Comments on: Plugwise protocol unleashed part 1: introduction

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:38:39 +0000

Hello, can anyone help me please.

I am trying to write a program in Java for comunicating with the Plugwise Circle.

I wrote a simple program which opens the port and writes to its OutputStream. I tried the following:

byte[] text = {0×05, 0×05, 0×03, 0×03, 0×30, 0×30, 0×30, 0×41, 0×42, 0×34, 0×33, 0×43, 0x0D, 0x0A};
output.write(text);

but it doesn’t work. I receive nothing. I have tried the RealTerm software with which I can send data (ASCII) to the serial port.
When I send this string:

\x05\x05\x03\x03\x30\x30\x30\x41\x42\x34\x33\x43\x0D\x0A

I get back the same string i captured with portmon software.
So i thought the java code I wrote might be wrong, the way I am trying to send “Hexadecimal” data.
Can anyone help me please…

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:26:07 +0000

Hello everyone.

That’s a really awesome work everybody has done. I currently got a Circle+/Circle Home Start from Plugwise for my master thesis research and I wanted to write a program in Java for retrieving power consumption from the Circle. I’ve read almost all the articles but I can’t understand how should I send the msg to the serial port. Here is a simple code I use:

serialPort = (SerialPort) portId.open(this.getClass().getName(), TIME_OUT);
serialPort.setSerialPortParams(DATA_RATE, SerialPort.DATABITS_8, SerialPort.STOPBITS_1, SerialPort.PARITY_NONE);
// Open the Streams
input = serialPort.getInputStream();
output = serialPort.getOutputStream();
// Add event Listeners
serialPort.addEventListener(this);
serialPort.notifyOnDataAvailable(true);

String text = “003E000D6F0000AF6414″;
String crc16 = Checksum.getCRC16_String(text);

String packet = text + crc16;

byte[] sentPacket = HexBin.decode(packet);

output.write(sentPacket);

But I can’t get any msg at all. I’m not very used to serial programming.
For the CRC16 I used the code here http://domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=5803&p=45093&hilit=java+plugwise#p45093 (by Tiz).

I hope anyone can help me, thanks.

By: Sander

Sander — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:22:32 +0000

Does it only sends timestamps to each one of the nodes in the network just to see if they are alive?

By: Sander

Sander — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:19:07 +0000

Hi guys, im currently working on a paper where i refer to Plugwise more than often and im trying to get around as to how each component works. I have a basic home 5 package with a stick a circle+ and 4 normal circle modules.

What i basically want to know is exactly how the data gets transferred between the stick and the modules. You seem to have explained just that but in a way that i cant exactly figure out some stuff since im not an expert in the field.

What i want to know is why the Circle+ is the one that sends the data to the stick and if any of the regular circle modules can send data too and the Circle+ is only there because it has a battery and 6-9 hours of clock operating time without power supply whereas the normal ones dont.

Thanks in advance and thanks for posting this

By: Mathijs

Mathijs — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:07:57 +0000

Ok, I have made a hugh mistake that took too many hours of troubleshooting. So I thought I would share this in case anyone else encounters the same problem. (Although probably it is due to my lack of software background / experience)
I programmed my method and as a test I calculated the checksum for 000A because I knew this had to be B43C. However, I thought 000A was a HEX value already (“A” being the value 10). In fact, 000A is a String that has to be converted to bytes before you can calculate the checksum. After it was found, I easily corrected of course.

Most of you might be loughing out loud and I am happy to have amused you :-). For the others: I hope I prevented unnecesary troubleshooting.

By: Mathijs

Mathijs — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:43:36 +0000

That was my typo. I meant I thought crc16 needed a 2 byte polynom. So I do not get 0×11021

By: Mathijs

Mathijs — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:32:14 +0000

I am trying to make a crc16 calculation in java but this is kinda new for me. Right now I do not get how a polynominal could have 5 bytes (11021 as you suggest) is this a typo or do you know of some backgroundreading I can do to understand more of checksums?
Btw, I really like whst you have done so far.

By: Weird characters after device read

Weird characters after device read — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:53:05 +0000

[...] it should return something like this: Plugwise protocol unleashed part 1: introduction | Maartendamen's blog So the data has "rn" as terminator. If I convert all characters to int one by one I [...]

By: Maarten

Maarten — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:40:37 +0000

Thanks for your feedback.
Version 2 has really accurate readings.. it even reads below 1 watt.

By: Floppe

Floppe — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:24:58 +0000

Nice work!

I’ve used your protocol descriptions for the old plugs to write my own software in C that logs data to MySQL every 5 minutes. And I really like it and are hoping that version 2 will bring more accuracy to low power measures. I’m really looking forward for the next parts to come on this BLOG.

Thank you for the hard work.