HomeGenie

Well, I've had a motion sensor sitting around for at least a year, unused because I couldn't get it to work with HomeGenie.  Turns out I was just overlooking a comment in the settings to associate the device with group 1, as noted in an archived forum post.  (Yeah, I could use SmartThings instead of a roll-my-own system, but I figure it'll be harder for people to futz with an oddball config.  Plus, the homebrew system isn't open to the Net: I have to connect via VPN in order to get access, unlike SmartThings.)

Then there's linking the switch to the sensor with the built-in "Smart Lights" program.  That was disabled so I enabled it an it shut off the lights once, but the sensor appeared to have gone to sleep.  Getting closer, but not quite there yet.

Oh yeah, since the Pepper1 database of Z-Wave devices used by HomeGenie was shut down, as noted in the new forum, there's an alternate location to query.  I'll have to download the newer version of HomeGenie to see if they've picked up this newer site; otherwise, one can add one's own devices to a local archive.

One blog post I read when I was setting up my automation compared HomeSeer, HomeGenie, and Domoticz.  The author preferred Domoticz, but I don't like the idea of having a separate library for Z-Wave.

HomeGenie

I'm running HomeGenie, an Italian home automation system, to control my Z-Wave devices.  Well, it's very configurable, but not the easiest to actually configure as a result.

Last weekend I wanted to update to the latest version, but the automatic update was broken, so I manually pulled down the package and installed it.  That killed my setup so I had to regenerate it.  It turned out I had backed up my old setup, which I didn't find until after I'd re-created my setup and backed it up again (of course).  The new version included some additional demo code, which took me a while to figure out how to disable.  There are a few things still running that I don't want to be.

I also had to figure out how to turn on power logging.  What I need to know now is how to export logged data!

One page I found talks about how to set up a program to send a photo from a webcam when a sensor is triggered.  It came up when I was searching for an example of using a motion sensor to turn on a light, which is what I have in mind for the utility room.  Still looking....