My experience with Home Easy and RFXCom

[Sooty]

Hello to all forum members.

I have been browsing the forum here for quite some time although I have only just got round to registering. I would like to thank everyone for all the useful information I have obtained here. Particularly the inspiration I have gained from the Bwired site.

My reason for registering was to share my experiences of the Home Easy products and the RFXCom PC interfaces with other UK users. Perhaps this summary of my experiences will give some food for thought to anyone who is also having issues getting other technologies to work anything like reliably. I would just like to point out that I am in no way connected with RFXCom, CH Byron or B&Q, other than being a satisfied customer.

I hope that my experiences with various home automation projects will be able to provide something useful to other forum members in the future.

I have been involved with home automation for a number of years. My system consists of a dedicated Homeseer PC and about 30 modules of various sorts controlling lights, heating, sprinklers, electric gates etc. I have tried just about all the different technologies over the years and found that none of them really suited my requirements properly. I have been using X10 up to now, in fact I still have some X10 modules in use, but I have never been able to get it working anywhere near 100%. The main problems have been associated with noise on the line, upsetting the X10 signal and unreliable hardware.

I initially purchased a pack of Byron plug in modules from B&Q about a year ago, which came with an HE200 timer remote, 1 dimmer, and 2 appliance modules. I was impressed with the switching speed and the quietness of the modules in comparison to X10, however these modules were the code wheel type and of course anyone in range with a remote set to the right code could have fun switching my appliances.

When I saw the second generation of modules appear, I thought I would take another look at this RF technology and I was quite impressed. Code wheels replaced with a new more secure pairing system and some new module types. The only thing that was missing for me was any type of integration with my existing Homeseer system.

I had been using an RFXCom 433MHz receiver within my automation system for quite a while, monitoring Oregon environmental sensors and Visonic security sensors. After looking around the RFXCom website, I discovered that their 433MHz transmitter could apparently control the newer Home Easy modules, and with a software plug-in, control could also be integrated into my Homeseer system.

I immediately thought; goodbye X10 woes, so I went ahead and purchased a LAN interface and a transmitter. I installed my existing receiver modules into the LAN interface and set it up on my network.

I now have full control of my Home Easy modules from within Homeseer. Noise on the electricity line is no longer a problem, switching / dimming is almost instant and I am getting a range in excess of 20 metres without any problems.

The RFXCom plug-in for Homeseer is excellent. It allows the HomeEasy modules to be programmed with a user definable secret code so they will only respond to your system, virtually eliminating the chance of someone in range controlling your modules.

Initially the Homeseer integration was limited to just sending commands to the modules. If a module was switched from a remote, then that was not reflected in Homeseer. I have recently received an upgraded receiver from RFXCom, which now allows my Homeseer system to receive signals from the Home Easy switches and remotes, so this issue has now been eliminated and switching from a remote can now be made to reflect in Homeseer.

Perhaps from a home automation point of view the only negative here, is the lack of 2-way communication so the modules could report their status back to the Homeseer system. Of course I never had this with X10 and hopefully given the reliability I am experiencing with the Home Easy modules, I wont need it.

I have been using the Home Easy modules + RFXCom transmitter for close to 2 months now and I am very pleased with its performance. I intend to switch over my remaining X10 modules in the near future and then I can remove my X10 PC interface and finally be done with X10 altogether.

The price of the modules was also a deciding factor for me. Most are at least half the price of X10 equivalents although the range of module types is limited in comparison to X10.

Finally. I would just like to thank all the people at RFXCom for all their help and support. I have thrown so many questions their way over the last few months and the customer support has been first class.

Regards

Sooty (Paul)

[Digit]

Hi Paul,

I liked reading your post. Most posts start with questions like how to do this and how to do that, so it's refreshing to read a topic that is about sharing experiences instead of asking questions[:)]
Some things you wrote may seem very trivial and logical to yourself, but lots of people will be reading your post and can learn a lot of it, helping them to make up their own minds. For me your post was the trigger to read about Home Easy; i knew it existed, but no more then that... [:I]

Regarding RFXCOM: Totally agree; 100% reliable, 100% worth the $!

