mvgossman

I'm sorry, I'm a little foggy on how to do this. If anyone has time to outline it and get me to understand I'd appreciate it. What I want to understand is this - take for example my stair lights. There are two circuits with two switches each but I always control them all at the same time. I have a scene set up to turn them on and off with any of the switches as a controller to go to 10%. I also have a program that turns them all on at sunset and off again at sunrise. What I want to do is have a scene that turns them on via a program to go to 20% at a half hour before sunset. So how do I make a separate scene that the program triggers to set them all to 20% without colliding with the scene that causes each switch to trigger the scene to set them all to 10%? I foresee the switches now causing the scene to go to 20% after I make this new scene incorrectly. As you can see I lack a fundamental understanding of all the settings available when setting up a scene, where you click the scene itself and the individual devices in the scene there's a whole selection of individual settings for the devices and a copy button which I don't understand. I'm seeing that this thread could be very useful to newbies. I'm not a total newbie, just new to this particular aspect.

Thanks again, another related question on Scenes. When you click on the scene name in the console, each member of the scene is present with its own ramp rate and on level. Is this to determine what happens when the whole scene is turned on with the ISY? And each item in the scene container, when highlighted shows itself in red and the other in blue. Is this in order to determine what happens when each is manually turned on and what to tell the others to do completely differently, if you wish, from the Scene attributes mentioned above? If I am on the right track here, then in order to have different programs to do different things to the scene from when you press the switches, or to have different intensities with different names, you'd create a scene whose global attributes are as you desire? Mitch

Thanks - what is the purpose of the "Adjust Scene" function. It superficially sounds like a way to set that scene to an arbitrary brightness. Mitch

How do you make a program that turns on all devices in a Scene to a certain level? I've been having to set each individual device in the scene manually as an individual line item in the "THEN" section of a program, seems unsatisfying, and I haven't found in trial and error or searching here and elsewhere for a more elegant way that works. Related question is, if one of the items in that scene is a KPL button, how do you turn that one button on (or off)? Mitch

That's a very good question and I did verify nothing else runs at that time. And a good idea to adjust the time to something else. I'm debugging this one item at a time, even to the point of not reseting the device. Did that the first time last night.

Hi - thank you for that. Great minds work alike. Yesterday I returned home, no change after making the changes to that program. Lights did not turn on but the record shows it executed on schedule. So I started from scratch, deleted the program, recreated it identically, and I did a power off-power on with the ISY994i. What is so strange is that when I made a change to the program to turn the lights on about 2 hours after sunset I sat there until the exact minute and watched the lights snap on. We'll see when I get home, y young daughter definitely lets me know that the lights didn't go on. My next step will be to do the on-off condition you mentioned, someone else suggested that and it has the additional advantage of being clearer, cleaner, and one program. After that I might implement the beta firmware. Mitch

I did just that - I confirmed that the program ran, it ran as true, and there is no other reference to "Christmas Tree" anyplace in the system.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to do a rigorous test because maybe something's different and magical about "before sunset" that makes it fail. But I did just to a test with a specific time and I watched it run correctly, lights went on. I then ran it for 1 hour 58 minutes after sunset and it also turned the lights on correctly. I'm wondering if something got corrupted in the program "IF" clause somehow, bet it works tomorrow. Stay turned!

Good suggestions all. See the screenshot of the "Christmas Lights off", triggers at 2:00 AM. Nothing unusual, and when I got up this morning they were indeed off. See the screenshot of activity, it shows that today, 30 minutes prior to sunset at 4:02 that program ran. I gather that it ran "TRUE" according to that report and should have turned those lights on. They did not today! I did Kush's advice to select a THEN item, update, and save, will see what I come home to tomorrow. It did turn off the green stripe, it was fooled into thinking it is a fresh program that hasn't run an IF yet. If nothing works, I will convert to the THEN ELSE construct instead of separate On and Off programs and see what happens. Gary Funk: Thanks for testing it. What is your ISY Firmware? Mine is 4.6.2, the current non-beta. Maybe there's a bug. Oberkc: My basis for feeling that the program isn't working is the fact that the lights do not turn on. Two of them have no switch, they are LampLincs that no one would mess with and I rely on the program to turn them on and off. The current state of the tree one for example is "Off" so ISY thinks it's off too. I just ran the "Then" and everything snapped on like it should. If nothing works tomorrow after the Update/Save trick above, I will convert to the THEN ELSE construct instead of separate On and Off programs and see what happens.

Back home. If that is true, then when I activate the "Then" manually they should be promptly turned off by that rogue program. I'll post the lights off program next.

