Leading up to the announcement of the new 9.7″ Apple tablet, we at CommandFusion were only thinking about the home automation possibilities and anticipating the finer details regarding getting our software on such a brilliant (and affordable!) home automation interface.
After digging through the information, we discovered that our current iPhone app (CF iViewer) will also work on the iPad (albeit in a ‘2x scaled’ mode at best). But rest assured, we are working on an update for iViewer that will work on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad, utilizing the full screen real estate for whichever device it’s running on.
Our guiDesigner software is already capable of creating interfaces for any screen size, including the 1024×768 resolution of the iPad. So as soon as the iPad is available, our software won’t be far behind.
As a dedicated home automation interface, the $499 iPad (16GB + WiFi only) running our iViewer software makes for an excellent experience, at a price point never before possible.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I can’t wait for it and was thinking of Command Fusion the whole time! This tablet combined with the iViewer will be better than a Crestron 8X that cost what is it 5-6 times as much?
January 27th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I can’t wait either Allen! Just want to get my hands on one of these tablets and get programming for it already.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:59 am
Indeed, this will be absolutely marvellous.
You only need to solve that “signals lock in high on connection loss” issue and then it will be near perfect.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:15 am
Tobias: I believe this is on the Crestron side, rather than iViewer itself. Line 357 onwards of the CommandFusion_iViewer_Server v4.2.usp SIMPL+ module specifically sets all \press\ signals low on disconnection. Unfortunately, Crestron cannot cleanly detect a disconnection under all circumstances. The \Activity Timeout\ will cause the signals to be forced low if you have it setup correctly to manually disconnect after a certain timeout period (via module parameters) then reopen the socket. I personally have never seen a case where the signals are stuck high after disconnection.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Been looking into Home Automation recently and have been considering the HAI suite of products. The Apple Ipad would be a great affordable substitute for the HAI Omnitouch 10p. What are the chances of seeing a fully integrated HAI Omnitouch 10p interface that is compatible with the Omnipro II?
Cheers,
Tony
January 29th, 2010 at 6:22 am
Tony: HAI is a tougher system to work with due to the way they require encryption for all messages, and negotiating a session ID. It’s something we are looking at adding to our app, but not yet available. We are working closely with local HAI distributors on this, so it will happen eventually. In the meantime, you can still control the HTX box from HAI which has a much more open protocol.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Thanks Jarrod, Nice to know someone is looking into the possibility. I’m certainly not a programmer just yet but I am looking into getting into systems integration as a business in the coming years.
I would be willing to pay good money for a reliable 10p interface on a Apple Tablet….after all, a 10p is 2500 USD MAP price, and the Tablet with higher res screen (although slightly smaller), Lighter, thinner, smaller is 499USD! Worth the software costs for what would be a great product to supply to clients.
I’ll be watching the site closely for any developments with the HAI stuff.
Cheers,
Tony.
January 30th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Hi Jarrod. We are equally eager to get our hands on an iPad. We are custom installers in Mexico, recently abandoned AMX (last century´s technology with now an unreasonably high cost). But we are still selling and installing Vantage lighting control systems. Any chance that a module for Vantage will be available from you in the near future? Thanks, Bernardo.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Bernardo: Our app already works with Vantage. You just need to know the commands to send. Another Vantage user told me the commands were something like: BTN vid#\x0D, where vid# is a unique number given to each task set up in vantage.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:58 am
Vantage Controls can be used with Command Fusion, currently their Host commands are listed as classified. I wonder if they are anticipating lower touchscreen sales . . . Good thing I downloaded them before they were black listed.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Bernardo . . . If you need some help, you can reach me at goldschlager@gmail.com
February 12th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
This opens up serious promise. The day the iPhone came out it became overtly obvious that the expensive AMX/Crestron touch panels we have been programming are now expensive junk.
Command fusion has some opportunities here to fix a few things. Most notably is scrolling lists… Please don’t leave us with having to do selects from lists by updating serial joins - this is the worst thing about AMX/Crestron touch panels. Send the whole list to the iPad and let us scroll it smooth iPhone style.
The main other problem with wifi devices is connection time… apple at least is quite fast at this. I assume command fusion knows whether it is connected.
Last issue is the apple restriction. The iPad won’t boot into the touch panel software…
Bring on the iPad. Bring on scrolling lists (don’t forget this feature - you will bury AMX/Crestron panels with it).
February 12th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
James: iViewer supports scrolling lists - it has for quite a while now. Please see the ‘developers manual’ pdf from the Downloads page for the list protocol. Currently this only works with systems using OUR protocol (so requires a powerful backend system such as Crestron/AMX), but a release in the near future will allow parsing data to lists via ANY protocol using our powerful regular expression engine.
February 14th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Great.
I’m overseas at the moment. Can’t wait to get back and give it a go. (Hoping it is just like any other iPhone scrollable list!)
February 16th, 2010 at 2:15 am
This looks to be a fantastic value proposition - iViewer on the Apple tablet looks to be way in front of anything available - well done.
Have you tested iViewer with Clipsal C-Bus? Does this require a plugin/module from you or is it simply a matter of assigning a task to a button to send a valid C-Bus command to the IP address:port of the C-Bus NNI?
February 16th, 2010 at 2:26 am
MIchael: We are able to directly control C-BUS as long as you send the right commands. Someone has even created a program which sits in the C-BUS Touchscreen and can talk directly with our built in protocol, so join 1 would activate lighting group 1, etc.
Please post on our Google Group for further support (or email us directly via our contact page)