Shion Online

Shion 3.0β6 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, and GPS  have not yet been implemented.

3. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

4. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

Changes

This release adds initial support for the SimpleHomeNet EZSrve network controller and a new beta driver for the SmartLinc 2414N controller (details).

This release also includes a variety of minor bug fixes and UI enhancements.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below.

(Editor’s note: FTW is the short form for “for the win”, a common online phrase denoting a positive development.)

I’ve been quite vocal in my dislike for the SmartLinc 2414N controller based upon its poor web API and related issues. However, given developments from the last week, it may now be one of my favorite controllers to use with Shion. Here’s the story…

About a week and a half ago, a helpful Shion user e-mailed me to let me know that an iPhone app called MiCasa used an unusual port (TCP: 9761) instead of the default web port that I’d been using to control SmartLinc controllers. Last week, I spent a couple of hours analyzing the traffic from the mobile app and discovered that the bytes being shuttled back and forth were the same ones used by the 2412 & 2413 serial port controllers. Since I was working on bringing the EZSrve support to Shion (another TCP socket-based device), I went ahead and combined code from the EZSrve driver with code from the 2412 driver to create a new beta driver for the SmartLinc. (Interested developers: my implementation is public and available on Google Code.)

My suspicion that the undocumented port was being used as a proxy for the serial commands was correct and I’ve been using the SmartLinc with the beta driver for the last week. In short, the device is as responsive as the serial port controllers (my current favorite) with the added benefit that Shion can use your network to communicate with the device without having to be physically connected to it. Furthermore, since the TCP port is a simple bridge to the embedded serial modem, my complaints about poor 2-way device support are no more.

I’m quite pleased at this development and support for the beta driver will be available in the next release of Shion. I’m planning to continue testing it with the intent of making it the default SmartLinc driver in Shion.

A very big thanks goes out to Kerry Cupit for alerting me to the undocumented port.

Shion 3.0β5 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, and GPS  have not yet been implemented.

3. EZServe network controller support is not present in this release. It will arrive in the next beta release.

4. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

5. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

Changes

This update extends the “Favorites” option to the Shion menu that sits by the clock and other status indicators. Using this menu, you can manipulate your favorite devices, snapshots, and triggers without the need to open and navigate through the Console window.

This release also includes a variety of minor bug fixes and UI enhancements.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below.

Shion 3.0β4 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, and GPS  have not yet been implemented.

3.EZServe network controller support is not present in this release.

4. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

5. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

Changes

This update adds a new “Favorites” option that allows you to designate favorite devices, snapshots, and triggers. The selected items appear in a new “Favorites” section in the topmost item browser.

This release also adds initial support for the SmartLinc 2414N networked INSTEON controller.

Some major caveats for this specific controller:

• While it may be used to send commands to X10 and INSTEON devices, it can only receive status updates from INSTEON lamp and appliance modules. The thermostat and any sensor devices are unsupported, and will likely remain so given the fundamental limitations of an HTTP-based controller.
• While it should be able to receive status updates for X10 appliance modules, I had no success achieving this. Consequently, it will only send commands to X10 devices.
• Status updating is much slower. Changes in a device may not be picked up for several minutes.
• Because of this controller’s limitations, I strongly encourage users seeking a networked alternative to acquire SimpleHomeNet’s EZSrve controller. The EZSrve controller uses a true 2-way communication channel and is free of the SmartLinc’s basic limitations. The EZSrve is not currently supported in this version of Shion, but will be shortly. (It was supported in Shion 2, and I simply haven’t ported the code yet.)

For users with the SmartLinc controller, I encourage you to give this release a try and send me your feedback. This is not a controller that I use regularly, so I need more help from the community verifying that its driver code is solid. If you’re using this controller and have some additional feature requests, please let me know. While the controller does not support monitoring thermostat and sensor devices at the moment, there may be a way to get some very basic support if there’s user interest.

Also, special credit goes to Scott Newman, who was instrumental in helping me achieve what limited status updates we have. Prior to his encouragement, I didn’t think that any status updates would be possible.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below.

Shion 3.0β3 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, GPS, and camera devices have not yet been implemented.

3. Networked controller support (SmartLinc, EZServe) is not present in this release.

4. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

5. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

This release fixes a variety of user interface bugs and related issues.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below.

