KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

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Lexje
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KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by Lexje »

Hi everyone,

I've concluded that quite an important part of our electricity bill is consumed by computers. (NAS, server, pc...)
I realize it should be possible to put most of them to sleep / hibernate or even power-down using WOL.

Now my question:
It is common 'Domotics' practice to have a button called "I'm temporarily away" / "I'm home" / "I'm away"
This button then triggers so called 'scenes'. E.g. adjust heating settings, put out the lights etc.

Now I'd like to include the WOL commands in these scenes. So to start with I would need a plain button that one way or the other can send a message that will end up in WOL speak.
Preferably I'd like to do this using KNX, but other solutions are welcome too. I assume that somewhere a translation will have to be made, and a gateway will be needed.

I welcome your tips & ideas :-)

Erwin
steve2xyz
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Re: KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by steve2xyz »

Wake on LAN is a facility which allows a computer to wake up from a sleep state when it receives a certain packet of data (a 'magic' packet) over the network. This packet is typically sent by a computer which isn't asleep.

To implement a 'Sleep on LAN' you would need to have an small application actively listening for a similar magic packet of your own devising. When the application receives it, it would then start a system shutdown. I am guessing that such applications have been written and may be freely available or may even be part of an integrated home automation package like Harmony.

To implement a network-wide sleep/wakeup from a single switch, you would need to have an application running to listen for it and act accordingly. If you used X10 you could do this with a little stick-on switch (SS13E) and the RFXCOM receiver, I am not familiar with KNX. Similar to Wake on LAN is Wake on Ring, where the ring refers to an RS232 serial line triggered by incoming data. The CM12 (again for X10) and I think the RFXCOM receiver use of this line for this very purpose. How you would shutdown your NAS depends on the NAS.

I'm sorry this isn't a lot of help. If you're using Linux I might be able to help rather better.

Cheers, Steve
Lempens
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Re: KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by Lempens »

Or you can use the tuxgraphics embedded web server for Wake on Lan (WOL)

It's a small device, which you can build your self, or order it. When you push the button, it sends a WOL signal to the computer you like.

http://members.home.nl/bzijlstra/softwa ... c28j60.htm

http://tuxgraphics.org/electronics/200904/wol.shtml
PietjeNL
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Re: KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by PietjeNL »

How about a relais that does the same as when u press the power button on your pc?? I can set that when i press the power button it goes to sleep or shut down, would be nice if u can make like a motion sensor that sends a signal to a device that "presses power button" so pc goes to sleep.
steve2xyz
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Re: KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by steve2xyz »

Yes. The way I've implemented this is that "going to sleep" (transiting from S0 to S1-S5) is not an order, it's a notification that I don't need the machine for a reasonable time. It knows better than I do if sleeping immediately is going to break something. If you're in the middle of a huge file download you probably don't want it to go to sleep immediately but to wait until it's finished.

Steve
Lempens
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Re: KNX Button to powerdown / poweron / hibernate PC?

Post by Lempens »

There are more ports available so you can connect a Motion detector. You only have to change the software on the Atmega.
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