Shion Online

After putting out the 3.2.1 update last night, I turned my attention to a problem that’s been vexing me for well over a year. For those of you using the Shion Online service and accompanying iPhone app, the reliability of the service has been a persistent issue.

On the server side of things, the root of the problem has been an issue with the Java-based Openfire XMPP server taking up way too memory and getting into trouble once it exhausted the available system RAM. I put into place scheduled jobs for killing and restarting the process to clean up periodically, but the memory use would skyrocket after a short period.

Last night, I looked more into the problem and ran across a thread on the Openfire forums describing a memory leak associated with the Personal Eventing Protocol (PEP, a.k.a. XEP-163) that sounded exactly like the situation I’d been experiencing. I applied a suggested fix and the server load time has been reduced back to where I thought it should have always been.

I’m extremely pleased that this solution has worked out so far. If it continues to hold (and I’ll be watching over the next week), it removes the need for me to continue with the planned rearchitecting of the Shion network functionality and resume working on improving the stability and functionality of the various applications.

If you’re a user of the online service and can confirm my observations from your perspective (the service is snappier and more reliable), I’d appreciate it.

Happy holidays everyone!

First of all, I owe every Shion user an apology for my absence for the past year. In a nutshell, my consulting business took on a good amount of work, and it’s only been recently that I’ve been able to fulfill those obligations and clear them off of my agenda so that I could resume work on Shion and my other projects. Due to personal reasons, I’ve largely shuttered my consulting business and am now working as a 9-to-5 employee doing much of the same things I did as a consultant.

With the change in my employment situation, the Shion project is changing as well. Instead of trying to develop the application into a commercial product, I am open-sourcing the code and work will continue as an open project. This frees me from having to make technical decisions dependent upon commercial considerations, and allows me to take the project in a direction that makes the most sense from a technology and innovation perspective.

Shion 3.1.0 is now available.

Changes

This is a major release that adds official support for the SmartLinc 2412N Ethernet controller. I’ve been using this controller for the past month and have debugged and optimized it extensively. The only outstanding issue is that it fails to link with one-way sensors such as motion detectors and SynchroLinc devices. This appears to be a hardware limitation that I will be unable to work past. Users of previous implementations of this device will need to reselect the controller type in the preferences.

This release also includes major performance enhancements across the application. These improvements are the result of migrating the events database from a flat file storage system to one powered by a CoreData SQLite database. Please note that the older events will not be migrated to the new storage, so this update will essentially “reset” your device history.

I’ve improved support for the Weather Underground sensors, so more endpoints should work now. To use these devices, create a Weather Underground Sensor and use your station ID as the address.

There are other bug fixes dealing with time zone issues, crashes, and poorly-performing controllers.

Please submit any other feedback in the comments below.

We’re finally live!

I received confirmation last night that Shion Touch had been approved by Apple and I verified that Shion Touch is now available on the iOS App Store. (It made it through the review process on its first try, which was a pleasant suprise.)

It’s certainly taken long enough, but I’m extremely pleased that I can share this with the wider world without having to subject potential users to the whole “lookup your UDID and mail it in” dance. So, if that’s been holding you back, you no longer have any excuse to not give the software a spin.

I also want to remind everyone that the entire Shion experience is free until the end of 2012 courtesy of Power2Switch, a local Chicago startup that specializes in helping Illinois customers find the cheapest and greenest electricity suppliers. Power2Switch’s sponsorship allows me to make all of this available gratis, so if you’re an INSTEON or X10 user, you have absolutely nothing to lose by giving Shion a try. My hope is that you’ll like it enough to keep it or let me know what I can be doing better for the next customer.

This is an early step on a longer journey (I still need to conquer the Z-Wave beast), but I can’t express how happy I am to have this live after working on this (iPhone-based home automation) in one form or another since 2008.

Thanks again and enjoy!

As of last night, Shion is officially out of beta. I submitted Shion Touch to Apple’s App Store and I’ll be releasing an update to Shion.app later this week as well as exorcising all of the beta text from the website. I apologize for being slow to send out builds to new testers, but this is the reason why. If you don’t mind being patient, the app will be on the App Store proper within the next two weeks. No more UDIDs needed.

Aside from Apple’s approval, I’d like folks to know that I had to register Shion Touch with the US government to get it on the App Store:

This is actually fairly routine for apps that use encryption, but don’t fall into one of several predefined categories. In Shion Touch’s case it uses SSL encryption (whenever possible) to prevent third parties from monitoring and controlling your environment without your consent.

I’ll post another update when the app’s out of the approval queue and ready for download.

I just sent the following note out to Shion beta testers.

The gist: I recently joined a Chicago startup working to help consumers find better electricity plans, monitor their power usage, and to become better power consumers. That work has gone extremely well, and the company will be sponsoring Shion for the indefinite future, which allows me to make the full set of Shion tools completely free to interested users, including the online service.

Read more to review the letter.

A new version of Shion Touch (1.0b8) is available for beta testers:

Shion Touch

Provisioning Profile

Drag these files into iTunes, sync your device, and you should be good to go for a long with with Shion Touch. If you’re using iOS 3 and receiving error messages, go to the general preferences in your device, find the provisioning item, and remove any expired provisioning profiles.

This release of Shion Touch includes updates for new beta testers.

Let me know if you experience any problems or other issues.

A new version of Shion Touch (1.0b6) is available for beta testers:

Shion Touch

Provisioning Profile

Drag these files into iTunes, sync your device, and you should be good to go for a long with with Shion Touch. If you’re using iOS 3 and receiving error messages, go to the general preferences in your device, find the provisioning item, and remove any expired provisioning profiles.

This release of Shion Touch includes a variety of bug fixes and includes support for the TiVo DVR devices, and new power load sensors (Insteon SynchroLinc modules) added in recent builds of Shion.app.

Let me know if you experience any problems or other issues.

It’s been a hectic couple of months and a variety of uncertainties delayed public progress on Shion. Things have changed for me professionally in such a manner that brings Shion back to the forefront and development will resume shortly.  Part of my new professional life has significant benefits for new & current Shion users.

I’ve uploaded a new build of Shion Touch with a new provisioning profile that will extend the beta license (the expiration was Apple’s doing – not mine). Right-click and “Save As” the links below:

Shion Touch

Provisioning Profile

Drag these files into iTunes, sync your device, and you should be good to go for a long with with Shion Touch. Let me know if you experience any problems or other issues.