Mac OSX automation

I am new and I don't even know if this is the correct forum. I have purchased a W Home home automatio0n kit and am trying to use it with a Macintosh under OSX10.4 and Xtension which is the software. It has a USB connection. I cannot get it to work and the helpline has been no help. I canoot get the preferences to recognise the USB port even though I have downloaded a couple of USB to Serial drivers. Is anyone able to help as this is driving me nuts.
I would appreciate any help

paddy2042

 

I don't know if anyone here has tried using C-Bus with the Mac XTension software. Certainly no one in CIS has tried. What are you using the connection your Mac to C-Bus? PCI?

A quick google suggests that XTension can talk to C-Bus, but I found no specific info on how.

 

Hi Guys,

I use a mac for C-Bus but I use it thru Parallels, which uses windows. Never a drama and always finds the comms port.

Not sure if it is what you are after as I am only new to C-Bus.

 

Using a Macintosh with piced/toolkit?

I notice this is a very old thread with very little said in it. I suspect there has been little progress on the "anything other than windoze" front, but hey, I live in hope.

I have some cbus installations, the PCI plugs into an 8-port ethernet terminal server and lets me access just fine via ethernet, as you'd expect, even remotely.

I don't have parallels, or windoze, just OS/X 10.4 - is there any practical way I can use the mac to program, maintain and monitor my installation(s)?

It just doesn't seem like it should be that hard.... yet I've not seen anything anywhere that even gives me hope?

 

On the contrary, I would think that it is hard. Compiling it for a different OS, supporting it for any OS specific issues that arise etc.

You have to remember that toolkit is free to the user (actually paid for by the hardware which is a unique situation really). The economics involved in supporting a version to run elsewhere would be prohibitive - especially since toolkit/homegate etc install base is relatively small.

Don't get me wrong, this is not anything against any particular OS, but if you were going to write something, you would write it [first] for the OS that has the largest penetration in the market.

I am sure that if the MAC OS became the largest used OS that there would be a trend for a lot of software to migrate over to the bigger platform.

If you want to monitor the system with your MAC, then you will probably need to commission someone to create something for you. The protocol has now been release to everyone and there is nothing stopping you creating a MAC version of something like homegate and using that.

Mick

 

Miser software

Rumor has it that a software package called "miser" (Not a great choice of names, me thinks!) and a bunch of new hardware is soon to be released. I have no further details, except the source said 'it would be very hard to find information on this on the web. the search continues.....

edit.. actually i think it was supposed to be the "wiser" not miser (Whew!)

 

Ahh, but thats one of the major claims by Java: develop once, deploy on any platform.

Reality is: there's Java, and Java, and Java, and Java... and just because it runs in one JRE doesn't mean it behaves similarly or the same in another. And Java sucks my will to live.

Yes, and I handed over my $50,000 odd for the cbus stuff for my house alone.

See above about "platform-independant development"

I write stuff all the time. It's my job. But I don't write for doze, I write for the platform that best suits the application. In my case, Unix.

I hated the mac. But I realised that my problem was that it was just too "different" to what I was used to. In virtually every respect, the mac is far superior to the peecee equivalent. But just like Beta vs VHS, it didn't win the marketing war. (It DOES however, dominate in the pro graphics arena)

Yeah, I started down that path, but kept getting dragged off on other work. I'd just hoped that somone had become sufficiently frustrated with it to do it.

I DID find, a couple of years ago, detail of someone who got it running on Mac, but they had to jump through hoops to get a compatible JRE running. I can't find the article now though.

 

I don't have an intel-mac. I'm still using the older PPC based boxes. This is mostly because I really appreciate getting 6+ hours runtime out of the batteries (none of the new ones seem to), and it draws so little power.

I live off-grid (not entirely by choice) but have to have several machines running 24/7. The difference even just 3 computers makes is quite a surprise. 100 watts * 24 hours = 2.4 KWH/day *MORE* for the other machines, which is 20% of my total daily power. When you have to make (and store) every watt, it *IS* an issue, even if you can't beleive it

 

Maybee this is the answer..

Paddy:

I've pasted this from a previous thread that was closed down after I was criticised for speaking out on the lack of Mac c-bus support.

It concerns controlling c-bus through the new web based WISER. I assume this was from a CIS representative, though I can't confirm this. I quote:

"A MAC native projector is available should it be required however, the web-app works fine on a Mac as it is."

So why doesn't CIS just release the MAC native projector???

I'd sure love CIS to inform a bit more about when such a MAC projector might become available....

In the meantime, I'm going to run a dedicated older G5 on my network: permanently logged in via the web interface.

 

Clarification

Thankyou. Asleigh and NickD. I really appreciate the efforts in explanation.

So what you are saying is you still need to use a web interface to use wiser. Sure, this isn't OS dependent, but with all due respect this is not the same "user experience" as a dedicated program or application that runs under OSX. It is not as user friendly and can't be easily incorporated into applescripts, or launched automatically, for example.

