OWL Intuition Internet connected energy monitoring and heating control products are able to push collected data in near real time both on the LAN and WAN for value added third party logging and data analysis etc. Additionally, it is possible to configure and control the system. These features are standard on all OWL Intuition products (Network OWL firmware version 2.1 onwards). Detailed below are technical details and examples of the use of both Multicast and UDP. You will need some technical expertise to be able to make use of these features.
MULTICAST (PUSH)
The Intuition Network OWL broadcasts Multicast messages onto the local area network. With your own software you could receive this data and do whatever you want with it. Below is some further information which may help you, however IP Multicast is a standard protocol and unfortunately we are unable to provide any technical support on the implementation of this. The code supplied does work without modification.
The Network OWL IP address is assigned by the local DHCP server, and will vary from local network to local network. However, this is different to the multicast IP address: this is analogous to a "channel number" on a TV & is assigned by the multicast server (the Network OWL in this case). Multicast clients wishing to "tune to the channel" need to join the multicast stream with the correct multicast IP address & port, which in the case of the Network OWL is always 224.192.32.19 & port 22600.
See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast) for further information on IP Multicast.
Below you can download some example C source code that will enable you to receive the XML packets. The packets will be debugged out to the console once the application is run. There is no processing of the data as this app is just to show how to receive the data.
To compile on a linux pc or a mac, run the following command on the command line: gcc –ointuition-listener intuition-listener.c then run with the command ./intuition-listener.
Also available for download below is a simple Windows PC application that will debug out multicast packets received from a Network OWL. To run, extract to a folder, then double click. The app will open a command prompt and will probably sit there doing nothing for a while. When it receives a multicast packet, it will display it in the command prompt.
Important note: OWL are unable to support the use of these applications.
See download below for details of XML data that will be received.
UDP (PUSH)
The Intuition Network OWL can also be configured to push data to an external IP address / port. The data protocol used is UDP ("fire and forget") and the data is structured as XML.
The download below provides details of the data that is pushed. You need to have a server application running that listens on a UDP port. Configure the Network OWL (see steps below) to send UDP packets to that IP/Port and the bespoke application will pick up the data.
To assist, you can download below a simple UDP app for basic testing. You can upload it to a linux server or Mac and compile it with the command gcc –ointuition-udp intuition-udp.c To run the app, you can use the command: ./intuition-udp (please note we are unable to support this).
To configure the Network OWL to start pushing the data over UDP:
1) Ensure Network OWL is online and login to the web dashboard for the unit concerned.
2) Select the Devices menu option
3) Select the Network OWL
4) Select the Upgrade option (if available - Network OWL requires at least version 2.1) & then close Devices window
5) Wait say 5 mins
6) Select the Devices menu option again
7) Check Network OWL is now running the new firmware version
8) Select the Settings menu
9) Setup Data Push
10) Enter IP Address and Port number
11) Save
UDP (CONFIGURATION)
The Network OWL will listen on a fixed defined UDP port number (5100) for configuration commands. After processing the commands it will send a response packet to the source IP/port. For security, a UDP Key will be required with each command. Commands will be silently ignored if this key isn’t present. The UDP Key is available via the Intuition web dashboard (Settings / Advanced Settings / Setup Data Push). Download the Network OWL API Document for further details.
Pre-compiled Application (requires Java minimum version 8 [build 1.8.0])
In order to facilitate users checking that their OWL units are operating correctly in terms of broadcasting on multicast and UDP (rather than spending hours fruitlessly debugging their software) we've created the "NOWL_Receiver" runnable JAR file; please run this if you have difficulty getting any data from the Network OWL; this will display any data being sent by the network OWL via multicast, or via UDP on port 9991.
It may be worth running this program to ensure everything is working correctly before you start working on your own solution.
Please note, this application does not provide any logging capability, nor does it display information in a human-friendly manner; it simply shows data being received. This will be in the aforementioned XML format that the data is "shipped" in.
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