty program to track an on/off state.

 

8240.On

 

If 
 Program '8240.On?' is False
Then
 Run Program '8240.On? (Then Path)
 Resource '8240HDC.Toggle'
Else
 - No Actions

 

8240.Off

 

If
 Program '8240.On? is True
Then
 Run Program '8240.On? (Else Path)
 Resource '8240HDC.Toggle'
Else
 - No Actions

 

Now you have discrete On/Off commands for the cable box! 8240On first checks to see if the cable box is already on (state of 8240On? is true). If it is, it does nothing. If it's off, then it sends a toggle. 8240Off does vice-versa.

 

To integrate this into my remote (Roomie Remote on iPad) I used URL commands in the remote:

 

http://userid:password@10.0.1.5/rest/pr ... 002e/runIf (for on)

 

(substitute your ISY address for 10.0.1.5)

 

You first have to lookup the hex codes for the programs using:

 

http://10.0.1.5/rest/programs

 

In my case 002e is 8240.On, and 002f is 8240.Off.

 

http://10.0.1.5

[jtara92101]

This is a duplicate, sorry. Can an admin please delete? Thanks.

[bmercier]

jtara,

 

I did not know roomie. That's great, I will look into that as well.

 

The only thing I see is that someone could manually turn your scientific atlanta on or off, and it would break the state info. You could add a synchrolinc to your box, and know for sure if it is powered on or off.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Benoit.

[jtara92101]

jtara,

 

I did not know roomie. That's great, I will look into that as well.

 

Roomie is fairly new. I think it was released in the past couple of months.

 

I tried to make sense of iRule. After a couple of days of noodling, I finally managed to turn a light on and off. And people were reporting in forums that it "only took a week" to set-up their systems.

 

I had Roomie up and running for my system in a couple of hours. It doesn't have the layout flexibility of iRule. You can add your own buttons, but you can't add your own images, define the exact layout, etc. I suspect that will be coming eventually. It's more like a Logitech remote than iRule.

 

The only thing I see is that someone could manually turn your scientific atlanta on or off, and it would break the state info.

 

And that's fortunately easy to correct. Just turn it on/off manually to sync the state back.

 

You could add a synchrolinc to your box, and know for sure if it is powered on or off.

 

Wouldn't work for the cable box, since it's a DVR model. So, it might power-up to record a show. (Though the remote power state is still OFF...) I've read a lot of comments online recommending just leaving it on all the time, saying there isn't much difference in consumption between on and off. I think you still save significant power turning it off. If you're recording, of course, you aren't saving any more than some front panel lights and the HDMI driver.

 

However, that might be a solution for my Samsung Bluray, which also doesn't have discrete on/off commands.

 

Back when I was in college, somebody rigged-up a sensor taped to a lamp on an IBM 360 mainframe console. I forget what was hooked-up to the sensor, but they wanted to know when a certain light came on... Does Insteon have a light sensor module? Or some combo of sensor and input module that could be used to detect if a front-panel light is on or off?

[ScottAvery]

http://www.smarthome.com/24950A2/I-O-Li ... Kit/p.aspx