PS.
Do you recognize this as a Home Easy device?


(It's a picture from the http://www.klikaanklikuit.nl site)

[Sooty]

Digit,

Thanks for the positive comments. I hoped that my post would come over as helpful rather than look like an advert for HomeEasy and RFXCom which it is not intended to be at all.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Do you recognize this as a Home Easy device?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Yes, this looks exactly like the HomeEasy HE304 shown here: http://www.homeeasy.eu/product1.php

Paul..

[Bwired]

Hi Paul,
Same goes for me good review.

In Homeautomation 2 way communication is a must have, I find it very important to know if a device is On or Off.
Regards.Pieter

[Sooty]

Pieter,

I know exactly what you mean about the 2 way communication. I did look at other powerline systems like PLCBUS and Xanura, mainly for the 2-way communication capabilities but it is quite expensive compared to X10 or HomeEasy and I was not convinced that the Homeseer plug-in support was quite there yet.

Although I have quite a bit of VB experience with Windows forms applications, I am not up to writing my own home automation software just yet, so I am reliant on third party solutions like Homeseer. In a couple of situations where I have needed to know the status of something for certain, I have used a mains voltage relay with a Visonic MCT-100 or MCT-302 to monitor it.

I have not had a good experience with X10 here in the UK and I was keen to get away from powerline based modules and try an RF based solution. I suppose time will tell if I made the right choice.

Paul..

[Bwired]

Hi Paul,
Agree on that, btw Xanura is supported in Homeseer.
For most of my lights in the livingroom I have just 1 Xanura module. It's also the way you arrange your powerline.
We all experimented with KlikAanKlikUit as well and found out that the wireless commands are not always received. Of course thats the case with X10 as well but with the Xanura modules you can check the status after the command is sended, or program the module that the command is acknowledged. I use some Homeeasy devices, mainly the extended doorbell. If somebody rings my doorbell I send a Homeeasy command with the rfxcom transmitter to 2 Home easy doorbells located in various places in my home.
Sometimes they are no going of, so I have to keep my conventional doorbell, but 90% is ok for that device.
Also the way your house is built is important, lots on concrete can block the signal.
keep us up to speed on your findings.

[Digit]

I did some research on the the fact that the Home Easy and new A-series devices from KlikAanKlikUit look so much alike. My conclusion: they are identical, and a reliable source has confirmed this. Not only by looks, but also in protocol. To bad all these kinds of devices only go 1-way; that's why i'm trying to get hold of some PLCBUS stuff, to see what that will do.

[Sooty]

I suppose everyones requirements for home automation products are different. In my experience, very little in this life is 100% reliable 100% of the time.

I like the thought of the 2-way communication, but at this stage I dont think I can justify changing my system over to PLCBUS or Xanura. I have also looked at the UK based Idratek system http://www.idratek.com/ which is apparently very reliable but this would require a lot of wiring work.

Perhaps I should have mentioned this in my initial review. Some of the issues I have had with X10 have been related to my power supply system. I also use only low-energy lights, which dont always seem to work well with X10.

I have a standard UK single-phase 240-volt supply but I also have 2 small wind turbines and a solar PV system with battery bank and inverter, which supplies my lighting circuits and some other low-power circuits like my mini ITX Homeseer PC and my alarm system through a change over switch system. If there is enough capacity in the batteries then, all these circuits are switched over to the inverter. Of course when running from the inverter, these circuits are effectively disconnected from the main house supply, therefore no X10 signals. I am aware of various methods of bridging the signals but an RF based system makes it much easier and removes the need for additional hardware.

I have never automated my internal lighting because of the above system but now I can do this with the HomeEasy modules without any additional hardware.

At this stage, I can live without the 2-way communication. I dont think I have anything that is so critical. For my sprinkler system for instance, which runs from a 5000 litre underground storage tank, I have a pulse-output water meter attached to the main feed pipe, which I monitor for flow and this checks if the sprinkler solenoids have all been switched off ok. As a second check, I monitor power consumption changes, which tells if the pump has been turned on / off, and as a final check, soil moisture levels are checked.

Regards

Paul..