Linking several copies of Homeseer together

[jon00]

I would really love to have a formal conduit to link two or more copies of Homeseer together over IP. For instance, the master Homeseer application would show/trigger local and remote events, show local and remote status etc. Great for remote sites such as vacation homes etc or complex setups.

[bpm32]

I second this request.

[tonlof]

Maybe you can use Stipus script connector?

[jasv]

I vote for a HS conduit also.

[Michael McSharry]

An important element of Jon00's request is that he identified Homeseer to act as a master or a slave. In essence the same as the current Homeseer architectural model of Homeseer master and speaker client slave. This would be an extension to essentially allow Homeseer to accept requests and provide status as is now done by a speaker client.

This is in contrast to a distributed architecture where any copy of Homeseer is a co-master or could be promoted from slave to become the master. The distributed model carries with it a boatload of system managment worms that need to be considered so system-level truth can be maintained and failover/handover can be managed in an reliable and orderly manner.

Several years ago I posted a document titled Homeseer Over There (HOT) that described an architecture for a distributed Homeseer model and it showed how this could be done with plugin rather than core Homeseer logic. At that time there was not much interest. Some of it due to lack of need. Some due to lack of understanding. Some of it due to the concern of it not being embraced by HST. My prototype of this concept did highlight the issues of dealing with system managment. There are many desirable features of the distrubuting computing model and my early work on HOT is what turned into mcsXap as the means of exposing the internal workings of HS to the LAN.

The use of Homeseer-slave plugin to communicate with a master Homseer is a viable approach weather it be offered by HST or 3rd Party. What is likely out of reason is a distributed Homeseer-Homeseer plugin because there are too many issues of dealing with an internal HS design that is based upon a centralized architecture.

I suspect that this concept will never materialize unless HST is involved. While I also see this as a desireable feature, I do not see how it can be economically justified. There just cannot be that many potential customers that would elect to automate in a different way because HS has only a single-copy architecture. It could also be the case that multi-site control is on the HST roadmap and the existing design for the speaker client has this capability already considered.

[sooty]

Not quite what your initial post suggested Jon, but I have played with using Homeseer to monitor and control RF devices located at another property via an RFXCOM LAN interface.

A friend, like me has a Visonic wireless alarm system, some HomeEasy switches and appliance modules, some Oregon sensor devices, Homeseer and an RFXCOM LAN interface.

As the RFXCOM plug-in now supports direct TCP/IP connection, as a proof of concept we decided to open his LAN interface up to the outside world and see if I could connect my Homeseer system to it remotely.

This actually worked very well and I could just add devices located at my friends house to my Homeseer system. Updates for device status were almost instant and I could swith his appliance modules etc, again with almost instant response.

I did think this approach could be usefull for monitoring a second property.

I suppose almost any technology could be used in this way if a suitable LAN interface is available.

Paul..