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HTINews Article

HomAtion 2000 Application Note
Building Access Control and Monitoring

This application of HomAtion 2000 was developed by Paul O'Sullivan of Bennett Communications for a school in the Boston metropolitan area. The objective was to control electrically actuated door locks remotely while montoring the status of security sensors. The background was drawn with Visio and then, as Paul describes it, "In each little square next to the descriptors, I dropped one of your icons into the little box to look like a little LED indicator. It worked great and came out just like a true annunciator panel."

The panel Paul created lets the school administrator see at a glance the status of door locks, door closures and security sensors. A green panel shows immediately that all doors are closed and locked and that no security sensors have been tripped. Individual doors can be locked or unlocked simply by clicking on the icon with the mouse or groups of doors can be locked or unlocked together by clicking one of the "controls," like Bingo.

The result is a system that is simple to operate by school administrators but easy to set up and change by the dealer.

Paul said, "It was fun to do and gave me limitless flexibility as to building control. I think that should be a key selling point to your customers. Unlike other systems, when someone told me they were concerned about a certain feature or operation, I just shrugged and said "no problem" and in ten minutes reprogrammed to their liking - it was as we say in the field "cheese" to handle, unlike the old days when I would go to the control closet grumbling and start to rewire a whole system which could take hours or days."

Specifications

Input and output

Number of locations monitored: 16 expandable to 80
Number of locations controlled: 8 expandable to 40
Input method: interrupt driven
Lighting control and signaling method: X-10 power line communications
Number of lighting and signaled devices: 256

Display

Graphic format: Standard Windows picture (bitmap), 16 or 256 colors
Number of locations per screen:

Low resolution display (640 x 480): 45
Medium resolution display (800 x 600): 66
High resolution display (1024 x 768): 112

Maximum number of screens: no built-in limit
Method of selecting a screen: mouse click on tab at top of screen

General

Automatic or manual file saving: automatic
Automatic file backup:

Maximum number of backups: user selectable from 2 to 99
Automatic backup period: user selectable from 1 to 99 days

Activity log:

Automatic or manual logging: automatic
Maximum number of log files: user selectable from 1 to 999
Method of removing old log files: automatic

Software construction: compiled and optimized with Microsoft Visual C++

Controller

PC with 8 MB RAM, 300 MB hard disk, 14" display and Windows 95

HomAtion Systems
13651 Gilbride Lane · Clarksville, Maryland 21029 · 800-522-6054 · FAX 410-531-5468
E-mail: homation@homation.com · Web page: http://www.homation.com