Stumbled across these somewhat less expensive options (different designs and vendors, but both utilizing the same microcontroller) that might be leveraged for managing 16 different irrigation zones over Ethernet, wifi, etc:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-WiF...item41773b5448
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SNMP-Web-bas...item27cffb0deb
Seems like either might be relatively easy to toggle using homeseer scripting that utilizes HTTP to poke it. More expensive than an arduino solution, but then again you'd be starting with more of the interfacing work already done for you. They even appear to come with some very rudimentary scheduling software that perhaps could serve as a starting point.
Anyhow, I have no relation to the products or the vendors, so am just passing it along. These are both less than half the $300+ cost of the better branded and more familiar solutions for a 16 zone controller. For instance, a 16 zone etherrain would be $320 plus some ancillary component costs. However, to put that in context, for $250 I could get a NetAqua to control 9 zones as an almost complete irrigation system (it would even mine weatherunderground over the internet to get highly localized weather data), not just as a basic platform that would require large amounts of further integration and costs.
In my particular case, to fully integrate with HomeSeer, I would only need a 10 zone controller, but these kinds of Ethernet/wifi relay banks mostly seem to come in multiples of 8 zones. I suppose I could try either cramming down or narrowing down my zone count to 8....
I'd be interested in something running on an arduino, especially if it required minimal setup and configuration. Then maybe integration with homeseer would be that much easier. A few arduino solutions have been out there, like OpenSprinklers, but oddly enough they're more expensive than these non-arduino units on ebay or other non-arduino solutions. For comparison, if HomeSeer supported Zigbee, I could get a 16 zone zigbee irrigation controller like the smartenit for $125 today, and I could get an insteon smartenit 16-zone controller for about $145. I'm not aware of any z-wave irrigation controllers.... Why would that be? In contrast, an assembled 16 zone OpenSprinkler would run about $210.
Usually this kind of helter skelter pricing indicates a nascent market and a shakeout will be coming soon after the supply ramps.... There are a lot of new entrants crowding into the market for both "dumb" platforms and for smart irrigation controllers.
I'm thinking an arduino supervised relay bank controlled using HS and EnigmaTheatre's Arduino plug-in is likely to be the least expensive, dumb platform (~$50 hardware cost to manage 16 zones) for leveraging my sunk cost into HomeSeer. However, for that approach I may need to wait for HS3 to become stable enough that I have confidence trusting it not to make expensive irrigation blunders....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-WiF...item41773b5448
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SNMP-Web-bas...item27cffb0deb
Seems like either might be relatively easy to toggle using homeseer scripting that utilizes HTTP to poke it. More expensive than an arduino solution, but then again you'd be starting with more of the interfacing work already done for you. They even appear to come with some very rudimentary scheduling software that perhaps could serve as a starting point.
Anyhow, I have no relation to the products or the vendors, so am just passing it along. These are both less than half the $300+ cost of the better branded and more familiar solutions for a 16 zone controller. For instance, a 16 zone etherrain would be $320 plus some ancillary component costs. However, to put that in context, for $250 I could get a NetAqua to control 9 zones as an almost complete irrigation system (it would even mine weatherunderground over the internet to get highly localized weather data), not just as a basic platform that would require large amounts of further integration and costs.
In my particular case, to fully integrate with HomeSeer, I would only need a 10 zone controller, but these kinds of Ethernet/wifi relay banks mostly seem to come in multiples of 8 zones. I suppose I could try either cramming down or narrowing down my zone count to 8....
I'd be interested in something running on an arduino, especially if it required minimal setup and configuration. Then maybe integration with homeseer would be that much easier. A few arduino solutions have been out there, like OpenSprinklers, but oddly enough they're more expensive than these non-arduino units on ebay or other non-arduino solutions. For comparison, if HomeSeer supported Zigbee, I could get a 16 zone zigbee irrigation controller like the smartenit for $125 today, and I could get an insteon smartenit 16-zone controller for about $145. I'm not aware of any z-wave irrigation controllers.... Why would that be? In contrast, an assembled 16 zone OpenSprinkler would run about $210.
Usually this kind of helter skelter pricing indicates a nascent market and a shakeout will be coming soon after the supply ramps.... There are a lot of new entrants crowding into the market for both "dumb" platforms and for smart irrigation controllers.
I'm thinking an arduino supervised relay bank controlled using HS and EnigmaTheatre's Arduino plug-in is likely to be the least expensive, dumb platform (~$50 hardware cost to manage 16 zones) for leveraging my sunk cost into HomeSeer. However, for that approach I may need to wait for HS3 to become stable enough that I have confidence trusting it not to make expensive irrigation blunders....
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