Entegra Lighting Controller

[rlust]

I am looking to find what the brand of lighting controller my 2013 Entegra Aspire?

My goal is to automate as much as possible, lights and monitoring systems in my coach.

Has anyone purchased replacement wall switch modules?

Thanks for any info!

[kladner]

I’m not sure about the 13 models but current models are provided by Firefly

http://www.fireflyintegrations.com/phone/products.html

[Cruzer]

In 2013 the system was controlled by the G5 controller, which is the large panel in the mid-bath with all the fuses in it. These fused circuits can be controlled by the various wallplate switch panels. If you call Firefly they can bring up the schematic for your coach and tell you what can be done. They can reprogram existing switches and supply new faceplate with the correct logos. They can also supply additional panels and program them into the system as well. I had them make a new panel with an "All outside lights" button, the 4 slideouts and an interior light master and I mounted it in the equipment cabinet panel right over the entry door.

[Nowabeachbum]

The actual switches are manufactured by Spyder Controls. The software, as others have said, is by Firefly.

[voltdoc]

As Cruzer stated the 2013 (we had one) has the G5 Spyder master panel and sspxx switch modules. This system (and all spyder/ firefly) is RV-C based (CAN buss). The switches send data to the master via the CAN which in turn controls the lights (and other if equipped). The RV-C protocol is open source and described in detail by the group in online documents.

You can create a control system by tapping into the CAN (assorted places to do that). I have done it and we use it every day via a smartphone/tablet/desktop "app", or it even interfaces with Alexa (Alexa, set all inside lights to 50%, etc.). It is based on the Coach Proxy system for Tiffins which is now defunct and going open source.

On my system, so far I can control all lights, the aquahot and the locks. Along with a friend with a Cornerstone we have worked out how to control the shades on 2015 and up.

Raspberry Pi based, you need basic computer skills including some linux command line stuff. Plus it's helpful to know some javascript, Perl and basic networking but I have guided others thru the setup. If that sounds like something within your wheelhouse and would like to try contact me via email.

[Gary.Jones]

Rob

It has got to be easier to walk to the wall panel and turn those things off and on yourself...... isn't it? I guess that it is the challenge...

Gary

[voltdoc]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Rob

It has got to be easier to walk to the wall panel and turn those things off and on yourself...... isn't it? I guess that it is the challenge...

Gary

Gary, no not IMO. I just have to say what I want done. It may be healthier but not easier.

But the real power is in creating groups of specific functions, also known as scenes or routines. For example, we say "dinnertime" and every unneeded light in the coach is turned off and several others are set to specific brightness levels. To do that manually would require traveling the length of the coach and a lot of push-and-hold time to set the dim level. Now I just say Dinnertime and in less than 2 seconds everything is exactly where we like it. We have several other routines such as Watch TV, Kitchen, Bedtime, etc. The Bedtime routine also locks the door and cargo bay.

Another benefit is redundancy. Part of what triggered my interest in this project was the fact that Linda was blowing out a switch every week or so from static discharge. When a switch is out there is no way to control what it did. Now I have a backup.

Finally, unlike the early Firefly/Crestron systems that simply duplicated all the buttons on a tablet, my system is moving towards true automation. For example, at sunset (calculated by time of year and location) a certain group of lights comes on. Another example - thru presence detection the system turns off the aquahot electric when neither of us are on the coach and turns it back on when we arrive back. Both of those are examples of true automation because it requires no physical activity or conscious thought on my part to make them happen. The possibilities are endless.

For sure a geeks heaven, but I am having a blast with it. Working now on integrating the HVAC. We had a similar system in our house and missed it badly once we went full time.

[Gary.Jones]

Well, I am clearly not geeky enough to try to tackle that, and in point of fact, there is so little that is exactly consistent in Dee and my life that for every time I wanted all the lights at 50% at 7:00 for dinner and only the dinette light on, there would be 2 nights when at 7:00 Dee is doing the laundry and would have my head if the coach turned the lights off on her, or we would decide to eat at 9:00 pm rather than 7:00 and we would have to turn the lights back on, or we would be good and sweaty from trying to deal with some problem on the road while we are away from the coach, and the hot water heater would have turned itself off, and the water would be ice cold when we walk into the coach and desperately need to take a shower immediately.

Nice to see some with a more regulated life and electronic skills (Thus the avatar: VoltDoc) .... our life is way too chaotic for such automation and I think that we are destined to wait 3 minutes for our Nebula to boot itself on our phone or laptop (waaaaaayyyy too slow a process) just to turn on a light or the TV, or make the trek to the VegaTouch panel mid-coach and go through 5 menus to turn on a light (walking is a lot faster). Come to Q this year and let me watch all this magic you have created (seriously). Love the Geekiness actually.

Gary

[757driver]

Originally Posted by voltdoc

Gary, no not IMO. I just have to say what I want done. It may be healthier but not easier.

