Ok, I know its been a long time, a painfully, painfully long time, but I have good news. H@me has reached version 2.0!
The first version of H@me was software I wrote to “scratch an itch”. I wanted to write a complete iPhone app and I also wanted a better way to control the Omnipro that runs my house. It was a lot of fun to write and seemed to be generally useful to others
Since then I have spent my spare cycles building other software projects, some of them related to home automation, some of them not. But the one constant has been your steady stream of emails and posts, “great app, when’s version 2 coming out?”. It has been this kind of feedback that motivated me to come back and pick up the project again. Where the first release was completely motivated by my own requirements, this release has been driven by the comments, emails and bug/features tickets that users have left me. I will be charging for the application, but in return I will be releasing a more steady stream of updates based on your input.
While H@me II has much of the same look and feel as the first version, much has been changed under the hood. Since the first release in 2008, HAI has created a new version of their communication protocol. This allows for better discovery and control over their panels as well as using TCP rather then UDP. This required a rewrite to my objective-c network implementation, something I had done already in JAVA with my open source library jomniLinkII. I have actually been using the new protocol in H@me for the last 8 months and have been very happy with it. A consequence of using this new protocol is that H@me II will only support Omni/Lumina units running firmware 3.0+. Users running 2.1x can easily upgrade their firmware to support H@me II.
I will be charging a reasonable amount for the app this time. I’m doing so for two reasons. First is that I am no longer building the app for myself, but rather for others based on the features they have requested. And two, by charging for the app I have an obligation to make releases and improvements, it acts as a motivator and a contract.
So armed with a new network stack and a much better model for talking with the omni hardware, H@me II is almost ready for release. Here are a list of the new features going out.
- General Security
- Prompt for code at connect
- This was the single most requested feature to date, and rightly so. Now when the app connects it prompts you for your personal code which is then validated by your system. There is an option to save this code which is disabled by default. Even when saved, if the phone was lost you could always change your code on the Omni/Lumina.
- Hidden keys
- This is a small change, but once your 2 keys are entered they are no longer visible through the preference screen.
- Control (lights)
- Auto detection of rooms, units and flags
- One of the benefits of HAI’s new communication protocol is I can now detect different types of units. No more “use rooms” switch in the preference screen.
- Flags
- Flags are now correctly displayed with their own icon and can be switched on or off. I plan in a future release to add increment/decrement ability as well.
- Display scenes
- Lights will now display their scene if one is activated. I am getting feedback on the best way to implement activating scenes (the omni supports many types of scenes across multiple lighting vendors, so it gets a little complicated).
- Thermostats
- Temperature and Humidity Sensors
- This was the second most requested feature. You can now display any indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity sensors.
- Hold Status
- You can now display and switch on/off the hold status on thermostats.
- Zones
- Better layout
- Bypass and restore zones
- Event Log
- This was also a highly requested feature, you can now view the system’s event log which displays events like when the system was armed, disarmed, communication failures, etc…
- Lots and lots and lots of bug fixes……
There may be other features that make it in to this release such as support for more then Russound audio controllers, scenes selection and a celsius display option. Features I have slotted in for updates to this release are multiple controller/house support and multiple area control.
I will let everyone know when I submit it to the Apple store.
Dan-
(PS, everyone loves screen shots)
I know its been too long again, version 2.0.14 was just approved by apple and contains some great new features and fixes.
