Cisco 7970 + Asterisk + HS + Visu

[MarkusS]

The SEP[MAC].cfg is a Cisco-File - SEP stands for Selsius Ethernet Phone - Selsius was the Company that "invented" SCCP and had a almost finished product "Call Manager" and some IP-Phones, Cisco acquired Celsius 1998.

The format of the CFG-file is described in the documentation / developer guide, if not, someone having access to a Call Manager is able to help out. The content of the cfg-File differs from SCCP- to SIP-Phone-Loads so you have to decide if you want to go for SIP or for SCCP.

[makki]

I have no decent link on this, maybe someone else. At least not or only partially from Cisco, I guess as you should use the CCM-crap with their phones
Start here maybe someone else has a better link on this..

Makki

[Warichet]

See here under "Accept-Charset"

Thank you for the quick reply.
Didn't get it, seems to be used in a programming context (not applicable here). I think I'm looking in the wrong document(s).
I should have been more acurate in my question, sooo
where can I find the doc about the phone config file ?
i.e. SEP<Mac address>.cnf.xml

Is it a Cisco file or an Asterisk file ? I guess an Asterisk file ...

[makki]

@Warichet: AFAIR this was dependent on the configured user-locale, maybe also UTF-8 is worth a try.. See here under "Accept-Charset"

Makki

[Warichet]

How can I display the french character set on the phone ?

Hi,

I know the question is a bit OT, but maybe you don't mind ....
How can I display the french character set on the 7970 phone ?
Pure US ASCII is no problem, but things like "é" or "è" are displayed as an empty square (although no problem in the HS Visu ).
How do you guys manage the umlaut ?

I've RTFM, the doc says:

NoteCisco Unified IP Phones support the full ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1) and Shift_JIS character sets.

I've set the following line in the xml file, I guess I miss something

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>

But this is per file. I was expecting a seeting per phone.
Is there any directive to set the phone in ISO 8859 ?
I checked SEP<Mac> config, no luck.

Thank you.

PS: maybe there is a more appropriate forum, if so, please be so kind to redirect me, instead of me bothering everyone with dumb OT questions from a crummy dummy

[makki]

Maybe at this point a hint for cheaper new and used Cisco equipment.
I'm not aasociated with them in any way but made good experiences as supplier..

Makki

[NilsS]

Of course, I don't have the budget to buy 7970 except if somebody explains how to get them with 90% rebate ;-)

you can look for the old non Gigabit Cisco Phones from the 79xx series.
The should be around 120-200€, depending on model. you can use the xml menu mentioned above with not too much effort.

[jef2000]

Hi,

I already have an asterisk box and an ATA (FXS/FXO) and plan to add some IP phones. Of course, I don't have the budget to buy 7970 except if somebody explains how to get them with 90% rebate ;-)
I'm thinking about a more universal approach simply using the phone keypad and some key combinations to activate the most-used KNX functions.

Does someboody know how to interafce asterisk with external apps? Is it possible to have something like a TCP or UDP connection and send/receive text messages?

Regards,

Jean-François

[makki]

Assuming eibd is running and startet with "-u" that's easy
groupswrite local:/tmp/eib 1/1/11 1 (send 1 to GA 1/1/11)
Alternatively through IP (-i)
groupswrite ip:127.0.0.1 1/1/11 1

If writing values of more than 6 bits length use "groupwrite" without the s

The whole story here

Makki

[Warichet]

I don't want to discourage anyone

I wonder to whom this is intended

we know at least the phone-part really well

That was quite obvious from your previous comments

There are many pitfalls and integrating something like KNX into a phone

I start to realize this and the previous comments make sense
but I've already reached a major mile stone .... issuing a "Hello World" to the phone


Still 359 days to go


PS: would someone be so kind to post an eibd command line to switch on a lamp ?
(I know there are several instances of it in the forum, but my lack of knowledge of the right keywords prevents me from doing a correct search.
Please accept my apologies.)

