Whzan is built using an Extendible Architecture principle. The applications of Whzan are as many as you can imagine. Any device that can communicate with the internet can be a data source and any browser capable device can view and control the status of equipment.

Whzan has three key areas for third parties to develop new components that could directly extend functionality. As an incentive to developers, we will place these components in the Whzan shop, subject to our quality controls.

Gateway development: Whzan has web services to permit a Gateway to update data and receive updated data from Whzan. A Gateway is a software bridge between these web services and a hardware or software system with data. We have provided free Gateways for some limited application areas and will make these open source. They show the data interchange with Whzan and also the same interchange with external devices. Although our examples are for the Windows platform, there is no limitation, in terms of platform, as long as the Gateway can access the web services. Data can be acquired from and transmitted to almost any system or device.

To make life easier for the end user, each Gateway we release, has a Gateway Manager application. It is the Gateway Manager's task to simplify the requirements for access to the device or system and link data acquired from that to data within Whzan. For example the X10 Gateway manages the X10 protocol and web service connection, and the X10 Gateway Manger helps the user define the PC interface, device addresses and device names, and creates the necessary datapoints within Whzan.

Widgets: These are static images and animations used within Whzan's mimics drawing package. Simple examples are gauges and dials. These common mimics components have animations to move the pointer to a value representing some real world parameter (e.g. temperature). We have used Microsoft's Expression Blend to create the Widgets supplied with Whzan. With this product, the storyboard provides a means to create any transformation which is then rendered on the display smoothly and seamlessly. Whzan can bind datapoints to the transformation thus the Widgets are able to reflect current conditions. As part of the development kit, we will soon offer a plug-in for Expression Blend to ease the data binding process. Widgets can be of any design and can be tailor-made to suit the application from dashboard components through to traffic light animations.

Templates: Again to ease the end user's task of getting started, templates provide an easy way of creating an entire Whzan Mimic, including the binding of data to the dynamic features. If Whzan was used for a particular device, e.g. a weather station, it would be possible to create a Gateway, some dynamic Widgets and then a standard Mimic layout in which to display the data.

Developers can contact us via the forums for the latest development resources.

Whzan T&Cs