FAQ
Contents
Is this a “smart home”?
EVA ICS is a universal system used for the construction of both “smart home” and automated control system (ICS) in an industrial enterprise.
In fact, most products positioning themselves as “smart home” are just dumb control panels with a web interface. Moving light switch from the wall to the screen doesn’t make it “smart”. In turn, our system is equipped with a powerful and constantly evolving Logic Manager for automatic decision-making.
Is this IoT?
In a way, yes. As far as IoT is a part of the automation process, we are a part of IoT, in turn. However, from the thousands of components positioning themselves as “IoT”, we choose only those working:
Reliably
Safely
Autonomously
And, most preferably, having an open API to be connected to any system.
The classic situation typical for IoT market involves controlling your device via the Internet with the help of software on the developer servers (aka “clouds”). As you can see it is:
Unreliable
Dangerous
Not autonomous
Moreover, you can’t seriously use it even at home. Our system doesn’t require registration, we don’t need your phone number, email or home address - just download, install and use it. The system works only for you and sends data to no one but you. The code is fully open, so that you can control everything that’s going on. The system doesn’t require Internet access. Everything works fine in the secure local network.
If the system is free and open, what is your interest?
We have been engaged in the automation activities for both private and enterprise sectors for many years. Our clients work with different systems, including previous versions of EVA ICS. The development of EVA ICS v3 is the step towards unification of all configurations that we support and use ourselves.
We decided to distribute the new system completely free of charge, but we provide commercial support for setups where reliability is of critical importance. We are also developing and integrating complex configurations, create additional commercial EVA applications and interfaces for specific systems.
In addition, if:
you want to become a system integrator and provide commercial support * you want to distribute our system together with your device
you want to make us an offer we can’t refuse
you should contact us and we will make a suitable offer to you.
Is EVA ICS complicated and difficult to learn?
We try to keep our system simple and user-friendly, even for those who have never encountered the process automation.
Is it reliable?
It is reliable enough for home and office setups, as well as for small industrial configurations, but if you use EVA on an enterprise, you should perfectly understand EVA ICS platform principles.
How about security?
Traditionally, automation systems and protocols have been designed as not completely secure. As for reliability, you may agree that it would be a pity if motor or door gets stuck because of incorrect access rights to a folder or an expired SSL certificate. We recommend to have an optimal balance between stability and security and it’s really different for every setup.
What programming languages can I use to write scripts and macros?
As for scripts - you can use any. A script or a program runs as a separate process in the system. It’s only necessary that it reads the input parameters correctly and writes the result in an appropriate format. If you need speed - PERL or DASH are preferred. If speed is not so important, you may use BASH or even PHP.
Logic Manager macros are written in Python, but in most cases, you’ll need to call the internal macro functions only.
Besides, you can create your own applications working through API. The distribution includes API clients for Python and PHP.
What if I have zero experience in programming?
Programming for EVA is only about creating item management scripts. You can find plenty of examples in the documentation.
Additionally you need to program Logic Manager macros for process automation. However, most macros have a very simple structure and call the in-built set of functions.
For example, a macro that runs a pump for watering plants:
# call API action for pump1, controller will be identified automatically
start('farm/pumps/pump1')
# reset the timer for watering
reset('farm/pump1_run')
# message to the log file
info('watering cycle has been started')
# assign "watering" value to the production cycle variable
set('farm/pump1_cycle', 'WATERING')
As you can see, it is not rocket science.
What automation is all about? What are automation components?
The automation components mostly look like relay block, “smart” sockets, “smart” switches - however, there is still some kind of relay inside. Usually, there are 3 ports in the relay: input, two outputs, and two states: open and closed. At the first state, the signal passes through the first output, in the second one - through the second. This is the main principle automation is based on.
Sometimes equipment may include controlled resistors, so that additional parameters (e.g. light dimmer) should be set. In this case, you should send additional value to the controller, e.g. to set a definite percent of capacity.
Our system works not with relay, but with endpoint equipment that is automated. The relay ports are programmed and switched with the help of scripts, which are written once during installation. Thereafter, the system works with the units.
Besides, any automation system has its “eyes” and “ears” for receiving data from the environment and making its own decisions - humidity and temperature sensors, motion sensors etc.
In EVA, all decisions are made either by the user or Logic Manager subsystem.
Is EVA ICS IEC 61131-3 compliant?
EVA Logic Manager is a “cloud” PLC and can’t handle events in real-time. EVA ICS is not a hardware PLC replacement, it brings together equipment of different kind and automates the tasks usually performed by the system operator manually.
However new local nearly real-time PLC and support of ST and FBD languages are planned in the next releases. We are hardly working on it!
Where is the interface? I want a web interface!
Each automated setup needs an interface. EVA has a very powerful SCADA Final Aggregator component, which combines the whole setup itself and provides a flexible EVA ICS JS Framework which allows you to create a modern websocket-powered web interface with a few strings of JavaScript:
$eva.apikey = 'MY_VERY_SECRET_KEY';
$eva.watch'sensor:env/temperature1',
function(state) {
document.getElementById('temp1').innerHTML = state.value;
}
$eva.start();
no rocket science as well.
Why EVA ICS has 3 different APIs?
EVA ICS goal is to allow any possible client perform API calls.
We have the plan to keep only JSON RPC API in EVA ICS v4. Starting from EVA ICS 3.3.2, there is a way for the old hardware to send JSON RPC requests via HTTP/GET, so direct API calls are deprecated.