Wiser GUI's

Can we add additional (other than the standard ones)GUI's in Wiser? If Yes, How?

Govind

 

Sort of...

If you mean the "Widgets"...there are lots to choose from and the names are easily changed within WISER PICED. You can also move them around etc..

I think you can change the background color. But that's about it. I'd love to know if you can do more....

..on the other hand, sometimes a "fixed GUI" across a project isn't such a bad idea...it's easy to remember how to use by everyone within a household, and easy for installers to set up and teach their customers

Other companies like Control4 have taken this approach and it's proven very successful....so (other than the ability to edit widgets straight within the web interface)...I think CIS has got this just about right...

 

I think for a fully customized GUI using one's own graphical concepts and interaction design, you should use HomeGate/SchedulePlus rather than Wiser. That way, you'll have full control of the user interface. In contrast, I think the whole idea behind Wiser is that it generates a standardized user experience with a standardized look and feel to it. Just out of curiosity, what kind of GUI are you trying to create? How about some pictures or sketches?

 

The latest PICED release gives Wiser the ability to edit location and widget names, schedules, scenes on the fly using the web browser based user interface. Upgrade carefully though as the newest release requires a firmware upgrade.

Note, editing is not possible from the Wiser mobile phone application ( http://www2.clipsal.com/cis/technical/downloads/general_utilities ) or from Media Center. Only the keyboard enabled browser based UI allows editing.

 

Great.

I didn't know that. Big step forward!

...note to CIS....how about improving communication a bit with your WISER customers. Get their emails and let them know of improvements and release updates like this... Bound to be a win:win...
you could also include in the emails the important upgrade steps...eg how to back up a WISER config. What the back up file is called. How to do a WISER firmware upgrade. What the backup WISER PICED file is called. HOW to do a PICED upgrade and put this on the WISER....simple steps for simple minds..(and please no "read it in the manual" or get the "pointone to do it" sort of comments)

This sort of stuff should be well within the realms of the average WISER customer...an informed customer base is a happy customer base!

 

I believe all this stuff is in the PICED/Wiser manual so I'd recommend reading it from there to get the full details. I sympathize with the desire to get a step-by-step howto so if it helps, (note, as a disclaimer, any disasters you may encounter by following these steps are thine own responsibility and not mine), here's what I normally do:

a) download PICED - http://www2.clipsal.com/cis/technical/downloads/piced
b) quit any running apps on your PC and then run the PICED installer. It'll do all the normal stuff it does. Note, make sure your C-Bus Toolkit installation is also up-to-date.
c) if you have your Wiser project on your system, then just open it in PICED like normal, check that all your widgets are good and in the right locations in the widget manager, check that you're using the right skin.
d) Then instruct it to transfer your project to the unit. The transfer utility will tell you that you need to upgrade your firmware, start the upgrade and then very carefully and patiently let it proceed and wait till the upgrade is complete before doing anything else. Note that updating the firmware won't change your router's configuration or your project.
e) Now, transfer your updated project to the unit. Patiently let it do its thing.
f) Test in the browser that all is well.

 

Thanks for that!

Couldn't find the info in the manual...so "went for it" following your fantastic instructions...thanks for that..all is good...

What a great upgrade! Congrats CIS

 

Everything you need to know should be in the main help file under C-Bus Units/Wiser Home Control. There is additional information related to the Transfer Utility in the Transfer Utility Help File.

It is a bit more verbose than Jaya's nice summary though...

If the help file is missing something, please let us know and we will update it. Ideally we would like the help file to answer the most common questions.

 

(Sorry to highjack this thread, but it seems right to carry on the theme)

I've been messing around with Wiser for a couple of weeks now, and I really like the overall concept, but I'd like to suggest one improvement that I think might be a) generic & standardized but b) very versatile. I understand what you say about using HomeGate to gain full control of the GUI, but with a little more flexibility the Wiser GUI could be a lot more representative of the real world objects it is trying to control.

