Archived Forum

Abstract:

-want to know if the RFM69CW can be used to control other RF devices

-How to do it

Hi there,

This is my first post. I have been intensively reading the website, forum etc and it's amazing. Congrats to the team and the community for this remarkable project.

I will be shortly installing the entire system at home to monitor my energy consumption. I have some RPi around so will go for EmonTX + emonbase (RPi + RFM69CW) so I can use my existing RPi2s.

Everything is pretty well explained in the website so I'm confident the setup will be straightforward. My question is other. It has been a long time considering automating my home especially heating and now I think RFM69CW may help me on that. My idea is to use the RFM69CW not only to receive power data from the emonTX but also to interact with other home appliances and actuators using the ISM band. More precisely, I have some MAX! TRV (http://www.elv.de/max-heizkoerperthermostat-2.html) that use that band to communicate with a cube (http://www.elv.de/max-cube-lan-gateway.html) for opening and closing radiators. The cube has the logic for the heating control. I used them when I was in Germany but when moving to UK and then to Spain I noticed I only keep the TRVs but not the cube.

I may buy a new cube but missing it opens a new exciting project for me, that is trying to control the thermostatic heads directly with a RPi and the RFM69CW.

I read about the protocol in several places (it has been already reverse engineered by several people) as in:

http://blog.hekkers.net/tag/elv-max/

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/hardware/eq-3-max-affordable-wireless-hea...

These pages show how to deal with the thermostatic heads even with a RPi (http://busware.de/tiki-index.php?page=COC) but I was wondering if there is any history of success of reusing the hardware from the Open Energy Monitor for that purposes (communicating with RF devices).

Moreover, I have other questions. Any hint or piece of advice will be much appreciated:

-Can the RFM69CW used for sending arbitrary data whereas used for energy monitor purposes (assuming same frequency of operation)?

-if so, how can be done? (I read about it at http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/modules/emonpi#control but I really don't know if we're talking about the same (sorry but documentation and forums are overwhelming) )

-Has anybody tried this before? (I googled for it and searched the forum but probably not with the appropriate words)

Thanks for your time!

Dani