Integrated Climate Control

[diablo_sv21]

For the best car PC install for my car I'm going to be hiding the climate control unit behind the touchscreen, but by no means would I want to lose the functionality of it. So with the help of some Phidgets I've made a plugin to get all the control I need within Centrafuse.

I'm going to be using one PhidgetInterfaceKit 0/0/4 to 'press' the buttons on the climate control unit.

I've included the ability to customise the MAX and MIN settings for the temperature. I've still got to make a few changes after I realised that my climate control actually goes in increments of .5 degrees instead of 1.

These screens are a couple of days old, I've since added a 'light' to indicate whether the climate control is actually on or off.

Skin


In-action Screenshot


Let me know what you think, hopefully I'll be able to share it soon.

I just noticed that in the screenshot the plugin shortcut was still the "weather" link... I guess you can tell which example I worked from

EDIT: Updated screenshot

[AnandP83]

That's so money.... wow. Impressive. If I needed to hide my controls, I would for sure use it. I need to get the iBus interface working with CF.

[nintwala]

sweet mother... this will be really cool to have... literally

Cant wait to see it in live action. Please post pics as soon as you get a chance. I am specially interested in the Phidgets' interaction with the cars computer system for temperature sensing and controls.

[cpufix]

Thats excellent, really interested in the Phidgets they look like a cost effective solution and appears easy to interact with the PC and car.

I like the skin you've made, bends in well with CF

[AL9001]

Well... seems beautiful but... how to control the 'starting temperature' and how to have a feedback from the climate unit? You have to increase/decrease temp, fan speed, air direction, to switch on and off air compressor and others, maybe both for driver and passenger (and rear...)... you have to know the exact starting position of every command to try to manipulate them... but looks cool !!!!!!!!!!!

[diablo_sv21]

Cheers for the positive comments everyone

AL9001, The climate control in my car 'starts up' at the exactly same setting as when you turned off the car so all I have to do is keep the settings stored in the config file. I don't need any feedback from the climate control unit as long as everything stays in sync. Should I find that the temperature setting is somehow slightly incorrect or if the plugin thinks the climate control is on when it is off then all I have to do is keep pressing the 'decrease temp' button (or increase) a bunch of times, this will ensure the unit is turned on and will return it to the same position (both the application and climate control will stop at "LOW").

I did initially plan to control every aspect of my climate control but in all honesty I've only ever touched the temperature and on/off buttons. Things like fan speed, de-misters, recycle, etc are all done automatically anyway.

So, still on the todo list:
- Settings to include Phidget Serial Number, should more than one phidget be used in the car
- configurable buttons-phidget relays.
- Pre-set temperatures. I only really need 2 but I might just make it 4.

[Zerach]

Originally Posted by diablo_sv21

Cheers for the positive comments everyone

AL9001, The climate control in my car 'starts up' at the exactly same setting as when you turned off the car so all I have to do is keep the settings stored in the config file. I don't need any feedback from the climate control unit as long as everything stays in sync. Should I find that the temperature setting is somehow slightly incorrect or if the plugin thinks the climate control is on when it is off then all I have to do is keep pressing the 'decrease temp' button (or increase) a bunch of times, this will ensure the unit is turned on and will return it to the same position (both the application and climate control will stop at "LOW").

I did initially plan to control every aspect of my climate control but in all honesty I've only ever touched the temperature and on/off buttons. Things like fan speed, de-misters, recycle, etc are all done automatically anyway.

So, still on the todo list:
- Settings to include Phidget Serial Number, should more than one phidget be used in the car
- configurable buttons-phidget relays.
- Pre-set temperatures. I only really need 2 but I might just make it 4.

Hi Diablo,

I have a question, How did you get the controls to show on the main screen. I'm curious to know if you edited a skin to do this or if it is a function through plugin SDK?

I'm making a skin editor for centrafuse and want to make sure I support something like this if it's within the skin.xml file that needs to be changed.

Also I'm looking to do some plugin work myself.

P.S. Very cool work I'd love to see some tutorial or a PM to find out how you did it with the phidgets.

[diablo_sv21]

Hi Zerach,

I'm actually being a little bit tricky with my skin for this plugin, the plugin doesn't appear on the main screen normally, I've just set the skin to the following...

<SKIN>
	<APPCONFIG>
		<WIDTH>848</WIDTH>
		<HEIGHT>480</HEIGHT>
	</APPCONFIG>
	<CLIMATE>
		<X>208</X>
		<Y>196</Y>
		<WIDTH>450</WIDTH>
		<HEIGHT>89</HEIGHT>
		<LABELS>...

So when you click the menu link to "CLIMATE" the control appears in the center of the screen. One thing I did find frustrating is that you can't use transparency with your skin background, which would be totally awesome, because then I could make the plugin appear like this over anything.

Just as an extra note, if you have a plugin take up only part of the screen such as this then as soon as you click on any of the menu items (for example if you were to click the Left arrow next to my plugin) then the plugin disappears and you are back to using the centrafuse menu. It is quite seamless and works very well, although it would be cool to have it appear on the main screen all of the time as well...

I'm nearly finished with an electric windows control plugin which also uses phidgets so I should have that up in the next couple of weeks. I'll have to include a video so you can see it in action as well

[David]

you could probably make it appear all the time on the main menu... no need to make it a button action, possibly make it a non GUI plugin so it does not show up in button actions...

then in plugin init make it visible all the time, right away after it is created...

also make a timer that reads what the current section is from the SDK and if it is not main menu, then hide it, if it switches to main menu then show it...

david

[Zerach]

Originally Posted by diablo_sv21

Hi Zerach,

I'm actually being a little bit tricky with my skin for this plugin, the plugin doesn't appear on the main screen normally, I've just set the skin to the following...

<SKIN>
    <APPCONFIG>
        <WIDTH>848</WIDTH>
        <HEIGHT>480</HEIGHT>
    </APPCONFIG>
    <CLIMATE>
        <X>208</X>
        <Y>196</Y>
        <WIDTH>450</WIDTH>
        <HEIGHT>89</HEIGHT>
        <LABELS>...

So when you click the menu link to "CLIMATE" the control appears in the center of the screen. One thing I did find frustrating is that you can't use transparency with your skin background, which would be totally awesome, because then I could make the plugin appear like this over anything.

Just as an extra note, if you have a plugin take up only part of the screen such as this then as soon as you click on any of the menu items (for example if you were to click the Left arrow next to my plugin) then the plugin disappears and you are back to using the centrafuse menu. It is quite seamless and works very well, although it would be cool to have it appear on the main screen all of the time as well...

I'm nearly finished with an electric windows control plugin which also uses phidgets so I should have that up in the next couple of weeks. I'll have to include a video so you can see it in action as well

Do you mean you can't use transparancies because it's only 1 layer? Transparancy support is there, it's just you can't do anything with it within a static background.

But what you should be able to do is create a separate PNG file with transparancy effects and load it on top. That way it's floating and your always going to see it...might have to tweak the controls to make it, like David suggested.

Not sure how to do it yet, I'm just getting in to the SDK. If I figure it out I'll post, I'm planning on doing a plugin...maybe even a full source release.