Basically, I'd like to see a set of generic widgets that can load a user defined graphic for each of their states. For example, in my home I have 4 water features ... one is a large fish pond with artificial stream, one is a very big water fall, one is tall fountain spraying 9 jets in the air, and one is a small water feature with 3 bubbling columns of water. At the moment I use the Hose Pipe icon in the Lighting app, as it's the only one that is vaguely water related. But it would be really good if there was a Fountain icon, and even better if I could draw my own for each state the widget can be in, and feed those files into the Widget manager when such a Widget is specified (I'd make 8 graphics in 10 minutes, one for off and on for each of my water features). I've also got few hundred lights in this place, and being able to identify them with a wee picture would really enhance the users experience I think.

Another example, for the code I'm writing for the ComPool swimming pool controller, it would be very nice to have 8 different coloured buttons in the GUI to match the coloured buttons on the pool wall and on the spa side remote. I'd create a red up arrow and a blue down arrow for temperature controls etc etc.

Next on my list is a direct interface to my Daiken VRV AC units ... it would be nice to be able to create a UI somewhat similar to the Daiken one ... same with my Cinema gear, some of the UI would be a better if the widget picture resembed the thing being controlled.

If you wanted to get fancy, these Generic widgets could have an X and Y percentage coordinate so that icons could be crudely arranged on the screen in relation to each other. For example, 0%,0% would be top left, 50%,50% would be smack in the middle of the display etc, allowing the GUI to scale across different screen resolutions and aspect ratios.

For my Compool UI, I could then have the 8 main function buttons lined up in a neat row across the bottom, and the spa and pool temperature controls underneath each other on one side, and the current temperature in the remaining space. Each would carry the theme of the original controllers look and feel into the Wiser GUI.

Like I say, just a suggestion on how to really make what is shaping up to be a great product, even better. I guess what I'm saying is that a picture is worth quite a few words when it comes to a custom GUI

Thanks,
Dave

 

..use your iphone....

Great Post Dave!!

There is a new cbus iphone app out....
There is also a new iphone app for your pool controller...

http://www.staritepool.com/whatsnew/iphone.htm

CIS needs to start a thread..."What Widgets Wiser Users Want"..(try saying that several times quickly!!)

...a WISER for fixed control...and iphone/touch for portable....perfect for the modern/disfunctional/itinerant family who moves every 2-3 years!!!!....the momentum is now unstoppable

 

I'm hard pressed to find anything to disagree with in this suggestion. Yes, it is desirable and it makes sense to have user generated imagery. As you pointed out, a decent starting point would be a Lighting relay widget that accepted user generated on-off images. More complex ones could be added incrementally. There will naturally be some implementation complexity with this due to size, memory, runtime-image, image format loading issues and alpha-channel constraints, and naturally also on the host side with PICED. But I think it could be done.

 

Forgive my obsessive compulsive disorder, I prefer to call that the TouchSoft iPhone/iTouch-CNI app. I think that's important in order to accurately credit TouchSoft's work and the mechanism of C-Bus interface it uses. Hopefully no one will accidentally confuse that with the Clipsal iPhone/iTouch C-Bus-Wiser app or the iphone-DLT-like app that Brad had written about on this forum.

So far I know there has been talk of user-generated-image-widgets, jump-to-url widgets. Any other widget requests?

 

Yep.

These would all be great! How about also: * Ability to launch an applescript (is this asking too much? )! * A couple of simpler thermostats (eg for hydronic and simple temp monitoring). *Some images for some basic common scenes eg All lights on/off, Go to bed, Leaving house. Arriving from home. Answering front door (including front door camera feed in this). * A Garage door showing open and shut state (I'm planning this a present)

 

Wiser Mobile Phone Application

Could anyone point me at WISER MOBILE PHONE APPLICATION help? We installed on some different Nokias - nothing works. (N97 and others)

Autentification error, MENU button not being pressed etc.

 

Use the Alpha to represent dimming on a dimmer e.g. have the 'off' icon be a black and white outline of a bulb, and the 'on' icon a bright yellow bulb, and alpha blend between them as the dimmer value changes As for format & memory issues, limit it to png, using your current 85 pixel size, and you'll have a good handle on how big things can't get.

