apostolakisl

Oh wow, you are oooooolllllllldddddddld.

My echo came. I came home and the house was empty. I quickly had Alexa turning lights on/off with IFTTT. Then trouble came. My wife and 3 year old came home. My 3 year old is fixated. He will not leave her alone. He is turning the lights on/off, he is checking the weather every 10 seconds, he is setting timers, he is playing music, he is asking Alexa questions that I don't understand, but somehow alexa does. On the bright side, I don't know that I have ever seen him so happy. He just asked Alexa to play songs by 21 pilots. Who is 21 pilots and how does my 3 year old know them!?

So it sounds the same, only that the portal spoon feeds you the REST string rather than going to the wiki and looking it up. I wasn't sure if the IFTTT had dedicated ISY portal applets ready to go.

The portal is easy. But realize that IFTTT works directly using REST commands to your ISY without the portal. Not sure how you do the setup with the portal but I have played around using IFTTT to turn lights on off. IFTTT has a "that" command where you can send GET commands. So far I just tested by sending emails to my IFTTT account that turn lights on/off. It surprisingly responds in just a few seconds, presumably that is the email server. Ordered an Amazon echo yesterday so when I get that things will get going in full.

Yes to all above. 1) Get a Dynamic DNS company so you can give your home a name and have it forward to whatever your current IP is. I use no-ip.com. I pay like $20 every couple years for like 25 and I have dynamic dns setup for my office, my home, my parents, my inlaws, my church, etc. Reasons are 2: 1) Your home Ip address can change, this tracks it. 2) It is easier to remember something like jo-blo.no-ip.biz than some random set of numbers that might change at any random time. 2) Setup your ISY with a self signed certificate. Instructions on the wiki 3) Setup router with a reserved address for your ISY. This way you leave your ISY on DHCP mode and your router always gives it the same address. Keeps you from accidentally having two things on the same LAN IP and also helps you if you forget the address since you can look it up on your router. 4) Port forward 443 external to port 443 internal at the ip address you chose for your ISY in step 3. When you first log into your ISY using the secure port, you will get an java error telling you that the certificate is invalid. This is because it is self signed. You need to go into the JAVA exceptions and give your ISY an exception. Self Signed are still encrypted, the difference is that you have to trust that person at the other end is who they say they are. Since the person at the other end is you, you can probably trust yourself. I suppose someone could setup some elaborate spoofing scheme to trick you into thinking you have accessed your own ISY when in fact you have accessed their server, but that is a seriously complicated thing to do to get control of someone's ISY.

oberkc is correct. I do not understand the problem the OP is having. The OP's program does not know the status of the device/scene and does not respond to the status or change in status. You can turn the lights on/off as many times as you want during the day or night, the OP's program will not care about any of that and will leave the lights alone excepting that it: 1) Run "then" statement at "from" time 2) Run "else" statement at "to" time In fact, the then and else could both turn things on, or each could do things completed unrelated to each other. If the problem is that you want to temporarily disable the program so that it does not execute the then or else, then you can add additional clauses to allow for an override, or you can write a second program that disables this program. For example, I have a background light scene in my house which turns on scattered lights throughout the house at sunset and turns them off at 11pm. If I am having a party, I don't want the lights to shut off at 11pm. So, I have a kpl with a button I use as override. A second program monitors the status of that button, if the button is on, it disables the from/to program.

Ditto. I mostly lean toward it is a money making scheme for the people who make this stuff. At least in my particular circumstance in my commercial property the fire sprinkler system has been a complete disaster. There are all kinds of problems with sprinklers system related to MIC (micro-bacterial induced corrosion). It destroys the pipes and after 10 to 20 years the systems are filled with holes. In my case, holes blew out in the middle of night and put tens of thousands of gallons of water into my office. Yes, a large swimming pool of water. At 120 psi a lot of water can come out of 3 x 1/2 inch holes over 8 hours. Of course they have decided to use pvc for some sprinklers, but who knows what issues those systems will have. They thought iron pipe was so awesome 20 years ago . .. what could go wrong . . .the answer is lots. My expectation would be that: 1) A properly working interconnected smoke detector in a 2 or fewer story building is just as effective at protecting life. And 2) The cost benefit would be negative. I would expect that the amount of fire damage prevented by a sprinkler system would be vastly over run by the huge cost of installing them in every single dwelling, of which 99.9 plus % never catch on fire. Not to mention the costs that would arise with a false triggering of the system and the general maintenance costs. Plus I imagine there will be mandatory testing (as is required for my office) adding a couple grand of expenses every few years and then the repairs that will follow from those inspections. I wouldn't be surprised if your insurance not only doesn't give you a discount, but raises your rates if you have one. In short, the world contains a limited number of resources and I truly doubt that mandating sprinkler systems in standard single family homes will ever be a good way to allocate those limited funds. I see it as a pet project for some busy body bureaucrats who having nothing to do but try and figure out ways to justify their own existence and a bunch of industry lobby people encouraging them. Basically, it means everyone just got less house for the same amount of money, or they now just can't afford a house at all.

