I’m impressed with this application, does exactly what I need. I’m currently looking into modeling homes with the passivehaus concept, analysing their comfort levels, energy efficiency and the occupants behavior within the home.

I would be interested in seeing the source code for this application if possible? to see if i could integrate or extend the application with the work that I do.

Many Thanks

Ross

Actually this type of problem is strongly related to the Ploggs themselves and should better be reported here: http://www.plogginternational.com/support.html. However since I experienced similar problems yesterday at an Energie Visible deployment I might still be able to help.

I did most of the testing using the BT module embedded in my Lenovo T61 but more generally, it seems like the best working dongles are those not requiring any specific Bluetooth driver. That is: those automatically recognized and managed by the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. However it seems like it is working with other drivers as well.

Yesterday we were trying to make it work with this BT dongle: http://www.stegcomputer.ch/shop.asp?prodid=EDI-EBMDC1. At first it did not get recognized by the Energie Visible Smart Gateway but then getting the latest driver from the manufacturer website did the trick and this dongle is actually performing quite well (both in terms of speed and range). Thus, if your dongle does not run on a standard Microsoft driver then be sure you do have the latest version of the driver.

I can’t give you a general driver version that works since there are many drivers working with the Ploggs but more generally I would say, again that a dongle working on the Microsoft Bluetooth driver is more likely to work. In my case it is running on the RFCOMM Protocol TDI Driver from Microsoft version 6.0.6001.18000.

But, again, I never experienced a dongle which did not work after trying with several version of its shipped driver. If you still don’t manage to connect then I would really try to contact the support of Energy Optimizers.

Can you provide me with the references of the dongle you are using (model, driver version, etc.)

Totally agree with you! However, I don’t think having everyone building their own energy sensors is a good idea… I mean you might be skilled enough to do so but it’s a rather dangerous enterprise for those without strong electrical engineering skills (anything happening in that context would probably not be insured!)

I think this partially explains the rather high price of the Ploggs: they have to do a lot of testing to comply with the safety regulations (e.g. CE). However, let’s hope these kind of remarks will convince them to lower the price!

As for the Win PC I totally agree with you on that one. I’m a big fan of Linux and thus we are currently porting the whole thing to Linux. It’s just that the Plogg DLL is a DLL, i.e. works on Win only…

Regards!

Well actually the current version supports bluetooth only. We tested it with several BT dongles and it tends to work better with non-low end dongles. I’ve got a 20$ dongle which works quite well.

You just need to be sure you are using the right DLL. When downloading the app from http://www.webofthings.com/energievisible/ and first starting it the system asks you whether you have new or old Ploggs. If you select “new” it will load the ASCII DLL if you select “old” it will load the BINARY DLL.

If one does not work try the other. You can also find both DLLs in the gateway/ folder of the application.

Hope that will help!