apostolakisl

Yeah, I guess you didn't read my post. There are already quite a few devices including the one I linked.

Thanks to Javier with the help on the python scripts. I have this all working great. Phone via Tasker sets a state variable to 1 (home) or 0 (away) on ISY. I use wifi connected to home as the tasker trigger. ISY via a program that triggers on change in that variable to post to my PC running EventGhost that I am home or away. EventGhost via a python script (not the ones here) runs an Auto Hot Key script that opens internet explorer, IE is set to home page of google voice settings, the ahk script checks to see if my cell phone is being copied to my home, if it should be changed, then it changes it, then it closes internet explorer. I have myself logged into google voice so no user/pass is needed since it is held in a cookie. I have a nearly identical script on firefox that does the same thing for my wife and keeps her logged in. I use chrome for my regular browsing which is why i use ie and firefox for this. The long and short of it is that when I am home (or I guess I should say when my cell phone is home), the home phones ring when someone calls my cell phone and when not at home it doesn't. Same for my wife.

I would still use a magnetic reed switch. It requires no pressure to activate, is even cheaper yet, and has no risk of obstructing air flow either from preventing the flapper function or from a dedicated sail that could hang up on lint or something.

There are systems out there that use algorithms to identify water consumption that fits the pattern of a leak and shut the water off. This isn't perfect since it would not stop a major water line rupture (like a hose burst on your washer) for a while, but at least it wouldn't run for hours. It also is good at finding trickle leaks or things like a running toilet. http://www.flologic.com/ That is just one. There are others.

You could attach that to the flapper instead of an alarm contactor. Again, wire to an IO linc except the logic would be opposite. Probably you don't even need to drill a hole to get the wire inside. Odds are you could poke a wooden shishkabob skewer through the same hole the vent goes through right next to it. Likely it is sealed by some spray foam insulation that the skewer would pass right through.

Using the flapper on the vent outside with a magnetic alarm contactor would effectively be a sail switch. Assuming you have a straight shot out your house behind the drier, you would just need to drill an 1/8 inch hole right through from outside to inside next to the vent and your wire to the alarm contactor would now be inside the house sitting behind the drier where you could connect it to an IO linc. circuit open=drier running, circuit closed=drier off

And that is how you monitor a drier.

Any chance you can post an example of a REST command as a python script in EG?

It happened again. The ISY plugin for eventghost does refer to the connection as a "subscription". It reported "Insteon.Subscription - Closed 192.168.1.9:80" in the EG log. The person who wrote the plugin would have been responsible for calling it a subscription, and from the standpoint of EG, I think it might be reasonable to call it a subscription, but not vice-versa. I don't know why it is doing this. If I restart Eventghost, it works fine. But this plugin seems way to unstable to use for this purpose. I am hoping to get the network resource method described elsewhere to work, however, Trouble is, I can't get any content to show in Event ghost. I probably need some forward slashes or something in the body to get it to work, but I just don't know what. At present, EG just reports that it received a "broadcast" when I run the resource, but there is no content. EDIT: OK, I just forget to hit the "save" at the bottom of the network resource page after hitting "save" on the event itself. Now it shows whatever I type in the body section. Errrrrgggg. I find this needing to hit save multiple times to actually have something save frustrating. Can't hitting "save" on the actual resource actually save it to ISY instead of just my local java window?

Seems you got a good deal. You can make your own current sensor by taking a strand of fine wire and wrapping one of the 2 hot wires maybe 30 times or so and then wrapping the same wire around a screw about 30 times and then splicing the two ends of that wire together to make an electrical loop. You'll turn the screw into an electro magnet. The magnet can then be placed next to a magnetic alarm contact. When the drier is on, it will power the magnet and close the alarm contactor circuit. On my drier, you could do it without unhooking anything since the outer sheath of insulation doesn't make it all the way into the drier. At the back of the drier there is about an inch where the 4 separate wires are exposed. The guy from Lowe's installed the drier, so not sure if he was supposed to secure the wire inside the drier. Anyway, no need to mess with it, it is fine.

I didn't say to do that. I said to put an alarm contactor on the dryer vent flapper door. Opening your drier and playing with the wires would void your warranty. I suppose you could manage to keep it clean and undo it if needed. But I think the alarm contact on the drier vent would work very well and pose no hazard.

they used to tie the ground and neutral together. Bad idea to do that, but it works.

I'm pretty sure that code calls for all driers to have 4 prong outlets for quite a few years now.

