Horatio is a system that integrates with your lighting network and monitors all of your devices in order to send you alerts when the system isn't working as it should be.
It is primarily intended to integrate with unattended architectural lighting systems, but there are applications in other environments as well. Anywhere you have a lighting system, you can use a Horatio.
Horatio dramatically increases your visibility of the inner workings of your lighting system, from wherever you are; whether that's troubleshooting in the dimmer room, or running a call a thousand miles away.
Horatio consists of two parts. The first is this website, which is a cloud-based reporting system that powers the notification system and provides a clean and easy-to-use mobile and desktop experience. The second is the Horatio Bridge Device (HBD), which is a 1RU embedded system that bridges between your lighting network and the internet. The HBD provides a secure connection into the lighting network, queues reports, and provides local storage of data, even if your internet connection goes down.
Nearly anything accessible through the ethernet network. Supported protocols include: ARP, TCP, CITP, RDM (Pathway and ArtNet currently supported, Net3 and E1.33 coming soon), sACN/ArtNet/Pathway, Lyntec RPC, Syslog, and OSC.
Most devices that provide monitoring services are optimized for a single equipment manufacturer. While they generally support other companies' products, they mostly work with their own equipment. We'll support anything that will let us talk to it, and we are happy to develop custom plug-ins to support whatever equipment you might have.
There is some practical limit: at some point you'll saturate the network with monitoring requests. There is no hard limit, but please talk to us if you're planning a system with more than three ethernet networks and/or 1000 devices (network devices + RDM fixtures).
Some connection to the internet is required, but it does not need to be especially reliable or fast; the HBD will queue status updates until the connection becomes available. If you're not sure you can connect to the internet, talk to us about using GSM modems or MiFi-like devices to interface.
Onsite configuration takes less than an hour. Once the HBD can talk to our server and is on your lighting network, the monitoring configuration will self-populate with typical settings. You can then update and tweak this configuration from anywhere, through your account on our website.
The system is designed to just work as soon as it powers up. Certain ethernet nodes will send us syslog data without any configuration, and lighting controllers can almost always be configured to send data as either syslog or OSC messages.
Right here: Horatio Datasheet (PDF)
Contact us at 412-254-4236 or ben@benpeoples.com. An online ordering portal will be setup shortly.
We currently have over 20 permanent installations, plus 3 more that were used on temporary projects (events, art installations), and can be re-used on future projects.
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HBD units have been used on public art installations, both temporary and permanent. Customizations included custom sensor interaction and tracking user engagement over time. We can absolutely help!
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