ScreenShot-DataExport
Data Export Data can be exported in several different formats:
ScreenShot-Graphs
Graphs Felix 1.44 allows you to configure graphs and tables showing data from the internal SQL database.
ScreenShot-Panels
Panels Panels allow you to break a large system into separate sub-systems, and they provide a simpler, safer user interface for non-technical users. You can configure panels to include your own selection of Devices and other controls: Here’s our pool control panel: And our outdoor lighting panel. This time we’re logged on in user mode, so the only things you can access are the panels:
ScreenShots-Devices
Devices Felix Devices provide names for physical hardware devices, and translate the values returned by the hardware into values that make sense to us: There are several different Device types. Here’s the configuration for a “Formula Input Device”, a 1-wire input device whose final output is calculated by a user-entered formula: Here’s a Switch Output Device – a 1-wire output device : And here’s a Range Input Device – a 1-wire device whose output value is decided by the range of values taken by a set of sensors: There are more Device Types: X10 Switch OutputX10 Dimmable OutputX10 Switch Input
Applications
What can you do with Felix? Well, it really depends on what you want to do. We have a long-term goal to make our automation save us real money. We want it to save energy by optimising our heating, ventilation, and pool filtration. We want to save water by more intelligently managing the watering system. And we want to maintain the pool chemistry more accurately than we can manually. These are long term goals and not at all easy to achieve. Our first step was to build a flexible software system that could handle just about anything. Felix is the result. Simple Usage The first step is to configure your various input and output Devices. In Felix, it’s all done through the user interface, and the User Guide describes everything in great detail. Felix will then regularly read and store the values of your sensors, and allow you to control…
ScreenShots
Some Screenshots Here are a few screenshots to give you a rough idea of the interface. Graphic design isn’t our top area of expertise, so Felix isn’t as pretty as some other products. But the good news is that you can re-design the interface yourself! All the screens are based on HTML templates and CSS. These, and all of the images and icons, are contained in Felix’s “skin” directory, and you are welcome to modify them to suit your own taste and requirements. If anyone submits good skins to us, we’ll include them with the product, or even replace the current default skin. Some of the images below have been reduced in size for faster downloading, which makes them a bit blurred. The “Home” page: The System Management page, where you can upload new versions, reinstate previous versions, download configuration files, etc: The Log Files page, where you can manage…
Technology
Technology Internal Structure Felix is written in C and compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ version 6. The program contains the following modules: Felix is compiled into a single executable of about 350kb. It doesn’t really need an install program, but we provide one anyway. All it does is copy the files to the “Program Files\Felix” directory (and nowhere else). It doesn’t touch the Registry. The authors of Felix have been developing software for a very long time. This is good, old fashined programming, worlds away from modern bloatware. It’s all our own code, so if anything goes wrong, we can fix it. Felix uses the SQLite database, which is a marvellous, free, product. It’s perfect for our requirements, with superb functionality and performance, and no installation except a single (0.5Mb) DLL file. There are lots of tools around for working with SQLite databases, which means it’s really easy to access…
Concepts
Some Concepts Devices We need to explain about Devices. Devices (with a capital D) provide an isolation layer above the physical hardware. If you want to know the outside temperature, for example, you don’t want to have to refer to sensor B4000800DB2A1610, and then figure how to translate its raw input value. You just want to refer to something called “Outside Temperature”, and see the temperature in whatever scale you happen to like. Felix Devices provide names for physical hardware devices, and translate the values returned by the hardware into values we want to work with. A Device can consist of a single physical piece of hardware, or several pieces of hardware, or just a single channel of a single chip. The idea is much the same as a device driver in a computer, except that in Felix, you define the Devices. It’s all done through the web interface and…
Features
Features Felix has been in use since early 2006, and has accumulated the following features: Easy to install and configure. Just run the setup and start the program Runs on a low powered Windows machine with no particular hardware requirements. Felix typically occupies less than 5Mb of memory, so just about any machine running Windows XP or later will do. Runs as a web server. You access it through a web browser or mobile phone just like any other web/wap site, so with a little bit of configuration in your router, you can access it from anywhere in the world. All configuration and management is through the web interface. The software can be remotely managed and upgraded via a browser. Does not have a conventional window and does not occupy any screen space on the computer it runs on, other than an icon in the taskbar tray. So it does…
Felix
This is the home of Felix, a piece of software to monitor and control your home from anywhere in the world. Felix is very flexible and very reliable, but it is currently over-complex due initial development concepts and is currently undergoing redevelopment. What can Felix currently do? Felix can be used to monitor and control anything from lighting to heating to watering to swimming pool or aquarium chemistry connected via X-10 or 1-Wire. If you can put the hardware together, Felix can manage it. Who is Felix For? Felix is not for everyone. It’s complicated, with more emphasis on functionality than pretty graphics. If you just want to monitor weather, Felix can do that but it’s not the best solution. If you want to do more advanced things like controlling your central heating from your mobile phone, or automating your fish tank chemistry, Felix will take some beating.…