Secondly, I have a couple of requests for your phone app. I tend to think of function groups and locations as a matrix, scrolling left to right changes location and scrolling up and down changes function group (similar to the web interface) - and I think what you've created here is totally brilliant and very much undersold. But to really exploit it, I'd like to see the phone app to auto pan around this matrix when the cursor nears the appropriate edge, and also when one of the keypad keys is pressed (4 for left, 2 for up, 6 for right, 8 for down). One day Wifi, bluetooth, gps, or some other proximity sensor should set the correct location when I fire up the app. The other thing I would like, could going up from the top of the menu (on the left button) return to the bottom menu item ... i.e. go straight to exit. Also could the state of Switch View be remembered in the settings, or even better, move the buttons that switch between function groups to be a vertical scroll orthogonal to the horizontal ones that change location ... And one last thing ... the current app doesn't know when my Nokia N95 is sideways on, which most apps do, which gives a more workable aspect ratio.

Another handy widget would be a widget which is a shortcut to a second widget in another location or function group. My default location is called 'Common' and it has, you guessed it, the common tasks, scenes etc for each location. It would be nice to just be able to have shortcuts in 'Common' which point to the real Widgets below, but which inherit the functionality & look and feel. That inheitence diferentiates these short cuts from a scene. But wait there's more! Now that you have integrated all the house with this cool 2D location/function group matrix, and have icons that fade in and out to indicate their varying state, having a time based dimension would really top things off. If these shortcut widgets had a time dimension, effectively a schedule that changes what they point to, the common function group could be dynamic throughout the day as well. I'm guessing most of this functionality existings already ... schedules would need to be able to set the value of a shortcut widget (as would other actions). Your marketing guys could certainly have a ball promoting your new fully programmable 4D fluild GUI with deeply immersed temporal and spatial interactivty

 

Seems unusual, and Nick you appear to be the only one experiencing major issues. As for the buttons not working - this is a known issue due to N97 having a touch interface rather than a caret based movement with softkeys.

Can you confirm that your wiser unit firmware is latest? Also, which specific Nokia Devices have you tried on?

Thanks

 

Nick, to elaborate on Mr. Wilddog's suggestions, I'd do the following:
- check that your Wiser firmware is 1.10.0 and your project was using PICED 4.7.0
- verify that everything is working fine on Wiser LAN/WiFi using PC browser
- verify that N95 or N97 can connect fine and login and access the UI on Wiser LAN/WiFI. This means using the N95/phone's WiFi connection rather than 3G.
- verify that the UI works remotely by accessing it from an external internet connection, eg: tethering your laptop to your phone (this is best since it will verify that there are no issues on the 3G side) or using an office internet/etc

Some problems that I have seen have been that the Cellular service provider's 3G network extend-caches DNS entries and as a result dyndns behavior becomes erratic or there are blocks/filters on non-HTTP traffic. Wiser UI requires port 8888 access as a minimum.

Hope that helps.

 

Good suggestions in general and I think some of them are work-in-progress. Room detection isn't an easily solved problem because GPS (even cell-assisted GPS) doesn't work in-home. I think the mobile app doesn't do dynamic rotation but it does detect whether it is in landscape or portrait mode when it starts up.

 

Wiser Nokia App

Hey Nick,

I have a Nokia E71 and installed the Wiser app works great, i aslo had a authentication error but this was due to the firmware, after upgrading i had no issue, be sure to type the corect password to log on to the wiser not the wireless network as the two are different. Love the app is very intuitive and so easy to navigate, i definately am looking forward to the Clipsal Cbus Wiser App for Iphone and Ipod Touch, i am sure it will be a milestone event!!!! an app that can be used by multiple people at once and if it is as good as the nokia app which im sure it will be considering the ease of use touchscreen on the iphone/ipod then it will be magic!! there should not be a C-bus home without a WISER!!!!!

 

You got it!

I totally agree!! The Wiser is a kick a... product