Colour C-Touch Vs. H-Minder

[[IL]NewGen]

Is the New C-Touch gonna have all the logic functions simiar to the H-Minder unit ?! :confused: 'cause We Can't get any more HM's anymore... I think anyway...

[Richo]

NewGen']Is the New C-Touch gonna have all the logic functions simiar to the H-Minder unit ?! :confused: 'cause We Can't get any more HM's anymore... I think anyway...

The Colour C-Touch will have Logic in it. This is based on the Pascal language. It is not the same as the Home Minder (not even similar). It is not compatible with Home Minder.

The Logic in Colour C-Touch is more flexible and powerful.

[coppo]

From what i have seen of both the colour c-Touch will be alot more flexible to
program.

That being said it means you guys will have to spend more time learning how to program in the first place.

The good points:
If you are already an experienced /educated programmer you will be up and running
fairly quickly and using industry standard types of programming method.

The bad point:
If you are a novice programmer you gotta learn sometime so get stuck into it.

Versatility comes with a price, it being you spending time honing your skills....

Homeminder has its own programming method which requires you to know
way to much about it and its operation to be able to program it effectively.

If i had a dollar for everytime i had an experienced uni qualified programmer
comment on the odd ways that minder does things , i would be retired...

Hopefully this will be reduced with the new colour c-touch.

don't get me wrong minder does things quite well, but you have to have
a personal knowledge of its quirks to make those things happen....

example:
Minder
turn on a light 5 minutes after sunset...
can be done in minder, but requires extended knowledge.


Colour Ctouch:
Schedule has a clickable option to turn things on /off at sunset/sunrise.
it then has another option underneath for you to select what time before or
after sunset/sunrise that you want it to happen.

hard to make it simpler than that.

[darrenblake]

Is there any technical specs currently available on the new colour screen.
Will it have functions like the equatorial clock currently available on minder???
And how many different ways do we as installers need to learn to program a c-bus job in the future.
Can we expect to see the new screen in the near future. Minder has served us all well for so long, and yet here we are still awaiting a product that can dliver similar fuctionality that minder once provided. Keep up the good work CIS, but please let the new screen bless us with its presence.

[Richo]

Is there any technical specs currently available on the new colour screen.

Not sure what is publically available. There has been some discussion on this forum regarding the power supply and ports, use the search capability of the forum to see if you can find those threads.

For pre-shipping products its best to approach your local sales office to find out info as we are not allowed to discuss non-shipping products on the forum But we do anyway :)

Will it have functions like the equatorial clock currently available on minder???

Clock related functionality will be similar to HomeGate and Schedule Plus.

And how many different ways do we as installers need to learn to program a c-bus job in the future.

As soon as you stop needing new features, we'll stop adding them.

Can we expect to see the new screen in the near future.

It's getting closer all the time :)

Minder has served us all well for so long, and yet here we are still awaiting a product that can dliver similar fuctionality that minder once provided. Keep up the good work CIS, but please let the new screen bless us with its presence.

The release of the C-Touch Colour is a lot later than we would all have liked. :(

[coppo]

Is there any technical specs currently available on the new colour screen.

Have yet to see anything for distribution, awaiting marketing to release details


Will it have functions like the equatorial clock currently available on minder???

Yes and better. The homeminder sunrise/sunset function worked fine, but alot of people either had trouble
finding it / setting it up or can't read
( the setup notes for it are in the homeminder technical manuals).

dollar for everytime i have been asked how to set it up... anyhooo.

All of our programs that are using the sunrise/sunset feature
( homegate/ scheduleplus/ colour touch), all use the normal method that windows uses.

When you create a new project you are "wizard" prompted to setup the
Time zone/ daylights savings parameters etc .... a drop down list is provided
to you and you select from the list.

The list provided of supported cities is very extensive and you have the
ability to add your own specific locations to the database for future use.

Using this method you only need to make sure the timezone setting on your
PC is correct for it to work. It will then use the other settings you selected
and show your correct sunrise/sunset times.

We previously had people with Homeminder ringing up and saying it was
faulty because of wrong sunset/sunrise times being displayed. In all cases i saw it to be
wrong time zone settings on programmers pc or wrong settings by programmer in the project INI file.


And how many different ways do we as installers need to learn to program a
c-bus job in the future.


Who knows 5 years down the track, tech support deals with product here or
soon to be here?

Our priority was to use a programming method that is already well understood
by trained programmers ( pascal ). If you already have programing skills the
migration is minimal and well documented ( the help file for logic is approx
180 odd pages), if Homeminder is your only programming experience, you
should find that the direction we are taking, is bringing you into line with
recognised programming practices, rather than how a particular product
wants to be programmed ( Homeminder does have some peculiarities).

All products we are putting out in the near future supporting logic are written using
the same engine based upon pascal.
V3 homegate/ V3 scheduleplus/ imbedded logic, so if you can program one of
them , you know how to program all our other logic products.


Keep up the good work CIS, but please let the new screen bless us with its presence.

Thanks to the cbus forum you guys will see info alot faster.
Cheers

[[IL]NewGen]

sweet...

i hope it stays as more line coding, GUIs make it feel restricted... well, that's what i think anyway...

[Phil.H]

Is there any technical specs currently available on the new colour screen.
Will it have functions like the equatorial clock currently available on minder???
And how many different ways do we as installers need to learn to program a c-bus job in the future.
Can we expect to see the new screen in the near future. Minder has served us all well for so long, and yet here we are still awaiting a product that can dliver similar fuctionality that minder once provided. Keep up the good work CIS, but please let the new screen bless us with its presence.
...
In the early days a couple of us here in NSW sat down and worked out a wish list of features and functions for a wizard in the logic engine. To the credit of the chap putting the package together, everything we asked for and more was provided. The result is a very easy to use wizard that will accommodate 90% or more of your automation requirements for a C-Bus project. If you can program in Pascal then the sky is the limit. If you can't program in Pascal then use the wizard and read the result in the module. One of the reasons Pascal was chosen as the base language is because it is very readable. The logic engine is nothing like Minder, however it does represent the future and a powerful one at that. You will notice the Logic programming for Schedule Plus, Colour C-Touch and the DIN rail logic module is all the same, so your efforts in one area will directly relate to another product or software package. Welcome to the future...

[darrenblake]

Sounds great, exactly what part of the future can we welcome these new products??????

[Phil.H]

Sounds great, exactly what part of the future can we welcome these new products??????

Patience is a virtue.
It's so close I can smell it.
The guys have to make sure it is right - By the way it is right... Soooon !
:-)