Currently I have two programs - the one shown at disk (-30 min from sunrise) to turn on and one triggered at 1:00am to turn off. Why has this arrangement worked before but not now? But probably clearer and cleaner the way you describe. Mitch

Never had this happen before, a program for turning on the Christmas Light SL's and a Lamplinc for 30 minutes prior to sunset. It doesn't trigger! When I "Run Then" manually, bam it's fine. Why isn't this triggering? I confirmed the time of day down by ISY994i is correct. See screenshot. That's right, we have a leg lamp. By the way, the green stripe means that the condition is true. What does it mean in a situation like this where the condition is only true for an instant when the specific time arrives? Mitch

Playing around with IFTTT for the first time, Portal all set with the correct settings, key established, and on IFTTT.COM configured with a simple inbound IFTTT event consisting of trigger of Alexa "say a specific phrase" and the "That" is Maker to send a web request to the Portal's configured URL for a program. It doesn't work, including via a test of the applet on the IFTTT website. When going in to review the settings I see that the "Method", which I had set to "Post" goes back to "Get", I assume that's the issue. Why won "Post" stick? Mitch

I figured it out but I'm confused. I had two ISYs on one Amazon Alexa account. I had the "preferred ISY" designated as the one at my other home from where I am working now. I changed that and it works fine now. Which proves I do not understand what "preferred ISY" means. When I issue commands at either home it controls devices even at the other location. This isn't what I want so I'm probably going to create a separate Alexa account for the other home so there's no crosstalk. Thanks all for the help, if anyone knows how things are supposed to be done with two ISYs on one account I'm interested to learn!

I made a second test program and added some different synonyms and no go. But AHA - the "donkey" program does NOT appear at all in the list of devices even after multiple discoveries. There's no mistake, the ISY portal does show the "Donkey" when adding from the "Programs" tab and it's stored properly, and still it doesn't get sent through to my Echo Dot or the App.

Thanks... Yes to having performed "discover devices". I have the ISY Optimized for Smart Home V2, was just trying everything possible. Doing "Run Then" performs the desired test program correctly. "Alexa turn on donkey", response "Sorry, I couldn't find a device or group named donkey in Mitchell's account". I wish I could put in a screenshot. The thing that doesn't seem right is that there's no "IF" condition in this program.

I've had he Echo Dot working fine with the ISY Portal for devices and scenes. Just tried to add an ISY994i Program. It adds fine, with the correct spoken command, as a program, I'm looking right at it on the ISY Portal. Spoken command is there - random test word "Donkey". I have the program with the desired action, just a test light to go on, in "THEN". I have no conditions under "IF". "Alexa, turn on Donkey". "Alexa, turn on program Donkey". "Alexa, ask izzy to turn on Donkey". Nothing works and I'm at a dead end after researching. What am I doing wrong?? Mitch

Don't know if it's important but the KPL is V.29 and the Switchlinc is V.27. I'm about ready to replace the KPL to see what effect that has. Maybe the SL also. We did have a power surge recently that fried one SL elsewhere, maybe one of these or both is now faulty. ISY994i is v. 4.5.1, not sure if it'd help to upgrade. I just tried moving the ISY994i to another location, no change.

Right, I pulled the reset/power button on its Switchlinc so it's not getting power, it's a transformer for low voltage lights.

Thanks, actually what started this was loss of a link between that KPL and a different scene, I had to remove the device, factory reset it, convert to 8 button, add device again, and now creating the links again and encountering more issues with the 1011. I just factory reset and restored and a bunch of 1011s resulted. I factory reset it, removed, and added it back in and even just adding that Island Switchlinc results in that device showing 1011. Multiple update commands no change. I do have one transformer in the house, but it's off. However, I air gapped that switch and still won't update and get rid of that 1011 green flag.

Normally creating links has not been a problem but at a couple locations I keep getting the "1011" green arrow after a period of writing. See photo. The strange thing is, when finished the link is working with the switches. Multiple "write updates to device" attempts don't make the flag go away. Perhaps related, I have three KPLs, including this one, which are piggybacked on top of another switch, i.e. a new hole cut in the wall and the KPL powered by splicing into the power supply for other switches. In these three locations, communications are anything but "Instant" like INSTEON is supposed to mean, you press the button and it takes anywhere from half a second to a second or even two to respond. So, are these issues related? Any cure for the sluggish responses from KPLs that aren't replacement switches but rather added on in this way? I've tried everything looking for interference sources and moving the ISY has made no difference.

Michel's advice seemed to help, I did have one crash but none since. I didn't know about this Admin Console, much more convenient to fire up, that's for sure.

Thanks, I thought I saw it. Another interesting question is, what about a second home? I'll be installing one at the cabin. Not very rustic! But I wonder if I'll have to set up a second account with Amazon. In fact I am thinking I'll have to purchase another portal.

Hard to put into the title alone. You have a Dot in the Living Room and one in the Kitchen. Is there a way to say "turn on the lights" and it knows which room to activate? For now, I'm OK with saying "turn on living room lights" and "turn on kitchen lights". Mitch

On my Mac bringing up the ISY994i Java app as usual and have been getting the pictured error dialog box below. If I hit the "Continue" button it comes up three more times and after that fourth button press things seem normal... and it happens again later seemingly randomly. Doing firmware upgrade (4.5.1) made no difference. UI is 4.2.1.18. Java upgrade made no difference. Computer restart no difference Any ideas? Mitch