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| Joined: | Wednesday Feb 18th, 2009 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 109 |
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first off I'm not an expert, but I know a little.
I will do my best to answer what I can.
1)
If you are doing programming via the keypad then you definitely need to enter the 21st century and get a UCM and use Comfigurator. It is so much less painful.
If you intend to go with the Raspberry pi solution then i think you can just get a UCM/Pi. I believe you can connect to this like a regular UCM for configuring the system.
2) yes the UCM/Pi will allow you to connect Alexa or Google to it. This requires you to do a bit of visual programming using 'node red' to link voice commands to comfort, and other smart devices.
3) yes I think so, but I don't use Home Assistant.
4) This depends on whether you need the additional sensors to be alarm inputs or not. If yes then you need SEMs. If not, then you can use RIOs / IRIOs. I have both connected to my system, which control lights and trigger actions from sensors.
5) For me, it was to add voice control without the need to use Samsung Smart Things (ST). ST needs to communicate out to the internet in order to address the registered devices. The UCM/Pi allows local control, so even if my internet goes down I can still control stuff.
I can use alexa to command any comfort controlled device on/off, and also have both comfort and voice control over Z-wave devices, which have replaced all my x10 modules.
This is using a new UCM/Pi with a plugin pi module, and a bunch of code written by Matt Brain.
I do still use the comfort app on my tablet and phone too, but heading towards just using voice commands and the console the UCM/Pi gives via a web browser.
If you havent done already, send Matt a message and ask to join the UCM/Pi group. There are around 12 of us (~25 units shipped I think) playing about with this.
It is very powerful, but it is also a great time waster, trying to learn it all and then magic up ways to do what you want to. Plus you will invent a whole bunch more things you now need that you didnt previously ;-p
I hope thats been some help.
Last edited on Wednesday Feb 6th, 2019 12:24 pm by John W
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