Have you ever faced the situation that you want to use Multicast between subnets, but Routers don’t forward it OR the application/device generating the Multicast traffic is using a TTL of 1, so the blocks don’t get forwarded by the router?

Barix developed a “Multicast routing/tunneling” firmware for the Barionet which turns that device into a flexible, multi site multicast forwarder/router. Effectively, it bridges multiple multicast groups between multiple sites, and can also include single hosts. The functionality is independent on the actual protocols used with the Multicast, being it automation, IP Audio, Video, VoIP, SIP or RTP.

Here is the rough concept:

• A Barionet is installed in every subnet where multicast traffic needs to be pickeed up or delivered.
• The device(s) does “UDP” tunnelling to forward the Multicast packets to the other Barionet(s) in the other subnet(s). At the same time, they serve as a tunnel receiver/endpoint to receive encapsulated Multicasts from the other networks.
• Up to 8 independent multicasts (address/port) can be configured, and up to 8 destinations – either Barionets in other networks as tunnel endpoints, or hosts which then receive the packets unicast.
• The TTL field of the multicast blocks can be “ignored and set to configured value” or handled as usual (decrementing).
• Tunnelling can be configured to use “IP over IP” or plain UDP – both have advantages and disadvantages.
• Monitoring of the application is possible via SNMP.

The first customer uses the application to route VoIP/VHF radio traffic between multiple operations centers in a large company. However, applications can be found wherever multicast needs to be routed between subnets and routers, IT providers or policies prevent that.

Please contact Barix if you are interested in that solution!

Johannes

What if …

the Barionet, the IP Automation device from Barix, would tweet ?

This is quite simple to achieve. We have sample BCL code, which allows you to do just that. Being it contact closures or temp sensors, these can be monitored, and in case of out-of bound data, the Barionet can directly talk to the twitter servers and “tweet” an alarm message.

Contact us for the source code (and beware, it’s sample code ..)

Johannes

First day of ISE today – Barix is on site, showcasing the complete product portfolio of Audio over IP and IP control applications, including the new IO device server “Barionet 50″.

Visit us at the booth, mention this blog post to Marcel or myself and get invited for a Coffee !

Johannes

This post is in regards to the Barionet – control products, not audio products …

As you know, the Barionet is securing infrastructure, measuring and managing energy, voltages, controlling HVAC systems and supervising power substations since many years.

And, yes, quite some systems also use it for home automation applications ..

One request we hear quite often is that the device should have a RTC (realtime clock), so that it knows the time when it starts up, even if there is no network connection (once it gets the time via NTP from a server, it can maintain it locally, so the RTC is really only needed for having the time after startup with no network).

Good news: the current firmware supports the Dallas Onewire DS1904 RTC button. You can either connect it to the onewire interface, or you can even put it inside the barionet case if you can solder and mount it with velcro or the like.

Here is a link to a wiki article which describes how to do this: Barionet with RTC

What do you get from that ? A low cost universal, network connected I/O controller with RTC, speaking Modbus/TCP, SNMP as well as ASCII protocols, fully programmable …

Please stay tuned for news on the new Barionet 50 model, coming out in the next couple of weeks.
Johannes

As you probably have seen, Barix is supporting SIP since about 15 months now. A complete SIP stack and application, which is provided in source form, is in the Barix ABCL kit.

While requirements for an Audio over IP and a Voice over IP (VoIP) system are typically quite different, the Barix solution can serve both!

The SIP application can be used for emergency call posts on Annuncicoms (full duplex communication, initiated by a button press from a user), but also for output only applications, such as Paging speakers or interfaces to existing PA systems. In that case, the application supports multicast and also Auto Answer.

For use in Parking Systems or door access control, the built-in relay of an Annuncicom can be controlled via SIP Info.

So – where comes Audio over IP in place ?

Supporting MP3, AACplus, Ogg Vorbis and WMA (select hardware), the devices provide excellent capabilities for IP Audio distribution.

We are working on integrating both the Audio and Intercom/Voice/Paging functionality into one single application, when available, this will allow you to
do IP Audio distribution in high quality (for example, in Hotels, Cruise ships etc), yet, at the same time, have the device register as a VoIP “phone extension” on an IP based phone system.

For the Audio over IP functionality, the high quality music encoding can be used, and the devices automatically switch over to VoIP codecs when such functionality is required.