But the real power is in creating groups of specific functions, also known as scenes or routines. For example, we say "dinnertime" and every unneeded light in the coach is turned off and several others are set to specific brightness levels. To do that manually would require traveling the length of the coach and a lot of push-and-hold time to set the dim level. Now I just say Dinnertime and in less than 2 seconds everything is exactly where we like it. We have several other routines such as Watch TV, Kitchen, Bedtime, etc. The Bedtime routine also locks the door and cargo bay.

Another benefit is redundancy. Part of what triggered my interest in this project was the fact that Linda was blowing out a switch every week or so from static discharge. When a switch is out there is no way to control what it did. Now I have a backup.

Finally, unlike the early Firefly/Crestron systems that simply duplicated all the buttons on a tablet, my system is moving towards true automation. For example, at sunset (calculated by time of year and location) a certain group of lights comes on. Another example - thru presence detection the system turns off the aquahot electric when neither of us are on the coach and turns it back on when we arrive back. Both of those are examples of true automation because it requires no physical activity or conscious thought on my part to make them happen. The possibilities are endless.

For sure a geeks heaven, but I am having a blast with it. Working now on integrating the HVAC. We had a similar system in our house and missed it badly once we went full time.

Rob,

All I can say is WOW!!! That is a very nice set of automation routines you have added to the coach. That would be a fun project indeed.

[voltdoc]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Well, I am clearly not geeky enough to try to tackle that, and in point of fact, there is so little that is exactly consistent in Dee and my life that for every time I wanted all the lights at 50% at 7:00 for dinner and only the dinette light on, there would be 2 nights when at 7:00 Dee is doing the laundry and would have my head if the coach turned the lights off on her, or we would decide to eat at 9:00 pm rather than 7:00 and we would have to turn the lights back on, or we would be good and sweaty from trying to deal with some problem on the road while we are away from the coach, and the hot water heater would have turned itself off, and the water would be ice cold when we walk into the coach and desperately need to take a shower immediately.

Nice to see some with a more regulated life and electronic skills (Thus the avatar: VoltDoc) .... our life is way too chaotic for such automation and I think that we are destined to wait 3 minutes for our Nebula to boot itself on our phone or laptop (waaaaaayyyy too slow a process) just to turn on a light or the TV, or make the trek to the VegaTouch panel mid-coach and go through 5 menus to turn on a light (walking is a lot faster). Come to Q this year and let me watch all this magic you have created (seriously). Love the Geekiness actually.

Gary

Gary, yes not something everybody will be interested in, especially technophobes.

We don't have the primary lights go on or off at certain times, that is controlled by a voice command so stuff like that only happens when we say so. Groupings of lights/shades (scenes) can be easily created with all or some included and tweaked as desired. You and Dee could even each have your own personal scenes - kinda like those cars that adjust the settings on the driver seat position for multiple drivers preferences. You can have as many scenes as you desire.

Rarely would we return to the coach and immediately need a shower, but if we did "Alexa, turn on the aquahot burner", heats it up in a few minutes and I still save a few bucks on the electric bill.

Point is everything is customizable so there is no set formula you need to adapt to, you make it work for your lifestyle. Once you have lived with the convenience for a while you wouldn't want to be without it.

However, it is not plug and play at the moment so unfortunately out of the running for many. I'm hoping to encourage the help of some other "enthusiasts" to change that. The idea will be to keep most of the coding open source (free). The hardware is about $150.

I'm not familiar with Nebula - ? My "app" is quite fast, ready to go normally in under 3 seconds, even from a remote location. You can also use the Alexa app which is fairly quick too and just speak your commands thru your smartphone. IMO, the voice commands are still the fastest, easiest and most natural interface. The techs at Entegra were pretty impressed with the performance of it when I showed it to them at our AIR last fall.

We might be at Q this year, not sure yet, if not we'll see you down the road somewhere I'm sure!

[voltdoc]

Originally Posted by 757driver

Rob,

All I can say is WOW!!! That is a very nice set of automation routines you have added to the coach. That would be a fun project indeed.

Don, if you feel so inclined to give it a try I'll update my notes and send you a link to them. I haven't put much effort into them because there doesn't seem to be much interest.

Andy Chester (2016 Cornerstone) has followed my instructions and has lights and shades working on his 2016 Cornerstone. On your coach you should have a G5 panel and be able to control for sure the lights and possibly the shades. I tested the shades on a 2015 Anthem which has the RV-C shade modules and it works fine, but not sure if that's what they used on the 14's.

The hardware cost is about US$150 for the Rasberry Pi and CAN interface, plus a few $ for connectors and such. My document tells you what to buy.

For more info on coach proxy, on which my system for Entegra is based, check out their website and video.

Mike Fischer of coach proxy has posted some of the open source code on github so you could try and give it a go from scratch, but my hardware is different and I have modified a lot of the Node Red modules to work better with Entegra - I'll send you those, or publish them somewhere if there is more interest.

