Introduction

[Kurt14]

Hi all,
I wanted to introduce myself. As I already explained in another thread I can read (& speak a bit) German but for writing it's a too tough language . I'm based in Belgium and have developed my home-automation system myself (HW & Firmware).

I'm very interested in the project here as I see it as a nice crossroad between a bus protocol which is commercially used (KNX) and an open-source alternative. I have been developing my home-automation system myself based on a CAN bus. You can see some examples of the HW I have build below. This system has been running reliably for the last 8yrs but the project I base on is only slowly progressing. This is not a problem when your system is stable (like mine) but it's a problem when you want to extend the functionality with new stuff (many ideas). I've looked at using KNX in the past but back then there simply wasn't a possibility. There was Freebus but I didn't like the reverse engineering necessary there. Konnekting looks interesting for me to investigate and consider re-basing my system on, that is what I'm doing now.

I hope you guys are open for new participants & don't mind me writing English?

Kurt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mkO6cn8ih8

[andi11]

hello Kurt,
I also looked at freebus. I absolutly didn't like that reverse engineering also
Then I thought abound an discrete KNX hardware and coded an avr based software stack for it sucessfully. After that I started pcb design. Here i realized that my discrete solution is more expensive than the NCN5120. Then google for arduino and ncn5120 brought me to Konnekting. I really liked that here is allready a good working PC suite.
So our new home gets completly Konnekting based hardware for total control
And I decided to use knx based, because so I can use hardware from a big pool, if I don't want something specific to built it myself. Otherwise I would use can.

And sorry for my bad english...

[tuxedo]

Hey Kurt,

first of all: Of course we're open for new participants, and of course, participating in "english" is not a problem. So in short: Welcome to your community.

The freebus reverse-engineering is - at least for me - a grey zone. They're imitating an existing commerial product, with the same IDs etc... So one could say, it's piracy.

And that behavior (just copying an existing device) leads to the biggest problem with freebus (at least from my point of view): They are limited to the features the original hardware creators offered...SO the only argument for Freebus is the price of a self-build device...

With KONNEKTING you have the freedom to do what every you want. You're free to implement what every you want (create cheap devices, create new devices, ...), you're free to NOT use any commercial KNX product and you're free to mix your KONNEKTING system with any KNX component in the world.
The only downside: You loose GA 15/7/255 and you need a special Software Tool to program the KONNEKTING devices. But: This also saves money if you stick to KONNEKTING devices only (KNX ETS costs ~1000EUR).

andi11

Then I thought abound an discrete KNX hardware and coded an avr based software stack for it sucessfully.

Could you please tell me more about this? You build KNX hardware without the NCN5120 (or any other existing KNX transceiver)? Like Freebus?

best regards,
Alex