Owner's Manual (Complete)

Chapter 2—HCA Properties
6 The Home Control Assistant
Hint: Not all versions of HCA support all interfaces. See the appendix on HCA versions for an
explanation of what version supports which hardware. Also some of these interfaces are
designated
Legacy Devices and are not normally available unless requested on the Legacy
Properties tab.
For each interface select the port it is attached to, and what the interface is. Next use the Connect
button to confirm that the interface can be sent commands by HCA and process receptions from it.
If you have the hardware correctly attached, you will see a message box that says
Hardware
test…. OK
. The message box also provides any information from the hardware confirming that it
is functioning. If the hardware is not correctly connected, an error message explains what the
problem is.
If you ever need to disconnect and reconnect the automation hardware, be sure to return to this
dialog box and use the
Connect button to make sure that it is correctly hooked up and working.
Finally select if this interface is to be used for X10, IR, both or neither. There may be other
sections you need to make depending upon the interface type.
Hint: See the appendix on the type of interface you are using for any specific information about
that hardware.
Design Pane
One tab of the HCA properties dialog is for the Design Pane. Most of these options are covered in
Chapter 1.
The first section helps you control the way HCA displays times. There are three options for time
format. You may choose only one, but you can change it at any time. The options are:
 AM/PM format
 24-hour format
 Follow the control panel regional time settings
You can display all time values in either AM/PM format or 24 hour time format. The third option
allows you to use the time format options set in the Windows control panel regional settings
(which may be 12 or 24 hour time). HCA always uses the time punctuation and AM/PM strings
from the regional settings, regardless of how you select the time format using the HCA properties.
HCA always follows the control panel regional settings for
date formats, however time format is a
bit more subjective. You may be comfortable working with 12-hour time, or with 24-hour time.
You set this preference in Windows with the regional settings. But since HCA is so time-focused,
you can have your needs met here, regardless of what is set up for other programs.
Note that the 24-hour time format is sometimes referred to as military time. In this format, 12:00
noon is 1200, 1:00 p.m. is 1300, 5:00 p.m. is 1700, and 12:00 midnight is 2400.
Hint: If you use the AM/PM format, you should remember that 12:00 p.m. is noon, and 12:00
a.m. is midnight.
Also on this tab are options for HCA to automatically create and keep updated a display that shows
all your devices and another than shows all your programs.