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Comfort

Integrate Comfort and Homeseer

Comfort is a combined home control and security system manufactured by Cytech  Technologies and distributed in the UK by Comfort Home Controls. Homeseer is home automation software written by Homeseer Technologies. The Comfort plug-in for Homeseer allows the Homeseer server to monitor events as they occur in the Comfort system in real time, and Homeseer  may action those events accordingly – for example, by arming the alarm in night mode if no movement has been detected after 11pm, or by setting back the central  heating system if the occupants are known to be away.

In order to use the plug-in, your Comfort System must have a UCM serial  interface and the main control panel be fitted with version 4 Outdoor firmware.

Features

Almost all Comfort supported features are accessible from the Homeseer interface. It is possible to:

  • Determine the current state of any zone (security  input) and the time at which that change occurred
  • Read the value of analogue inputs
  • Set the value of any Comfort output (analogue or digital)
  • Determine when and why the alarm was last triggered
  • Determine the current state of health of the Comfort system
  • Determine when and whom last set or unset the alarm system, and where  (which keypad was used)
  • Remotely arm or disarm the system
  • Send or receive an infra-red remote control signal (with appropriate hardware)
  • Send or receive an X-10 command via the Comfort system (with appropriate hardware)

The Comfort plug-in supports LAN virtual serial cable connector technology.  This allows the comfort serial interface to be shared across multiple devices on  the LAN, opening up the possibility of running multiple copies of Homeseer to provide fault-tolerance (subject to the appropriate licence conditions being  met) and also interfacing Comfort to other home automation systems in parallel with Homeseer. LAN virtual serial cable connectors will shortly be available for  both Linux and Windows hosts.

Licence Terms

This plug-in is made available as freeware for non-commercial use by me, Patrick Lidstone. It may not be repackaged, redistributed (including ftp mirrors and e-mail) or resold. The software is supplied without warranty, and you use it  at your own risk. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Andy, Chiu and the rest of the comfort team for their kind support.

Downloads

Documentation (105k)

The standalone plug-in requires that the Comfort serial UCM must be connected to the same computer  that Homeseer runs on.
 The Comfort Plug-in (3.2MB) [Build  11]

Some people have reported issues with the installer  failing to update the system correctly. This is a known MS defect. The  work-around is to open the install package using WinZip, and copy the files manually. Put hspi_comfort.ocx in the Homeseer program directory, and copy the  remaining DLL's to <windows directory>\system32.

 

Copyright (c) 2002-2006 Patrick Lidstone unless otherwise stated.
All rights reserved.