[MarkusS]

From MarkusS very comprehensive comments I read that he also already did it

Not really. At least nothing usable outside a development environment. But we're working on something.

The plan is to have something in Beta around March, a stable commercial release could be available in summer - but there will be no support for Cisco-Phones, that's for sure. Perhaps in a later version.

There are still many loose ends.

I don't want to discourage anyone to develop his own solution but we know at least the phone-part really well from many years of development. There are many pitfalls and integrating something like KNX into a phone is quite different from polling a stupid LDAP-Directory as a phone directory or a weather report. If you want to do this right this is a lot of work and needs in-depth knowledge of the various phones.

[makki]

From MarkusS very comprehensive comments I read that he also already did it

Sure, it would be really nice (I have a 7960 on my desk) *but* pain is no word for this "little thing", it's very complicated, very obscure and requires many additional things in the background. If someone takes more than 1€/hour I'd really suggest for quantities below 20 to go and buy an N800,ipod,touchpanel or something similar and put it beside the phone; much easier and cheaper

Currently playing around heavily with eibd&co and knowing asterisk and some of these XML-phones I'd have some ideas on how to implement this as Markus described (maybe xmas 2010), but my "5 cents" say it's a horrible big effort without a noticeable audience (rembering the price tag of these phones)

Makki

[MarkusS]

There are several solutions available which can connect Cisco phones into building automation but they are designed for really large building and they have a large building price tag, fitting the price tag of a Cisco Call Manager environment.

There aren't many SIP-Standard IP-Phones with a touch screen. There aren't many IP-Phones that can be customized to present and handle almost any information you would like to see on them. This is a "business feature", implemented in "business phones" like

• Aastra
• Cisco
• Siemens OpenStage
• Snom
• Polycom

but not in all phones of said manufacturers, usually they implement these features only in their flagship-models - did I already mention price tags?

The next problem is that there is no standard to handle the information between phone and server. Most manufacturers use some kind of XML, but every manufacturer uses a different implementation, so a solution for Aastra doesn't work with Snom or Polycom ... - and to make bad things worse: they tend to change their implementations in newer firmware releases.

The task is not trivial. You need to:

• control the phone display content (keeping in mind that there are differences in resolution, grayscales, color-displays ....)
• control the behavior of soft keys
• implement some navigation within the phone
• control physical keys and lamps
• have 2way-communication between phone and KNX incl. feedback for changed states
• handle the problem that no phone api - at least no that we know about - can differentiate short and long key strokes

So, you would need a kind of server that can:

• read and write information from and to KNX
• convert this information into a phone-useable format
• read an write information from and to phones (display, soft keys, keys and lamps)
• can handle about 10-15 different phone types (manufacturers, models)
• can handle 1-XXX phones - you don't need all and any information from your KNX on every phone - the phone in the living room will present different information as the phone in the kitchen
• reduces network overhead

Perhaps there is a upcoming product that can almost fully integrate some IP-Phone models into KNX.

[Warichet]

assuming that the 7970 is not the best solution .

Absolutely, no doubt about that.
But my starting point was: I already have a couple of 7970 (one in each room) + Asterisk + HS + Visu. Wouldn't it be fine to have some Visu on it ? (besides another more functional Visu like the EloTouch+HS)

I'd try to activate an open mind discussion. Surely the iPhone/iPodtouch is a solution but ...

OK, but the interested audience is rather limited, and the ones willing to venture into cold water are even fewer. So far I've counted 1.

[teichsta]

The Cisco IP phone 7970 is with touchscreen.

yes, i know! but assuming that the 7970 is not the best solution (due to propietary implementations - which i have not reviewed i am just repeating makki's comment) which other (phone/voip) hardware could i place beside my bed to control some of my homeautomation functions. I'd try to activate an open mind discussion. Surely the iPhone/iPodtouch is a solution but ... i'd like to find others.