I know the differences. I know and use several such examples of both web based linux based devices (various NAS devices, a video camera server, even my older router...so I know how this interface operates.)...as apposed to a dedicated OSX interface such as the Sonos desktop controller and XBMC, for example.

Will people stop with the "no need in the market" stuff about integration with Apple products. How well does CIS really understand what is going on in the home computer market?? When is CIS going to understand Apple has an ever increasing presence in the home computer as apposed to business market place. I'll ask a simple and obvious question here. Aren't CIS looking more closely at HOME as apposed to BUSINESS automation? If customers like me want this sort of integration, why argue. Why not just do it? Behind early adopters like me there are myriads of others waiting to take the plunge...

I'm still getting a Wiser though and integrating it onto my network. And I'll wait for a proper stand alone "projector" for OSX to be released (and one for the iphone for that matter)...

Thanks again for the explanation, but I hope you get were I'm coming from...

 

Apple Migration

I rarely wade into these conversations, though this time I thought that I would like to add the weight of one more voice.

I also have noticed a huge increase in the number of Apple products in the home and would also like to see more support in all areas of CBUS. Since the introduction of the Intel Chipset in Mac's, I have completely changed my entire office and rid myself of the slow and frustrating PC. Productivity is up and I can't remember the last time I heard the words "Oh come ON" growled around the office.

The biggest realisation from my own Apple experience is that the products all appear to interact seemlessly and via IP.

I've noticed that many luxury car manufacturers are now fully supporting the iTunes iPod style interface for control of the iPod library from a vehicle touch screen. I feel that this would be the one thing that I would like to see most on a CTouch.

 

I have a 15" Macbook pro with Vista on a bootcamp partition. It is amazing the difference in speed when using windows as compared to OSX on exactly the same machine. OSX boots in about 1/3rd the time of vista. I for one would love to see a native homegate for mac.

 

Yes it is true the amount of iMacs are being used in the home and business environment because they are a stable system compared to many PC's we use them in our office.

As far as a Mac version goes our iPhone/iTouch C-Bus app is written in Mac code and as many of you know connecting to C-Bus without an issue so if there was enough interest then we could do a Mac version

Tony

 

Totally agree with Ashleigh here regarding the perceived speed of the OS.
While Apple products have their places, there are still alot of areas where they are not suitable.

Also, you're locked into Apple's expensive and proprietary hardware if you want to run OSX, unless of course you're willing to break their EULA and install it on third party hardware, and provide your own support.

 

Mac Support

The topic of support for the Mac has come up several times on the forum, and is raised at every Point One conference.

I don't want to start a raging debate, but there are a few points which really need to be made so that everyone understands the problem:
1. CIS understands that some people want support for the Mac. Please do not assume that CIS does not know or care. We love our Mac users as much as anyone else
2. Mac users are currently a small minority of the users for C-Bus software. We understand that they are a growing minority, but they still constitute a relatively small number.
3. There are existing solutions (virtual machines, for example) which enable Mac users to commission a C-Bus system. We understand that this is not as nice as having a native Mac application, not nonetheless, it is a solution for many users.
4. The Mac may have a lot of technical benefits - we are not debating that; it is just completely irrelevant to the discussion. If the Mac had won the "war" and become the predominant desktop computer, then you can be sure that all CIS products would have been written for the Mac instead.
5. CIS did some concept software for platform independence many years ago using Java. The application user interface was painfully slow, and would not have been deemed acceptable. There were many other problems with this approach, apart from speed. C-Gate, not having a user interface, was found to be well suited to Java.
6. Now that we have a large suite of software built for the PC platform, it would be an enormous commitment to change. The CIS PC software products (not including C-Gate) together have nearly 3 million lines of code. To rewrite these for another platform (or for platform independence) would require many tens of man-years of work. This has many implications:

• CIS only has a finite number of developers. Every CIS product in development would be delayed for a long time (years, or more) to accommodate such an update. I suspect that this would make most CIS customers very unhappy indeed.
• To re-do all of the software in a reasonable time (say a couple of years), would require the development team and the test team to be three or four times as large. It would be a huge problem to recruit, train, accommodate and manage all of these people. Then there would be the problem of being overstaffed at the end of the development.
• This update would be bound to introduce thousands of new bugs and incompatibilities.
• Unless a truly platform independent development was done, we would end up with unhappy customers who still couldn't use our software (on Linux for example).
• If we had two versions of all of our software (PC and Mac), then we would have twice the work to update, maintain, test, document and support the software, along with the brand-new problem of incompatibilities between the two software builds.
• Every new product development needs to have a business case to justify the work involved. There is not a snowball's chance in hell of being able to justify spending tens of millions of dollars and causing major disruption to the development of other products in order to make life easier for a minority of our customers. If we tried to proceed with something like that, our shareholders would probably (rightly) demand that we all be fired.

I apologise if any of the above sounds harsh, but it is the reality of our situation

We honestly would love to have all of our customers (Mac and Linux users included) being 100% satisfied, but it just isn't going to be possible. We haven't just given up, and we certainly aren't ignoring our Mac and Linux users. We just need to be as efficient and clever as possible and work together to get the best overall solution which is practical for everyone.