In an attempt to move away from the few X10 modules I have left in my house I ordered a Plugwise Stealth. This is an ‘appliance’ version of the Plugwise Circle.

The Stealth is smaller than the Circle but I expected it to be way smaller. It’s not that small and I can’t put it behind wall switches.

So let’s get the Stealth up & running

Some challenges: My Source version (2.15, dated 2010) did not recognize the Stealth.

– The upgrade to Source version 2.23 (latest) failed miserably.
For the first time a ‘system restore point’ saved me, just had to
restore the backed up database)
– Older versions are not for download on the Myplugwise website, or are they… ? ;-)
2.17,  2.20, 2.21, 2.22
– The upgrade to 2.20 worked fine and the Stealth is now recognized
Strange: not as plug ID 77xxxx but 277xxxx?

Next: Upgrade the plug firmware

Current firmware: 2009-09-08. To be honest, I have no clue what a firmware upgrade is going to give me ;-)
But it’s newer firmware so  I have to upgrade. Here’s some documentation on the upgrade process (PDF).
To do this I have to enable sending my usage data to Plugwise. I don’t like that so I have blocked that traffic (details later in this post)

1. Move anything that’s ‘critical’ and connected to a Plugwise module and connect it to a normal power outlet.
   The Plugwise modules are going to reset during the firmware upgrade.
   NOTE: make sure you do connect these plugs somewhere else, otherwise they won’t get an upgrade!
2. Shutdown Source, replace ‘production’ database with a fake Database containing useless data that I don’t care sharing with Plugwise.
3. Enable sending usage data to Plugwise + Remove firewall, network and DNS rules that block access to the Plugwise website
4. Run firmware upgrade procedure
5. Check if all works
6. Disable sending usage data to Plugwise (in Software + firewall, network & DNS)
7. Put original database back
8. Connect all devices from step 1 to the Plugwise modules

Block Data send to Plugwise

There have been many discussions on this subject but we won’t go into that again. How to block traffic? You can disable sending data to the Plugwise servers. Don’t trust them? There’s a couple of ways to block traffic

1 Network (firewall, access-lists, DNS)
2 DNS (hosts file)
3 Firewall in your Operating System

1. In my case I created access-lists in my Cisco router that block traffic to portal.plugwise.com
access-list 10 remark ACCESS list preventing Plugwise traffic
access-list 10 deny   209.62.20.188
access-list 10 deny   194.50.163.148
access-list 10 deny   91.192.36.155
access-list 10 deny   85.112.25.71
access-list 10 permit any
This access list is applied to the ‘outside’ LAN interface of my network and is applied to incoming and outgoing traffic. I’m about to test using URL’s to block traffic as their IP addresses might change.

2. Edit your servers hosts file to re-route Plugwise traffic to a ‘fake’ destination
Edit the hosts file: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
    127.0.0.1      portal.plugwise.com
    127.0.0.1      portal.plugwise.nl
    127.0.0.1      portal.plugwise.net
Don’t know which exact URL they use so I’ll block all three.

3. Firewall in your Operating system
Edit your Windows firewall to prevent all applications (.exe files) in
the \Program Files (x86)\Plugwise\ folder to connect to the internet.

More info

Homeseer Plugwise script (DJ)
Homeseer Plugwise plugin (RdP)
Plugwise protocol analysis (Roheve)
Domoticaforum Plugwise forum