Shion 3.0β2 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, GPS, and camera devices have not yet been implemented.

3. Networked controller support (SmartLinc, EZServe) is not present in this release.

4. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

5. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

This release adds support for the updated Shion Online infrastructure and new iOS mobile app.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below.

Shion 3.0β1 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is a beta release for Shion 3. This software is still under construction and has some rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, GPS, and camera devices have not yet been implemented.

3. Networked controller support (SmartLinc, EZServe) is not present in this release.

4. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

5. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

This release introduces the following improvements:

1. A variety of bug fixes & user interface improvements.

2. Improved AppleScript support and additional properties (sunrise & sunset).

This release has been tested with the PowerLinc 2414U, PowerLinc 2412U/S, CM11A, and CM15A controllers.

Shion 3.0a7 introduced the new Camera device and I wanted to share some information about this new feature and how to use it.

The rationale behind including this device type is that in this day and age, it’s difficult to purchase a new Apple computer that doesn’t include a webcam of some sort and I thought that it might be useful to put these devices to work in the same way we use other kinds of sensors within Shion. It you happen to use multiple computers with cameras, we can put this mostly-neglected hardware to use with Shion. No home automation hardware is necessary to use this device.

In short, the camera interface consists of two main elements: the image list view and the preview window. Clicking “+” and “-” will capture and remove images from the device’s list, while clicking the magnifying glass icon will toggle a preview window that displays the selected item in the list. To look at other images, simply select them from the list and the window will update automatically.

Read more for details…

Shion 3.0α7 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is an alpha release for Shion 3. This software is still very much under construction and has some very rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The RemoteBuddy interface remains unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, GPS, and camera devices have not yet been implemented.

3. The menu items leading to Shion web pages remain incomplete, pending the completion of the new Shion website.

4. Networked controller support (SmartLinc, EZServe) is not present in this release.

5. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

6. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

7. (Shion 2 Users) You will need to reenter your devices, as the migration code is not yet complete.

This release introduces the following improvements:

1. A variety of bug fixes & user interface improvements.

2. Support for mobile devices running the Shion Touch application.

3. Support for built-in cameras (e.g. iSight) for use as an image logging device.

This alpha release is not intended for production use and is mainly intended to solicit feedback on the direction of the product. This release has been tested with the PowerLinc 2414U, PowerLinc 2412U/S, CM11A, and CM15A controllers.

After a busy week of client work, I spent most of today hacking on Shion. For the past couple of months, I wanted to implement location-based home automation (e.g. “activate Snapshot FOO when I go more than 5 miles from home”), so I spent the day doing just that:

Rather than treat mobile clients as invisible participants in the Shion ecosystem, I went ahead and made them full peers of the other devices in the network. Doing so made it convenient for me to gather information from the devices (phones as sensors) and send instructions to the mobile client (phones as controllable devices). If you click through to the higher-resolution version of the screenshot, you’ll see that Shion gathers location information from the mobile clients and provides a “beacon” command that plays a unique sound on the mobile client (for those times when you unwittingly lose it between the couch cushion). For those concerned with sharing too much location information, a preference on the iPhone app allows it to go into private mode: beacon commands can be sent, but location data stays on the device. Since Shion does not store any of this information on a server (information passes through, but doesn’t stick around in the online components), it provides a secure alternative to other server-centric location-based services. The online service is only the conduit for passing the information from your phone to your Mac.

For those willing to share location information with their copies of Shion, a variety of interesting possibilities open up:

1. Shion can be used to define geographically-aware “zones” that associate a particular geography with an action (activate a snapshot, execute an AppleScript, etc.)
2. Shion can be used to track the location of several mobile devices simultaneously. This is much like Apple’s “Find My iPhone”, but will work on any client or device equipped with some form of geolocation functionality. On my own roadmap are Android and WebOS devices. (Both of those platforms will actually implement a richer feature set than the iOS devices on account of their unfettered multitasking abilities.)
3. By hooking into the Events system in Shion, this feature an be used to draw a map of your travels over a given period of time. Don’t remember where you saw that interesting shop? Look it up on your copy of Shion.

I’m very excited about this feature and feel that I’m only scratching the surface of the possibilities. Location-awareness will be available in the next releases of Shion & Shion Touch.