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Interesting project, bookmarked for further research! Surprised I have not come across it before, have periodically been searching for things in this space.. A

Interesting project, bookmarked for further research! Surprised I have not come across it before, have periodically been searching for things in this space.. Are there any open source system aimed at larger installations? This space is dominated by Crestron, AMX, Extron, Control4, Savant (walled gardens). And they don't even provide a good solution for larger systems, you have to code that yourself, while walking through the toolchain/compiler minefield.

bradknowles 9y ago
I used to work for a company called ihiji (see ihiji.com) that specialized in providing a remote monitoring interface for Crestron, AMX, Control4, etc.... Those systems were all pretty good at the local management side of the house, at least for the modules they had. But they never had any clue about remote monitoring and management. We spent a lot of time working out the protocols for those systems so that we could appear to be a local standard node on their network, in order to provide that remote interface. It was a major royal pain. But I did get a good invited talk out of the experience, and I still think that project was the closest I ever got to doing anything really cool.
- bionoid 9y ago
  Sorry I missed this response, thanks for the tip about ihiji, looks interesting! > working out the protocols for those systems [...] It was a major royal pain. I can only imagine; I wrote an Extron GlobalViewer client module for Crestron controllers back in the day. At least Extron was willing to share the protocol, but it was absolute junk and a nightmare to implement. These walled systems are used everywhere in universities, government and other places where the bill lands with the taxpayer. Not only for the equipment, but also for the specialized training required to learn their broken tools. Hopefully someone will build an innovative solution on commodity hardware like RPi...

bradknowles 9y ago

I used to work for a company called ihiji (see ihiji.com) that specialized in providing a remote monitoring interface for Crestron, AMX, Control4, etc.... Those systems were all pretty good at the local management side of the house, at least for the modules they had. But they never had any clue about remote monitoring and management. We spent a lot of time working out the protocols for those systems so that we could appear to be a local standard node on their network, in order to provide that remote interface. It was a major royal pain. But I did get a good invited talk out of the experience, and I still think that project was the closest I ever got to doing anything really cool.

bionoid 9y ago
Sorry I missed this response, thanks for the tip about ihiji, looks interesting! > working out the protocols for those systems [...] It was a major royal pain. I can only imagine; I wrote an Extron GlobalViewer client module for Crestron controllers back in the day. At least Extron was willing to share the protocol, but it was absolute junk and a nightmare to implement. These walled systems are used everywhere in universities, government and other places where the bill lands with the taxpayer. Not only for the equipment, but also for the specialized training required to learn their broken tools. Hopefully someone will build an innovative solution on commodity hardware like RPi...