FYI I had very limited linux and javascript knowledge when I started this, but still managed to get it to work so you don't need to be a coding guru. Top thing to get familiar with is Node-Red and then javascript as any custom Node-Red nodes require it.

Let me know, prefer you direct email me (click on my avatar), not PM.

[photraveller]

Rob add me to those who are impressed!

I love techie things and coding, but that said, we just don't stay in the coach enough or have enough of an motivation to dive into what you're doing at the "moment".

I love having smart functions at the S&B house. In the S&B we turn on outside lights at sundown and turn them off at midnight or normally we manually turn them off with one smart light switch when we go to bed.

We also raise our electric shades at sunrise plus a hour and a half, so we don't get any of the low horizon sun directly in our faces ever! Then lower them at sunset plus 15 minutes.

If we had electric shades in the Aspire, it would probably be enough to jump into your project. We like the shades function that much.

In the mean time, at least as far as I'm concerned I would love to continue to hear updates as you make progress.

For instance, If you get the HVAC working that would be another thing that would interest me. After going to Alaska last year, we had to daily set cooling and heat modes and had examples of forgetting to toggle to either mode.

Neither was a killer, but (could have been for the dog) it is very nice not to come home to a hot coach, or have to jump up in the early morning hours because it's freezing. So some kind of Auto function coded in would be my first addition if the HVAC system could be controlled.

Steve

[voltdoc]

Originally Posted by photraveller

Rob add me to those who are impressed!

I love techie things and coding, but that said, we just don't stay in the coach enough or have enough of an motivation to dive into what you're doing at the "moment".

I love having smart functions at the S&B house. In the S&B we turn on outside lights at sundown and turn them off at midnight or normally we manually turn them off with one smart light switch when we go to bed.

We also raise our electric shades at sunrise plus a hour and a half, so we don't get any of the low horizon sun directly in our faces ever! Then lower them at sunset plus 15 minutes.

If we had electric shades in the Aspire, it would probably be enough to jump into your project. We like the shades function that much.

In the mean time, at least as far as I'm concerned I would love to continue to hear updates as you make progress.

For instance, If you get the HVAC working that would be another thing that would interest me. After going to Alaska last year, we had to daily set cooling and heat modes and had examples of forgetting to toggle to either mode.

Neither was a killer, but (could have been for the dog) it is very nice not to come home to a hot coach, or have to jump up in the early morning hours because it's freezing. So some kind of Auto function coded in would be my first addition if the HVAC system could be controlled.

Steve

Steve, awesome, a fellow automaton nerd! I started with the BSR X-10 stuff back in the mid 70's. Our last house had a full Insteon deployment. That convenience was sorely missed when we went full time in 2013. Now tho we have a big chunk of it back and even better with devices like Alexa.

We often have the same HVAC issue needing cooling during the day and heating at night. HVAC control will be more challenging since the Airxcel interfaces are probably proprietary. Also there are several versions of tstat and roof unit control boards to further complicate things. I haven't spent much time on it lately but will begin looking into it again this fall when we hit the road again.

FYI, Tom Robert's (former Anthem owner) had developed a plug and play Airxcel thermostat control that I tested circa 2015ish. It was a multi module IOT based setup. One module simply plugged in between the thermostat and its wiring harness and left the tstat in place for backup. Control was via an app like web page. It provided much more flexibility than the Airxcel unit and worked great! Now tho he's moved on from that approach, started a company and has an "RV Thermostat" in development. See https://www.zedly.com/. I'm supposed to get one to eval "early summer" but nothing so far. I don't think it will be RV-C compatible and appears to be cellular oriented so there may be monthly fees, but could be just what you and many others are looking for. In any case he has successfully proven that interfacing to the comms between the tstat and the roof unit control boards (2 wire data stream) is doable.

LWBAZ (thanks Larry) also sent me an outdated Magnum ME-RVC gateway so I hope to be able to do something with that for at least reporting status and voltage data from the Inverter.

A notification system is also high on my list, a way to request and log critical info remotely (battery voltages, temperatures, shore power status, etc.) and also be able to push immediate notifications like a text message should a threshold be exceeded. I'm doing that now with the RV Command but I'd prefer integrating that into the RV-C network for a bunch of reasons.

In any case for sure I'll keep you in the loop, email me your email (click my avatar). I'd love the feedback and someone to bounce ideas off. And that applies to anyone with an interest in this technology, the more of us involved the faster progress can be made. That also applies to all brands of coaches using Firefly/Spyder, besides Entegra I know for sure that includes Tiffin and Fleetwood (REV). I think Thor also. Newmar uses some RV-C but has a non RV-C lighting control.

[brobox]

Rob, you have done an outstanding job. We have been looking at new homes and so much of that is configured in new constriction, we were surprise. It will only be a matter of time before it comes to the upper end RV market...vega touch did, I look for it to go one step further in a few years with voice commands.