It is in the IRC code, but most states have removed it. Here are the ones that did not. California: Effective January 1, 2011, the California Building Standards Commission approved the State Fire Marshal's Building, Fire and Residential Code adoption packages for the 2010 California Building Standards Codes, including its requirements for residential fire sprinklers in all new one-and two-family dwellings and townhome construc­tion statewide. More about fire sprinkler codes in California. Maryland: The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development has adopted the 2015 International Residential Code, including its requirement for automatic fire sprinklers in new, one- and two- family dwellings. Maryland law prohibits local jurisdictions from weakening the sprinkler requirement in their building code adoptions. Effective January 1, 2011, all new residences in the District of Columbia are required to have fire sprinklers. Plus the states of Colorado and Washington, while not adopting statewide IRC requirements for sprinklers, have allowed local jurisdictions to require them, and some have.

I do believe that there are places where code now requires fire suppression sprinklers in all new construction single family homes. I think you can guess where those places might be. I'm going to assume that code in those places calls for a separate service for the sprinkler. At least in my commercial building sprinkler system, there is a completely separate hookup to the water main. This hookup does not have a pressure regulator, it pulls the full street pressure. My building has a dry system. The sprinkler system is a very expensive system prone to failure and has literally caused over $300,000 in damage plus about $100,000 in maintenance over the last decade. So far it hasn't put out any fires. I don't doubt that the fire protection lobby has just a little to do with the codes.

Yes, the Elk indicator is even more direct than gear. It is the top of the shaft that is the same piece of metal that is the ball. A misalignment would literally mean the stainless steal post (which is roughly 1/4 inch diameter) was snapped. I have run my Elk through thousands of cycles. It has been in place for 7 years and turns on/off every time we arm/disarm the alarm to away. So, on average, perhaps 2 cycles per day.

Not sure how this valve works, but the Elk valve runs in circles. It has cams affixed to the valve post. The cams trigger limit switches. So it could never get out of calibration unless the set screws were not screwed down. There is essentially no friction on the cams as the turn, just a very light rub on the limit switch.

Without setting your router to port forward, you can't access your ISY, or anything for that matter from outside your network. That is, unless you instead subscribe to a service like ISY portal that keeps the port open for you. But I am confused do you have two ISY's on the same network? You must have port forwarding setup already if you are accessing one ISY from a network other than the one you are currently located in.

I use a dynamic dns server. Assuming your router has nat loopback, you can use the external dns name both from within and from outside the LAN. I use no-ip as my dynamic dns provider. It is like $20 or something for a couple years for a whole bunch of DNS names. I have a name for my home and a name for my office and I donated a bunch of other names to friends and family. For example it could be (but isn't) home.no-ip.biz office.no-ip.biz I then use those in my ISY finder and it is quite obvious which is which. no-ip.com has a bunch of naming choices, it doesn't only have .no-ip.biz, there are like 50 choices. You can also pay extra to have it track a proprietary domain name that you own. For no-ip to track your IP address, should it ever change, you need something on your network that will update it. I have some foscam cameras at both home and work that have no-ip as a built-in service. Some brands of routers have no-ip as a built-in service. My Elk allows you to manually configure it to any service. If all else fails, you can run a background updater on a pc in your network. As it turns out, however, most of your ISP's never change your IP unless you replace your modem or they do some service on their network. If you don't have an automatic updater on your network, you'll have to manually set your IP using no-ip website anytime your IP address changes. What I have said here applies to pretty much all the dynamic dns providers. Enter https://yourdynamicdnsname into ISY finder and then it will show it just like that every time you run it in the future. be sure to have port forwarding on for the secure port.

