"Upgrading" my existing C-Bus system to be compatible with Home Assistant

Hello all - hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

My home has a C-Bus system which was installed by the previous owner back around 2012 and It's generally been running fine. I've recently developed an interest in looking at ways to update this system so that it is compatible with Home Assistant. However, based on my research online, It seems like my current C-Bus system cannot do so unless I get some form of CNI which I don't currently have. Does anyone know if there is a cost effective way to get my system compatible with Home Assistant (preferably without any additional C-Bus hardware)?

My current system consists of:
- C-Bus Dimmers (L5508D1A) and C-Bus voltage free relays (L5504RVF20);
- a C-Bus Network Bridge (5500NB); and
- two C-Touch Colour Touch Screens (I think its either a 50x0CTC3 or 2 based on what I could compare with online).

There are two Cat5 cables that have been routed outside of the equipment enclosure each with a tag of Network 1 or Network 2. I traced each of these cables back to its connection and they appear to be connecting to a relay each. This makes me believe they are C-Bus connections that the installer used to configure with a PCI and there are no CNIs in the system.

The C-Touch has a programming connector (RJ45) in the front and from reviewing the manuals online appear to have a USB port, Serial interface port and an ethernet port as well. Can any of these ports be used to communicate with a rasberryPi or equivalent running C-Gate to bridge to MQTT? Or will I need a C-Bus interface like a 5500PC or one of the more newer SHAC, NAC2 etc?

Apologies in advance if i'm using any terms incorrectly - I am very new to this but have a genuine interest in trying to learn. Any assistance including pointing me in the right direction whether it be forums or other projects would be greatly appreciated!

 

The easiest and most reliable method I found was to purchase a SHAC and use one of the C-Bus to MQTT scripts available.It was simple to program and has not let me down yet. MQTT is so light weight that there is no lag or delay in switching.

https://github.com/autoSteve/acMqtt
https://github.com/MtSamsonite/ha-cbus2mqtt
https://github.com/Nick-Adams-AU/5500SHAC-Cbus2MQTT

I had tried everything over the years - cgateweb from Addicted to Pi, Anthony webbs node-cbus, Dean Roddey Charmed Quark Control system and micolous libcbus. Libcbus worked pretty well but using cgate on linux was not always reliable and added too many failure points for my liking.
Using a SHAC and Nick Adams code just plain worked for me.

 

That rj45 on the front of the c-touch is the pc network interface, it can be used to hook up a pc or laptop to program the customer project with piced and toolkit to setup the rest of the cbus components. Its a windows xp embedded OS so it can't do much.

 

You’ll need to purchase additional hardware, additional physical cabling and software programming. Not a DIY job without risk

 

unfortunatley you will need some hardware, - i have been running cbus2mqtt for a long time and has been very reliable through HA