apostolakisl

It sounds like you either need to subscribe to a dynamic dns service (like dyndns or no-ip) or get ISY portal. If power went out and your home gateway was assigned a new ip by your ISP upon reboot, there is nothing that ISY can do about that. A dynamic DNS company keeps track of your current WAN IP address by running an application on some device inside your network that informs the dynamic dns server of your current WAN IP every time it changes. Many routers have this application built in, as does Elk XEP. The dynamic dns company allows you to assign a URL to your home and it translates that URL into whatever your current IP is. Your URL choice is limited to the format they provide you, unless you want to buy your own. For example, a URL might be joe-blow.no-ip.biz where the "joe-blow" part was of your choosing. ISY portal service works by a plug-in on the ISY that opens a connection to the ISY portal. Because the connection originates at your end, the fact that your home IP address changed doesn't matter. The portal is owned and operated by UD on some server somewhere and its address never changes, so both you and your ISY can always find it on the internet. The service costs $50/2 years which allows UD to operate the server. The portal then relays all communications between you (when you are outside your home) and your ISY. As far as your LAN. You can configure your ISY to have a fixed IP, but be sure to keep good records of what you have assigned to what address. If you duplicate and address you will have problems. Also, you must set your router's DHCP to a range that does not include the IP addresses you are assigning your ISY (and other stuff). Generally speaking, assigning devices fixed IP's within the device is not the best way to do it. The best way to keep a LAN device on the same IP is typically to use a feature most routers have. This is called DHCP reservation, and it allows you to set your router to always provide any given device the same IP. In this case, you leave your ISY set to receive a DHCP address from your router. Your router will then always give it the same address, the address you told it to give it in the dhcp reservation configuration page. The router will recognize your ISY by its MAC address and it is the MAC address that you use to configure the router's reservation.

Can you arm/disarm from the ISY main console? Perhaps try going to config/elk and hit refresh topology. I too have Echo set to arm system. I see no security flaw in this. I suppose if you had no keypads in your house to see the red light and just trusted that it happened, you might be trusting too much. But I say "amazon trigger alarm on" and it turns on and I see red lights on all my keypads. If you had no keypads visible you could easily write a rule in elk to do something when it becomes armed to confirm that it got the message. Like send a text or chirp the siren or speak something or who knows what else.

I built an 8 outlet controller, but this thing would be easier. I wrote it up in here a while ago. I used a 4 gang electric box, 4 duplex receptacles with the tab that ties the two outlets together broken off, and wired each outlet to one relay each. Then I used my CAI webcontrol board to control the 8 relays. I had to use a relay board with the opto-isolated deal that only draws minimal current since cai can't power the 30mA or so that relays pull. Anyway, I wrote code on the CAI itself that controls the 8 outlets. The purpose is to turn on the outlets on a schedule with each one having an external hard drive attached. This was for running backups, one for each day of the week, with the hard drives powered off while not doing a backup. I could have also used the ISY network module to turn the CAI outputs on/off (and thus the relays) if I had wanted. Comparing what I did to the controller I started off this thread with. 16 vs 8 relays, cheaper (less then 1/2 the price per relay), only controllable externally (web) vs either local programming or external.

I actually pulled out the relay boards with those same songle relays. They are 10a 120vac rated NO/NC. It would seem that the relay board and the webcontrol board are 2 separate pieces. The webcontrol board is less liked than the relay board as I read comments. Looks like you should be able to control with ISY network module simply sending http commands. Example: http://192.168.1.4/30000/00 turns relay 1 off. http://192.168.1.4/30000/01 turns relay 1 on. So you have to divide by 2 since the relays get consecutively numbered with 2 commands per relay. And it looks like you need 12v to power the relay board and 5v to power the web board. The 12v part is pretty much 100% correct as I have similar boards and I know for a fact the relay coils use 12v

Based on the photos of the relays, which appear to be the same as relays I have on other things, as well as the screw terminals, they are spdt (both normally open and normally closed options, and are 10amp each.

I accidentally came across this on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/SainSmart-Web-TCP-IP-10A-Relay-Remote-Control-Kit-with-Network-Web-Server-16-/262734678764?hash=item3d2c350aec:g:bQ8AAOSwImRYOLx1 16 relay board with an IP interface. I would expect that with the network module you would be able to control these relays with ISY avoiding Insteon issues and getting a nearly instant response. I haven't actually tried this, but you certainly aren't going to find a cheaper way to have 16 relays run by ISY.

So my son ordered a dvd which we did not catch, and then he ordered the pig, which we did catch. I had turned off the voice ordering feature on our first echo, but didn't realize you have to turn it off for each one and we had purchased a second one. It is now off as well. But here is the funny thing. A news story was done on tv about a girl who ordered a very expensive doll house on alexa. So when they did the tv report and spoke the words, people who had echo's in ear shot of their tv started ordering doll houses. My wife just filled me in on the details. Apparently, he asked her for the pig first, she said no of course. Then, 15 minutes later he returned to tell my wife "it's ok mommy, I asked amazon in your office, and she said yes".

We had some stuff show up from Amazon that we didn't order. ??? Then today, my wife witnessed my 3 year old order a piggy bank from Amazon using Alexa. I would not have thought that would be active by default. Of course my 3 year old thought he was ordering a live pig. Good thing Amazon doesn't sell those.

25 year old washers didn't spin like the new ones. The new ones haul ***, originally it was just the front loaders, but now the top loaders do also. Part of the "eco friendly" thing where it extracts more water out of the clothes so they don't need to spend so long in the dryer. And it does work pretty well.