In reality, it really doesn't matter what the temp is. You just need to look for a rise indicating start and fall indicating end. If it were me, I would use a cai board and a 1-wire waterproof probe. I would do it that way because it is pretty cheap, because I know how to write the code in about 10 minutes on a cai, and because I know it would do what I want. Alternatively, you could look for an open/close circuit temp sensor. They make these things, but exactly where you buy it I don't know. Basically, when the temp goes above some set point, it opens a contact. It is a mechanical thing, like an old fashion thermostat. That plus an iolinc would accomplish the same result.

Also, if you have unfinished basement under the shower, you can drill a hole in the drain line and put a temp probe, sealing it up with epoxy. Put it on the side of the pipe just before it falls into the trap and it will only be warm while water is actively flowing down the drain and washing over the probe. Once the shower ends, the probe will quickly cool off since it will be touching only air.

Looks about like the specs I saw. 2 brands I found, one was 3.75 and the other 5 inch radius. 3.75 you could probably make work given the extra 1/2 inch of sheet rock. Of course the 3.75/5 was the inside radius, so you lose the 1/2 inch or so to the other side of the pipe where it is pressed against the sheetrock on the other side of the wall.

1) Motion sensor in the shower for detecting showers lasting too long. 2) flow metering is just more detailed flow sensing and can be bought for about the same price, depending on the model. 3) flow sensors (on/off) style have lots of complaints on amazon about flow restriction, not seen that with flow meters 4) monitoring a flow meter doesn't cost any more than monitoring a flow sensor, just different parts (cai board vs i/o linc) 5) putting a flow meter or sensor on your water lines is going to involve two fittings, seems to be against your basic premise of getting rid of connections. 6) the title of this thread is ". . .shut off valve. . .", so it seemed like that was what we were talking about.

Just did some research. Pex 1/2 inch bend radius varies, but 3.75 to 5 inches is the range I found. Can't do that in a 2x4 wall, at least not to a nice perfect 90 degree poke out of the wall. I did see where people used a chrome sleeve over the pex sticking out of the floor to dress it up. Suppose you could do it for a wall fitting too if you had a 2x6 wall to make the bend. EDIT: Did see where some people had like 30 output manifolds. Totally doable, just a lot of pipe.

Fair enough, but mine was new. Certainly I know you and I can do this and not do any damage, but if a completely unrelated failure occurred and they found evidence of you tinkering in there, they'd say you voided your warranty. Plus, it is just so easy to plug in the synchrolinc and write a single short program and your done. No screwdriver needed and it takes 3 minutes.

I've seen this idea used elsewhere. It is probably a very good way to look for hot water usage, except it doesn't really tell you when it shut off very accurately since it take a while to cool off.

Seriously, is this what you are doing? Home running every single fixture? Running pex directly into the toilet or sink? How are making these observations a bother?

And voids the warranty.

You said you wanted to stop your kids from taking 30 minute showers. I guess you'll just go in there and turn it off by hand, or yell at them? Certainly I've done the latter. Maybe you can time their showers and make a spreadsheet and base their allowance off of it?

I suppose then you mean my plumber used the wrong fittings. But he did not. Failure rates are not zero for anything. I've got to see how you are going to set up your house without using a single elbow or t. I guess you are going to have a manifold at the main house valve with a home run line to every single individual water using device so as to avoid any T fittings? Even in a small house, that would probably be 50 pipes. Easily could be over 100 in a larger house with washing machines, dish washers, multiple kitchen sinks, 6 or 7 lines to each bathroom, multiple refrigerators, utility sinks, hose bibs, and so on and so on. You say it is a ranch, so I guess if you are going in your attic, and your attic is inside the house insulation envelope. You can turn the corner easily to go down the walls from the attic, yes. But there is no way you are going to turn out at the wall for your sink, toilet, and at similar locations. The standard is to crimp on to a copper pipe that mounts to the stud and pokes through the wall for your sink or toilet valve attachment. Pex won't do a 90 turn in 3.5 inches and even if it did, you still have to crimp onto a valve, and if you were to do that, you would have the flexible blue/red pipe poking through the wall looking a little goofy and not very stable since pex flexess. But no matter what, you still have to do a crimp of some sort at least once.

You just put a wait in the program. So if it turns back on again in less than the time allowed, the program that send the text message terminates. So, in fact, I don't get a text message the second the washer finishes, I (by I, I mean my wife) gets the text message 3 minutes later.