KNX

Component Type: actuator (Subcategory: Home Control)

The KNX plugin enables the ARE to interface a KNX installation. This plugin utilizes the calimero java library (http://calimero.sourceforge.net/) for the KNX implementation, it is (C)opyrighted 2006-2008 by W. Kastner and released under the GNU General Public License (FSF v2 or later). The KNX plugin provides an interface to the KNX home automation bus via a KNXnet/IP router. KNX actuators with specific group addresses can be switched on or off, or a specific value can be sent to the KNX actuators. This allows control of lightning, heat and ventilation, blend control or other utilization of other home automation facilities via the AsTeRICS platform.

Screenshot: KNX plugin
KNX plugin

Requirements

Functional Description

By starting the model, the KNX plugin establishes a connection to the KNX gateway specified by the plugin properties. Currently, this plugin supports only IP connection (due to the limitation of the underlaying calimero library, USB interfaces will be supported with Java8). The plugin has three different possibilities to interface KNX datapoints:

KNX datapoint types

KNX itself doesn't provide any possibilty to get information on how to interpret received data. This is the point where you need the datapoint types. There are a few main types and some sub types. For example: 1.001 is the datapoint type for a simple switch actuator/sensor. The input values are varying on the different datapoint types. For the switch example, the valid values are on and off. The full list of all datatypes is provided by the ARE. If you want to receive a full list, you have to place the plugin in your ACS model, connect to the ARE and upload the model (even without any functionality). Afterwards, the full list of all currently supported datapoint types is available. Every list entry contains following information: The example of the light switch:
Switch[off,on] (1.001) The literal name for this datapoint type is "Switch" and its ID is 1.001. Because this is a boolean value, off and on are the only valid values. For float values, these given values are representing the minimum and the maximum value.

Input Port Description

Output Port Description

Properties

Event Listener

Event Trigger