HouseBot

Yesterday I watched a youtube video that explains how to build apps for WP8. Very simple to do but you need a Windows 8 platform to do so. My server runs Windows 7 so I have to wait until my next hybrid laptop runs Windows 8. After becoming a developer you can write your own apps.

I was wondering if the HouseBotControlMod could be installed on the WP8 platform which seems to be Windows RT based. Maybe a recompile could be the trick.
My guess is that if the dll can be registered on WP8 it should be possible to connect to HouseBot from your WP8 thus opening up a new world of cool stuff like creating small apps for arming the alarm system and performing basic other stuff that only needs some buttons.

Scott, Osler, ... anybody.. before I start testing this myself

Richard,

It's a windows COM object, so I would think it would install ok on WP8. If not, I would imagine that a lot of other windows programs would break on WP8.

Do you have a link to the youtube video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ivESiWJkI

five demo's.
lockscreen, speech two way etc

Ahh... I read WP8 as Windows 8 Pro, not Phone. So the DLL would probably need rebuilt, as you thought.

Of course, if you can find a way to open a tcp socket with an app, you can also do it with the ASCII protocol and not need the COM control on the phone.

I can see the confusion

I have only used HBControlMod for external control and am not aware of any other options. What do you mean by the ASCII protocol?

In addition to the COM control using the HBControlMod DLL, the external control plugin allows you to control it in three other ways. The ASCII control option allows you to just open a socket using a native API (or telnet for testing) and then just use a simple ASCII control protocol. The control protocol is pretty much equivalent to what you can do using the HB_Control.exe program.

Aha, I am already using the External Control where ASCII is set to NO.
I use the HBControlMod to connect to HouseBot to send sniffed network packects from my camera unit into HouseBot. I cannot do that native since I have to do something like:

Set oPktX = WScript.CreateObject("PktX.PacketX")
WScript.ConnectObject oPktX, "PacketX_"

Which is the same as CreateObject("PktX.PacketX", "PacketX_") and the HouseBot script device does not handle the Location part of the CreateObject which is needed to use PacketX.

When I set ASCII property to YES, I don't get the data across and I guess that sharing the same control port wouldn't be an option as well. So I can only use the external control once...?

Hmmm, while typing this message I will have to test if I can setup more external control devices on different ports to be able to overcome the above. Testing right now

EDIT:
Haha. Still able to (re)learn new stuff. Never would have figured this out if it weren't for this post.
I just setup a second external control device on a different port and opened Putty on that same port. I am able to talk to HouseBot this way. Nice! This should make it easy to get things done on a Windows Phone