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Diagnostic Address Discovery

anotherjulien edited this page Sep 14, 2026 · 1 revision

Overview

WHO1001 supports discovering Devices through their native A/PL BUS addressing, independently of hardware-ID discovery through DIM13.

Two address-oriented mechanisms have been observed:

  • querying a specific A/PL address;
  • enumerating occupied addresses within an A area.

These mechanisms complement hardware-ID discovery:

                Device Discovery
                      │
          ┌───────────┴───────────┐
          │                       │
     Hardware ID              BUS address
      discovery                discovery
          │                       │
        DIM13                    A / PL
          │                       │
          ▼                       ▼
   Physical Device         Occupied address

Address discovery is particularly relevant to WHO1001, whose Devices use the Automation A/PL addressing model.

A/PL Addressing

In the Automation domain, an address is composed of:

A  = Area
PL = Point of Light / local point

The two values are represented together in the diagnostic WHERE.

For example:

A = 0
PL = 1

WHERE = 01

Address discovery operates on this native BUS-address space rather than on the Device hardware ID.

Direct Address Query

MyHOME Suite can directly query a specific A/PL address.

For example, the observed query for A=0, PL=1 is:

*#1001*01*0##

Here:

WHO   = 1001
WHERE = 01
WHAT  = 0

If a Device occupies the requested address, it responds with diagnostic information associated with that address.

This provides a direct method for testing whether a particular A/PL address is occupied.

Address Enumeration

MyHOME Suite can also enumerate occupied addresses within an A area.

Observed requests include:

*#1001*00*1##

for A=0, and:

*#1001*1*1##

for A=1.

These requests cause Devices at occupied addresses within the requested area to respond.

Conceptually:

Request area A
      │
      ▼
Scan address space
      │
      ├── occupied PL → Device response
      ├── occupied PL → Device response
      │
      └── ...

This differs from sending an individual direct query for every complete A/PL address.

Device Response

An occupied address can respond with DIM1.

For example:

*#1001*01*1*107*6*6*8##

This identifies a Device responding at WHERE=01.

The DIM1 values provide its catalogue identity signature:

Field Interpretation
VALUE1 AS_ITEM_SYSTEM.modobj
VALUE2 Unknown
VALUE3 EN_BRAND.brand_modobj
VALUE4 EN_LINE.line_modobj

The response therefore provides both an occupied BUS address and information that can be used to classify the responding Device.

See Diagnostic DIM Reference.

Address Discovery vs Hardware-ID Discovery

Address discovery and hardware-ID discovery answer different questions.

Hardware-ID Discovery

Hardware-ID discovery uses DIM13:

*#1001*0*13##

Its purpose is to enumerate physical Devices by their unique hardware identifiers.

The result identifies:

Physical Device
      │
      ▼
Hardware ID

This mechanism can find Devices independently of knowing their configured A/PL address.

See Diagnostic Device Discovery.

Address Discovery

Address discovery instead starts from the BUS topology:

A / PL address
      │
      ▼
Occupied?
      │
      ▼
Responding Device

It therefore identifies which diagnostic addresses are currently represented on the BUS.

The two discovery mechanisms are complementary rather than interchangeable.

Address and Device Identity

A hardware ID identifies a physical Device, while an A/PL address identifies a position in the Automation BUS addressing model.

These concepts should not be treated as equivalent:

Physical Device
      │
      ├── Hardware ID
      │
      └── Module structure
              │
              └── BUS addresses

A single physical Device can expose multiple logical Modules, and those Modules can potentially use different intrinsic A/PL addresses.

Consequently, the relationship between a Device and an address is not necessarily one-to-one.

Relationship with DIM32

Address discovery operates on diagnostic WHERE values visible on the BUS.

DIM32, by contrast, reports the intrinsic configured address of a particular Module/Object where that function possesses one.

Conceptually:

Address discovery
      │
      ▼
Diagnostic WHERE
      │
      ▼
Responding Device

versus:

Device
  │
  ▼
Module
  │
  ▼
DIM32
  │
  ▼
Intrinsic Module address

These values can coincide, but they represent different layers of the protocol model.

A Device containing several addressable Modules may expose more than one intrinsic address even though it remains a single physical Device with one hardware ID.

See Module Addressing and DIM32.

Relationship with Device Interview

Hardware-ID discovery provides a hardware ID that can subsequently be used to select a Device directly:

DIM13 discovery
      │
      ▼
Hardware ID
      │
      ▼
WHAT10#ID
      │
      ▼
Device interview

Address discovery provides an alternative route based on the configured BUS topology:

A / PL discovery
      │
      ▼
Occupied WHERE
      │
      ▼
Address-based diagnostic interaction

The two mechanisms therefore provide different entry points into the same diagnostic architecture.

See Diagnostic Device Interview.

Relationship with the Diagnostic Domain

The observed address-discovery mechanism belongs to WHO1001.

This is significant because A/PL addressing is characteristic of the Automation topology handled by this diagnostic domain.

Other diagnostic domains use different addressing models and should not be assumed to support the same address-discovery syntax.

For example:

WHO1001
   │
   ▼
Automation diagnostic domain
   │
   ▼
A / PL topology
   │
   ▼
Address discovery

The existence of a common hardware-ID discovery mechanism across several diagnostic WHO domains does not imply that their native address-discovery mechanisms are identical.

See Diagnostic WHO Domains.

Discovery Strategies

The observed mechanisms allow MyHOME Suite to approach the installation from two directions.

Device-Oriented Discovery

Enumerate hardware IDs
        │
        ▼
Identify physical Devices
        │
        ▼
Interview Device by ID

This approach is independent of the Device's configured A/PL topology.

Address-Oriented Discovery

Enumerate / query A/PL
        │
        ▼
Identify occupied addresses
        │
        ▼
Interact through BUS topology

This approach starts from the configured Automation address space.

Using both strategies allows MyHOME Suite to reconstruct both the physical Device inventory and the logical BUS topology.

Known Request Forms

The currently observed WHO1001 address-discovery operations can be summarized as:

Operation Example
Query specific A/PL *#1001*01*0##
Enumerate A=0 *#1001*00*1##
Enumerate A=1 *#1001*1*1##

The exact internal semantics of the WHAT values used by these request forms should be derived from observed behavior rather than generalized beyond the tested WHO1001 context.

Architectural Role

Address discovery forms the bridge between physical Device discovery and the Automation BUS topology:

             WHO1001
                │
       ┌────────┴────────┐
       │                 │
Hardware-ID discovery  Address discovery
       │                 │
       ▼                 ▼
Physical Devices      A/PL topology
       │                 │
       └────────┬────────┘
                ▼
         Device interview
                │
                ▼
       Module / Object model
                │
                ▼
          Configuration

This distinction is important for Devices containing multiple logical Modules because a physical Device identity and its configured BUS addresses describe different aspects of the installation.

See Also

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