xAP/xPL support

madmax · Post by **madmax** » Sat May 14, 2005 2:35 am

How about xAP support for zoneminder. this would allow seamless integration to home automation software. Perhaps allow triggering on xAP messages.

Thanks

Chris

Post by **zoneminder** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:19 am

I've looked into this a little in the past and I would like to add it if there is demand. It's possible to create a trigger script already in the style of the X10 one but it would be a lot easier if there is an xAP/xPL perl module that could be used.

Phil

zimmer62 · Post by **zimmer62** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:13 pm

yes, xAP support would be great, I think both directions would be nice...

ZoneMinder could receive a xAP message to force a particular alarm, or turn it off.

ZoneMinder would send a xAP message upon an event. For instance alert was triggered and zm is recording, send a xAP message including the event number, so that another automation program would know where to look for this video.

a quick search on google turned up some stuff for xap and perl, I think that is how misterhouse connects with xAP.

patrick.lidstone site is usually up and down, I think people are hitting it too hard, google might have a cache of it though.

Joe

gliming · Post by **gliming** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:46 am

Please accept my apologies for the late reply. I've recently added xAP BSC support to misterhouse to allow devices under mh control to be monitored and controlled externally as well as to permit mh to contol/monitor xAP BSC devices.

Today, I took a quick look at some of the existing scripts in the zm distro and I believe that I understand the mechanism for detecting zone alarm changes as well as iterating over the monitors to detect status. I can lend a hand toward integrating xAP w/ existing perl xAP code. The down side is that I no nothing about zm. So, when I say "lend a hand", I mean that I'd be willing to develop the xAP perl scripts to integrate but could use technical advice on how best to interface to zm (in the event that the current example scripts are insufficient). In addition, I don't currently have a zm setup connected to cameras and would like to solicit someone w/ interest in testing.

Is there any ability to artificially create zm alarms w/o a camera? If so, that would help me test until I have a psuedo production/working camera/zm setup.

Post by **cordel** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 7:03 am

I think something that might help is if we had access to any hooks, variables, etc.. in ZM.
I'm looking at making a wraper for ZM in the near future to integrate it with another application. Although my C++ skills are rather rusty I think I might be able to manage some of it.
Regards,
Cordel

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 7:58 am

sounds wonderful. I cant help on the coding front but i can lend you access to a vigin zm install on its own ip if you need. I have the bits to build another but havnt as yet. If you need to email me i will pm you my address.

JAmes

zimmer62 · Post by **zimmer62** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:02 pm

Anyone made any progress or attempt at this?

Joe

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:13 pm

have we access to any releted script from misterhouse we could look through?

Post by **cordel** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:51 am

I have no equipment to test xAP and I don't think Phil does either, so I would guess this might be slow to emerge.

gliming · Post by **gliming** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 4:51 pm

An update... I've been working on a somewhat generalized xAP toolkit written in perl that can send and receive xAP BSC-schema messages as well as other schemas. In my opinion, the ZM alerts could map nicely into BSC and that is quite generalized to many other xAP apps. The reason for the slow response is really two-fold: (1) I'm trying to finish an initial integration w/ Asterisk before moving on to ZM and (2) I'm only just now getting a platform up that will be my permanent ZM production and test server. I now need to purchase a suitable camera to complete the test setup. I'm somewhat guessing that I'm about 2 weeks off from plunging into an integration unless someone else prefers to do the work. My integration approach was to leverage some of the existing ZM perl scripts (I did finally scrutinize all of them)--specifically the one that iterates over alarms for use as a basis to send xAP-BSC messages out. In time, the opposite could also be done (receiving xAP messages to configure or perform some ZM command).

Wrt to misterhouse... I'm one of authors of the bulk of the current mh xAP and xPL modules/code. I'm happy to answer/address questions if you have them. I intend to write some example "usercode" specifically for mh to illustrate usage of ZM alerts as a kind of "how-to" once the xAP integration is initially complete.

As an aside, it would also be possible to leverage the xAP toolkit that I'm developing to listen for ZM-initiated messages and then take some action. Naturually, this could be on any other platform that can support Perl.

One cautionary prerequisite is an xAP hub in order to receive xAP messages. As I mentioned above, I would consider receiving messages as an incremental update to ZM. The xAP toolkit will not initially implement a hub; however, mh does. I believe that there is a c hub implementation that is "floating about" that could serve as an alternative.

zimmer62 · Post by **zimmer62** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:27 pm

cordel and phil,
having equipment is not really need to test xAP, all you really need is a xAP hub running (software) and then you should also be able to use an xAP message viewer to see any xAP messages generated.

gliming: Excellent! If I knew perl well enough to code myself out of a paper bag out would offer to help... I just absouly hate perl though... I'm php, vb, sql kind of guy.

I appriciate eveyones effort. I think once the xAP support is in there, several people I know will be ready to jump ship over to zm

I was thinking about writeing a homeseer plugin to work with zoneminder. There is xAP support for homeseer, but I'd like to see event triggers like zoneminder status change Alert on front door camera.

zimmer62 · Post by **zimmer62** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:37 pm

gliming · Post by **gliming** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:18 pm

Joe,

After scrutinizing the x10 UI and the zmx10.pl script, my current plan is to significantly reuse this script and UI. Specifically, to initially swap out zmx10.pl w/ an xap counterpart. Obviously, that's not ok for the long-term, but will leverage a lot of what already exists. My plan would be to preserve the existing semantics of the x10 UI with the following exceptions: house and unit codes would be ignored (use whatever you like); instead the monitor's real name and id would be used w/i the xAP target, source and UID fields (as appropriate). Obviously, the x10 device reference no longer applies; but, perhaps could be xap--just to flag the intention (or to optionally decide which script to use until a proper, longer-term implementation exists). I would plan to use xAP BSC schema--which keeps things very basic. I'm thinking of passing the X10 output alarm string info through to the xAP text field as further qualifiers.

One key difference is that such a script wouldn't be used to actually control x10 devices (e.g., the output functionality)--rather it would report the occurance of alarms and permit monitor and alarm-driven control.

If you or anyone else disagrees w/ this initial approach (again, this just simplifies my having to create new web UI, etc. initially), then let me know; otherwise, I'll continue w/ this tact.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:22 pm

Please continue sorting the ui can be done afterwards if needed anyhow. This lookd great

zimmer62 · Post by **zimmer62** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:25 pm

sounds great to me, in fact if someone else didn't jump in, that was the same route that I was planning, though I would have to force myself to learn perl well enough to do something useful... I'm sure it would take 10 times less effort by someone who actaully knows what they are doing

This would be a great start!

I could envision in the future listening to xAP messages as well, and forcing an alarm on or off, etc... but for now this is a great start, and will meet 100% of my direct needs

Joe