As some of the seasoned K owners know, the K system publishes some pretty useful information on a network port. Advanced control systems can connect to that port and watch for messages like "a movie has started in zone XYZ" and then can dim the lights in that zone. And bring them back up when credits start rolling. And lots of other interesting things.
The most interesting, to me anyway, is that you can do things like control volume using the Kapp on iOS. Kapp doesn't know how to talk to any other control systems directly, but it tells the K box that a volume request was made and you have to have something listening to the port and then initiate the volume change via whatever control system you are using.
For those of us using iOS based control systems with no central processor (like iRule or Roomie Remote), this technique won't work. You *have* to have a middle-man. I currently do this at my home with a Mac Mini and I have Indigo installed on it. Works great, and I have it do a few other important middle-man tasks in my system.
I'd like to do the same thing at my mountain house, but I have no other needs for Indigo and it seems like HUGE overkill. I'd have to buy a Mini and pay for another Indigo license ($150 at last check). So I've been looking for other options. One I've found that is *close* is OpenRemote:
http://www.openremote.org
They don't support K yet, and their generic "telnet" support doesn't quite work, either. It's basically one-way in that you can open a connection, send a command, and then the connection goes away. What K needs is a constant connection and some two-way traffic.
Now, I'm told it shouldn't be hard to add K support because OpenRemote *does* already support a few devices that use very similar control systems (Marantz and Lutron), so one would just start with the code that is written for those and adapt it for K.
Sadly, I know *nothing* about Java programming. But I'd really love to find someone who could make this happen because the OpenRemote controller can even run well on a Raspberry Pi. That means we could roll our own middle-man server for under $50 in hardware (You'll need a Pi board, case, and a micro-USB power wart...and then you just plug the Pi in via wired ethernet to your local network).
Now, you could potentially use OpenRemote for your entire control system since that's what it's designed for. I'm happy with the stuff I'm doing already, though, so all I care about is this middle-man thing (I'm basically just going to listen for the volume events and pass them to a Global Cache for IR output).
Anyone interested in taking a look at adding support? Since OpenRemote is open source the work you'd do could get rolled back in and everyone could benefit.
--Donnie
The most interesting, to me anyway, is that you can do things like control volume using the Kapp on iOS. Kapp doesn't know how to talk to any other control systems directly, but it tells the K box that a volume request was made and you have to have something listening to the port and then initiate the volume change via whatever control system you are using.
For those of us using iOS based control systems with no central processor (like iRule or Roomie Remote), this technique won't work. You *have* to have a middle-man. I currently do this at my home with a Mac Mini and I have Indigo installed on it. Works great, and I have it do a few other important middle-man tasks in my system.
I'd like to do the same thing at my mountain house, but I have no other needs for Indigo and it seems like HUGE overkill. I'd have to buy a Mini and pay for another Indigo license ($150 at last check). So I've been looking for other options. One I've found that is *close* is OpenRemote:
http://www.openremote.org
They don't support K yet, and their generic "telnet" support doesn't quite work, either. It's basically one-way in that you can open a connection, send a command, and then the connection goes away. What K needs is a constant connection and some two-way traffic.
Now, I'm told it shouldn't be hard to add K support because OpenRemote *does* already support a few devices that use very similar control systems (Marantz and Lutron), so one would just start with the code that is written for those and adapt it for K.
Sadly, I know *nothing* about Java programming. But I'd really love to find someone who could make this happen because the OpenRemote controller can even run well on a Raspberry Pi. That means we could roll our own middle-man server for under $50 in hardware (You'll need a Pi board, case, and a micro-USB power wart...and then you just plug the Pi in via wired ethernet to your local network).
Now, you could potentially use OpenRemote for your entire control system since that's what it's designed for. I'm happy with the stuff I'm doing already, though, so all I care about is this middle-man thing (I'm basically just going to listen for the volume events and pass them to a Global Cache for IR output).
Anyone interested in taking a look at adding support? Since OpenRemote is open source the work you'd do could get rolled back in and everyone could benefit.
--Donnie