An alternative is to use one Barix device as a SIP gateway, allowing easy paging zone selection via “DTMF” (actually, SIP Info): The advantage here is that only one extension is used, which could save license cost on the PBX, and also enable synchronous paging on multiple devices via Multicast, which is not supported by many VoIP PBX’es so far.

A third option, available now, is the use of Bell Commander from Acrovista , a partner. It provides the same functionality on a PC, with an extensive Bell Scheduling and PC based Paging solution.

Hi,

This is a quick post in regards to how to present and calculate “analog” values or other things you want to express with a decimal point in the Barix Barionet and also on our Audio platforms (when programming in BCL):

Let’s assume you want to use input #1 on the Barionet to measure a current of 0.00-20.00 Amperes, and you have the necessary converter which delivers an analog voltage of 0..5V representing the full scale range of the measured current.

Connecting the converter to the Barionet will allow you to instantly see the corresponding voltage on the UI using a browser.

But .. how do you get the shown values converted to 0-20 Amp ?

The analog resolution of the current Barionet inputs is 10bit, so “full scale” is 1023. You probably want a higher resolution than just the integer part 0..20, so i would suggest to use 2 decimals.

Calculations can easily be done in integer if you just calculate/use the value, converted to 10mA units.

How ?

a=(iostate(501)*2000)/1024

…. this gets the value, multiples by the full scale value (20.00->2000) and divides by the 10 bit fullscale value, resulting in values which are 100 times the current Amp reading.

For example, a voltage value of 2.5V will be digitzed to 512, resulting in a value of 1000 (which is 10.00 Amp).

BCL supports a special format to easily display these values with a decimal point:

sprintf$(“Value: %.2F”,a)

will return a string with “Value: 10.00″ content you can use for writing, displaying, storing.

If you just want to display the value on the UI using dynamic HTML tags, things are even easier, no programming in BCL is required ! The following term will emit (for our example) the string “10.00″ on the Barionet if used in a dynamic HTML page:

&LIO(2,”%0.2F”,501,2000,0,1024);

Note the multiple parameters here. The decimal point is set in the format sting (%0.2F) to be 2 decimals. The first parameter after the format string is the I/O point (501), the second parameter is the multiplicator, the third parameter is an optional offset (if you put -1024000 here, you will have a reading of -10.00 …+10.00 for the example), and the term is divided by the last parameter before being displayed.

So, as with the above example, the value of IO point 501 (let’s assume it is 512) is taken, multiplied with 2000, nothing is subtracted, and the resulting value is divided by 1024. The result (1000) is then formatted as 10.00.

I hope this sparks some ideas how to use the products !

Johannes

It’s a well kept secret within Barix that the X8, our low cost “interface” widget, can do more than just contact closure interfacing via Modbus/RTU.

The X8 is quite a powerful little device ! In the “standard” firmware mode, it provides 8 universal 5V capable input/outputs which can be used as

• digital inputs with or without pull-up
• analog inputs with or without pull-up
• wiegand decoding input
  common formats, 4, 8, 26, 40 bit supported !
• Dallas Onewire Temp sensor interfaces
  one sensor per input, such as our Barix TS

All these functions are accessible via the Modbus/RTU interface.

But pssst – there are some more “special functions” hidden in the device, which we now intend to publish. The X8 can be put in “special” modes which then provide the following functions:

• 8 input analog encoder (8 bit) sending ASCII message (non-polled) on change or interval
• rotary switch encoder
• 8 bit keypad interface for the Annuncicom-100

We even do things like interfacing the X8 directly to the RS-232 inputs of Exstreamer and Annuncicom for volume control, channel selection etc !

In general, the X8 can be seen as a quite universal, low cost, 5V I/O interface for automation purposes. With its support for Modbus/RTU, Wiegand readers, Dallas Onewire temp sensors, it is suitable for many applications in the automation and data collection area.

Oops – for those who don’t know what a wiegand interface is … nowadays, the “de facto” standard interface for access control readers, keypads etc. Originally a wiegand reader was a specific card reader, able to decode cards which contained a wire pattern, based on the “wiegand” effect. Wikipedia has more, here is the link to the term Wiegand Interface.

If anyone is interested in these special functions, please let me know !

Johannes