[Articles] Home Control Assistant 9 released

[CT Droid]

Home Control Assistant 9 is now available for purchase.  Some of the new features include an updated GUI, improved support for UPB and Insteon, plus much more.  It's a pretty interesting and affordable ($80/$160) application, plus it's the only one which seems to support creating events using a 'Visual Programmer'.  See the announcement below for more details.

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[123]

It looks like a very good upgrade. Kudos to the folks at HCA!



BTW
Not to take anything away from HCA but it isn't the only HA app that lets you create programming logic using a 'visual designer'.

Here's an example that implements the following requirement:
A bathroom light is turned on by either of two sensors and its brightness is set according to the time of day. When the light is activated, the bathroom fan starts up 2 minutes later and runs as long as the lights are on. Once the lights are turned off, the fan should run for 10 minutes then turn off.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Interesting looking program.

Please excuse the rather elementary questions but I'm wondering if a program like this can receive IR from a Pronto, then operate macros to turn on equipment in a home theater, including built in delays? Or is that expecting too much.

I keep looking for something to replace the Ocelot due to it's being stuck in yesteryear.

Thanks

Deane

 

[Deane Johnson]

Sadly, HCA has just confirmed to me that they have no plans to support Z-Wave in the future.

 

[ewelin]

BTW
Not to take anything away from HCA but it isn't the only HA app that lets you create programming logic using a 'visual designer'.

Here's an example that implements the following requirement:
A bathroom light is turned on by either of two sensors and its brightness is set according to the time of day. When the light is activated, the bathroom fan starts up 2 minutes later and runs as long as the lights are on. Once the lights are turned off, the fan should run for 10 minutes then turn off.

Nope, HCA does have a great Visual Programmer that can allow for some very complex programs. I personally have it running my irrigation schedule and have several variables and dependencies for it that vary how many days it runs.

Here is more info on the Visual Programmer on the HCA Site:
http://www.hcatech.com/index.php?sid=featu...sual_programmer

 

[ewelin]

Interesting looking program.

Please excuse the rather elementary questions but I'm wondering if a program like this can receive IR from a Pronto, then operate macros to turn on equipment in a home theater, including built in delays? Or is that expecting too much.

I keep looking for something to replace the Ocelot due to it's being stuck in yesteryear.

Thanks

Deane

HCA does support the Global Cache GC-100 so I would imagine you could do most of that. The VPs in HCA do allow for delays and sending IR commands, and you can set the programs to have triggers of IR receptions.