Funky stuff

Anyone have any comments on anything funky they can do with CBUS ?

I have 7 DLT and 12 Saturns - and I do have some logic by letting Comfort manage it all, but is there anything else we can do in a house environment ?

I did change one button to do a 30 min timer (to turn off the extractor) - but thats about it !

No PAC here tho (no point with Comfort which can do more)

(2 x Dimmers DIN units and 2 x 12 Way relay units)

 

I have been working and later living with C-Bus for 10 years. At home I am not big on standing around with my finger on a button dimming up or down a light. Sounds basic but trust me. In the upstairs toot I have a single downlight on a dimmer channel. There is a two gang switch plate on the wall. Button 2 is a standard dimmer - which I never use other than to turn the light off. Button one is an on off with a group address recognised by the PAC. Each time the button 1 is pressed a counter is incremented in the pac. Importantly the PAC turns the button off once pressed to ensure the message is not missed. During "normal" hours press 1 = 30%, press 2 = 45%, press 3 = 60%. Now, between 9.30pm and sunrise press 1 = 20%, 2 = 35% and 3 = 50%. Use button 2 to turn the light off and reset the counter. Easy. Works a treat. I have even had visitiors who have used the toot on a couple of occasions during the night notice the different auto dimmed levels, this was a person who can't turn a computer on. Did all this in about 10 lines of PAC logic.

Later can tell you what I did with a 5753 PIR in the upstairs bedroom hallway. The simple things in life are the best and I don't like holding down buttons

 

I already use the Comfort PIRs to trigger lights for movement, esp. at night (the light sensor in comfort handles that).

So upstairs movement puts the spots on at 10% and trigger the stair leds, same for downstairs, also logic for outside lights in the alley and patio when any of the french doors, back doors, etc are opened.

I also use a button on the lounge DLT to trigger the XBOX (via a Comfort output). It's remotely sited in Node0 - theres a plasma in the lounge, but nothing else . All AV over cat5. speakers in the ceilings.

I dont like looking at wires full stop. You wont find any in the house downstairs except the office dangling about.

Aslo, the CBUS network side is on the big UPS, and when comfort detects power loss and it's dark, the low energy lights and stairs led's come on. I get about 5 hrs with this UPS (also running the servers, nas, etc)

As for the dimming, I was toying with the idea of disconnecting the buttons and light circuits id so comfort cna handle light commands. So if it's dark, then dont put that light at 100%, set it to 50%. Depends on how much comms this would take up

 

I'd really like a dimmer that uses a KNOB. You know, those round things that you turn... coz, pushing buttons to dim lights is like so 1990's

Remember those car stereos which only have buttons for the volume (eg: EB Falcon), and how "cool" they were when they first came out - and how bluddy annoying they are to use?

I love the (digital) volume knob on a Bose car stereo that I have. If you rotate it slowly, it increases the volume slowly, but if you rotate it quickly it ramps faster. Kind of like pointer accelleration on your computer mouse.

Even the very cheap ghetto blasters etc has a rotating knob for volume now days... nobody still uses the olde "push and hold a button" method do they?

 

There needs to be an option in Toolkit for us to go up to "11"