It's not all that surprising though. The high speed spin cycle is freakin fast. Throw an unbalanced load in there and all you need is a failure of the "unbalanced load detector" and that bugger has no prayer of staying in one piece.

I've got two Samsung washers. Front load though. Best washing machines I have ever owned. Hopefully it won't explode on me.

You use one of your open relays and connect 3 wires. NO, common, NC. The NC and NO can connect either way, you just write your Elk program (or ISY program) to accommodate what you wrote. In other words, you either turn the Elk output on to open the valve, or you turn it on to close the valve. As a fail safe measure, you might go with turning the output on to open the valve. In this way, if the relay dies, it probably will fail such that the valve closes. The elk has a 4th wire that is a signal wire that is optional. This powers on when the valve is, I think, open. You can connect that to a zone (but you don't have any). Some of the keypads have a zone on them, so you could theoretically open up a zone on your panel by switching something over to a keypad.

A hardwired connection to your Elk is pretty fail safe. Insteon communications are not nearly as reliable. Of course if you are using Insteon water detectors you still have comm issue potential there. There is no special compatibility regarding and Elk valve used with an Elk relay vs some other brand. ElkWSV needs a single pole double throw relay (normally open and normally closed connections). Other brands probably have the same requirement. I have my elk wsv wired to my elk panel and have the water turn off 30 minutes after the system is armed to away mode, plus I have hard wired water detectors throughout the house. I also have one at my office that works the same, except it shuts the water off immediately since my office alarm system isn't smart enough to have options like wait 30 minutes.

MWareman meant to say "event driven" not "even driven". A typo that would be challenging to figure out. Basically it means you have to think in sense of triggers. In the below example at least one of the 2 conditions must be a triggering item and the programs would only run when the trigger event happens. Either that or the programs below would need to be externally triggered (ie a 3rd program that says "run if" of these programs as part of its then/else clauses. For example, if a condition where the "status" of a switch, the trigger would be a change in the status of the light. If the condition were a "control" of a switch, it would require that someone physically acted upon the switch (pushed it in some way). As mentioned, 2 programs If condition 1 and condition 2 Then do x Else blank If not condition 1 and condition 2 Then y Else blank

This is a little off topic from what you are saying but in the same line. I was looking at some example code that has been written for Amazon to control DirecTV receivers. It appears that you can avoid the IFTTT thing alogether and go direct from a custom Alexa skill to your ISY. Based on my first run through, it looks like you can parse everything directly and substitute variables. For example, you might say, Alexa change channel to <name of channel here or number> and it will either plug in the number you say or look up the name you say and substitute the number. In my mind this is the best way to work all of this as it has the least number of moving parts.

That is a good idea. You can pretty much get an older android device for free. I still have one of my first ever android phones (like maybe 10 years old) still running on my bedside table. I have my Sprint phone number linked to google voice which then rings my hangouts dialer on the phone. In short, it is a bedside phone that ensures I don't miss a phone call during the night if my normal phone is left elsewhere in the house. Interestingly, the hangouts rings at least once if not twice before my actual cell phone rings the first time. Good to hear your autoalarm works. Maybe I'll try adding it to my Tasker profile.

That's a good one.

Yes, it is. I guess I should have realized that when he said he had mobilinc hd. So, aside from tasker, I don't think anything exists that will take your phones built-in alarm clock and not only trigger a url event at the alarm but also be able to do something at a time x minutes prior to the set alarm. Tasker is by itself reason enough to go android.

I believe this will do what you need. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autoalarm&hl=en You also need to buy tasker (only $3 I think?) If you only plan on using this when your phone is on you local wifi, no need to mess with port forwarding. If you plan on using outside of your LAN, you will either need the ISY portal or setup https and port forwarding. EDIT: And you'll have to of course learn how to use tasker. Tasker is pretty awesome if you have the desire to figure it all out.

Question: If decided to go with the Portal, as it seems to be smoother for echo than using IFTTT. I still can keep my port forwarding as is and use it also, right? It doesn't shut down the network module functionality as it already exists? I do understand that if I stop paying for the portal, my network module doesn't get re-instated?

My little one is 3.5. He can run my android phone far better than my parents. He has mastered voice requesting songs and videos he likes using ok google and cortana. He likes low riders (which sadly often have a lot of foul language) and sings the song by War quite well, he loves monster trucks, and lots of other kid videos including paw patrol. Thank God he got tired of Blippy, oh was he annoying. You can't let that kid watch you do anything even once unless you are OK with him doing it, cause he remembers. He figured out how to log into my phone, open my video camera app, browse to the one in his bedroom, and point the camera away from his bed (he figured out we use it to spy on him). Or just for fun he figured out how to turn the speaker on and he talks to himself (there is a roughly 1/2 second delay which he thinks is hilarious). It is amazing how he remembers where all the icons are on the phones for the apps he likes, he just flips through at warp speed to get to the ones he wants.

Actually already did that since I have a daughter named Alexis. I did it this morning before he woke up. I'm sure by the time I get home tonight he will have figured out the new name.

Oh great, there is a button to turn the mic off. He'll find it and "test it" soon I'm sure. At least now I know about it too to turn it back on when he turns it off. I had to turn off the panic buttons on the alarm system after several events there as well.

The fact that you had a child at the time. I was probably biologically capable of having a child in the trash 80 days, but only in my w** dreams did I actually execute the task.

How does portal stop my 3 year old from changing the music every 5 seconds and setting like a dozen timers and asking for the weather for every day of the week, one day at a time? Ohhhhhh how I hope he loses interest soon.