Software Defined Radio for OreSci things and many other things... (was Re: RFX dying???)

Wed Apr 28 13:14:01 EDT 2021

Hi James,

I am very interested in these devices.  I need some help though with installing the rti_433 software.  I did not see a binary to download from Github.  So will there be instructions in the wiki?

Henk

> On Apr 10, 2021, at 12:05 PM, James Sentman <james at sentman.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> It’s a bit premature since I haven’t released the thing yet, but in case anyone is jumping ahead of this to get on the bandwagon I’ll outline the devices I’ve tested with. There seem to be 2 classes of radios out there. The cheaper ones which are served by the RTL2832U controller chip are the less expensive ones and run from about $25 to around $50 or 60 bucks on amazon. Things like these three I know work, but am not sure of the quality of them:
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014OH57S4/ <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014OH57S4/>
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B4L48QU/ <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B4L48QU/>
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-Blog-RTL2832U-Software-Defined/dp/B011HVUEME/ <https://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-Blog-RTL2832U-Software-Defined/dp/B011HVUEME/>
> 
> Those three I know work with the rtl_433 software for sure. I also have one of these:
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1HKLHY/ <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1HKLHY/>
> 
> Which, while it works it has some other issue and is likely defective as it’s range is horrible. I don’t think that the design is bad as Amazon seems to sell a lot of them as it’s their choice for searching for such things. If I hadn’t bought it ages ago I would return it to try another one. I suspect it’s just defective and any version of it you might get would work just fine, but I don’t know that for sure.
> 
> Then there are the much more expensive radios like the HackRF and others that are supported by the SoapySDR drivers rather than the rtl drivers that handle the above. I have included those drivers in the package for the upcoming plugin so they MIGHT work fine, but seeing that the devices are upwards of $200 for even the least expensive I have not laid one in for testing. If you go with one of those be prepared for some back and forth with me before the drivers will properly run, possibly it might even be necessary to loan me the radio for a time to get things going and provide some specific options for that. Or it is possible that they just can’t be made to work at all. For that price though they should be fantastic and you might only need one of them ;) But I don’t know yet. I am willing to work on the plugin further to know they are supported but at this point I cannot guarantee that they will work at all.
> 
> There will definitely be at least a plugin for these that can receive Oregon sensors in the next XTension release in a week or there abouts. Barring acts of god around here that would use up all my time of course, that sort of thing does happen some times and seems to be more common lately… Remember that this is receive only so if you’re using the transmit functionality of the RFX devices these will not be able to support that. Though there are things in the future that might which I can look into so make sure to voice your interest if this is something you want.
> 
> Keep in mind that at version 1 these will almost certainly not have an option for receiving X10 remotes and motion sensors and such. While it sort of works it is going to need some tweaking. My recomendation in the meantime is to stick with as many W800 devices as you need as those folks have supported us forever and we have supported them forever and they are very good receivers. I may be able to get this working but it is not the main priority given the availability of the W800’s. 
> 
> For receiving just the 433 remote control and security devices I have a very good solution that is working great in testing right now. That also does not transmit but definitely works better for reception of these specific button pushing remotes than the above. I have a version 2 of the hardware in hand right now and am about to double check the design for bugs before ordering a short run of them I can sell so that will be fun! More info on this in the next few weeks :) There are a lot of really quite nice 433mhz remote control devices, both hand held and good looking wall mount that these can receive and get into XTension. let me know if you want to be in on the initial testing of such a thing.
> 
> Those of you using those USB SDR’s for receiving anything else interesting like smart meters or anything not already mentioned in this discussion please chime in! I would love to wrap the smart meter reception software into a plugin as well but haven’t tried to look into that for some time and don’t want to wast time with things that nobody is using yet. 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 10, 2021, at 12:00 AM, Dave 

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