Thursday, May 28, 2015

Remote unit demo

I have shot a short video that show how the authentication works on the remote unit. As you can see there is red and green LED in the probe that helps to show current state, and piezo that is mounted inside. Slow green flashes without sound means that group/zone is disarmed. After touching the probe with a valid iButton, the group is being set to arm state with the configurable delay, as shown red flashes with sound. When the delay passes it switches to arm state, slow red flashes without sound. Then tripping a zone, here opening front door, shows another state awaiting authorization. The delay of wait state is configurable in 3 to 0 times of authentication delay time, which is configurable in seconds as well. Every such wait state is represented by faster LED flashes and also faster sound.


As you can see in the video I have the unit mounted next to switches, directly in the wall. I found it very fast and easy to arm/disarm the group. My 5 year old daughter still finds it funny after 3 months of use and she ask for my keys to do it.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

GSM and uptime

Just today, I have accidentally discovered that the GSM service provider had
some problems with his network. Luckily the thread that check GSM status handled the network failure just well, and recovered from it without issues.

I have the system up and running for 96 days with all threads working. I
must say the NilRTOS is really robust.I'm planning some software updates, but I have to create remote ISP first.


Also recently I have got W5500 chip and Wiz550IO and I'm very tempted to create a new mainboard together with SIM900. This would be all included alarm board that can simply replace old alarms and offer many features with open firmware and hardware.