The best thought I have had on this is to put an alarm contactor on the flapper outside to tell when the dryer is on. You can use an io linc to monitor the contactor. Most other ideas involve doing things that would void your warranty on the dryer, be unsafe, violate code, or all of the above. Having said that, I haven't actually put a contactor on my dryer vent flapper. But I can't see why it wouldn't work. Plus, if it fails to close because of lint or whatever, it can make you aware of that fact as well. I've been meaning to do it, I just haven't.

This looks interesting. I am seeing this as 1) ISY broadcasts every event as a result of the network resource to anyone listening 2) Eventghost listens on port 33333 via the EG broadcast plugin EDIT: OK, I have this sort of working. When I run the network resource, I just get "broadcast" as the event in EG. How do I get something specific?

I see that this plugin has a heartbeat. I assumed that the heartbeat was an event received from ISY, but it would seem instead that the heartbeat is generated by eventghost plugin for ISY and is designed to keep the connection open. Though the heartbeat is about every 30 seconds, not 2 seconds. EDIT: I also noted that my ISY admin console had lost its connection. This happens often for me. And frequently there is a hidden window when this happens. I have to hit the tab key and return to close the window, which I never end up seeing, before I can move on. Otherwise every click on the ISY console just gives me a "ding" noise.

I don't really know anything about how the plugin works, it is written in python I believe, but regardless, I don't know whatever it is. I can say that with the plugin running, all ISY events get sent to eventghost and I can pick any of these events as triggers. This connection established by the plugin just closes for no reason that I can tell. There isn't an error, it just says it closed. ????? Anyway, I need it to not do that!

It would seem that this is happening to me. I have a message on the eventghost log that just says connection closed (or something to that effect) with the ISY IP address after it (I already deleted the log by doing a restart and don't remember the exact language it used). EDIT: The closing of the connection shows up as an event on eventghost and as such, I should be able to use that event to trigger a macro. The macro could run autohotkey script that closes and restarts eventghost. Since I already cleared the log, I can't copy that event into a macro, but next time it happens I'll be sure to do that. I believe this is the second time in 24 hours that it has done this. Alternatively, does anyone know if I could skip the subscription to ISY and use the network module to have ISY push a message to eventghost to trigger a macro? I really don't need eventghost to track everything in ISY, just the home/away variable.

This would work great provided you don't want the light to ever be on aside from when the motion sensor triggers it. Turning the light on manually will trigger the program (a "status" line in a program triggers every time the status of said device changes), it will evaluate to false (since the control on motion sensor line will be false), the else clause will run, and 20 seconds later the light turns off.

I'm not sure why you are defining it that way. HA is the goal, not what is part of ISY or not part of ISY. I suppose the people at echo could say the same thing in reverse about ISY. Anything external to echo is an enhancement from their perspective. The people at Smarthome would certainly say that about ISY also. Anything external to Insteon devices would be an enhancement from their perspective. It's all HA. And HA in general is an enhancement. If I'm putting it in, it's part of the system and expect it to work. I would rather not having the enhancement at all if it is something that is inconsistent. Inconsistent is worse than just not there at all.

Speaking of IFTTT, Tasker, and Echo. Is there any way to get any of these things (or other things) to control google voice settings? I used to have a plugin for takser that would change my google voice settings, but google changed something and the plug in now is broken and the developer either has no interest in fixing it or just can't. I used to have it set so that every time I came home and my phone connected to my wifi, it would activate my cell phone number on my google voice account causing my home phone to ring. And of course when I left, it would do the opposite. I can't find any other method to do that automatically.

I can't really agree with that. You could chip out darn near every control method as an "enhancement" to your HA using that logic.

I can't speak to IFTTT since I've never used it, but it doesn't make any sense that a signed certificate would be needed since it is geared to the masses. I do have tasker and use it without a signed certificate every day.

Just an FYI, you don't need to pay for a certificate on a private server. Paid certificates allow for a visitor to have confidence that you are authentic because a third party (the one the site bought the certificate from) says so. But if you are going to your own site, you should know that your site is authentic and all you need is encryption. Back to Echo. I think I'm going to let this Echo concept mature for another month or two and then get back to it. I'm not super excited about relying on Amazon, or Goolge or anyone offsite being responsible for my home automation. The IOT concept isn't my favorite. But, a local solution doesn't exist, at least not in any way that can compete with Echo (or Siri, or OK Google). Having said that, I would rather rely on only one offsite processor (Amazon) rather than two (Amazon and UD).

OK, I re-read it and now I see what they meant. The description could have been worded much better. It would appear that the portal includes a subscription version of the network module and if you already paid for the permanent version, they are essentially giving you a credit if you convert your permanent network module over to the subscription. But you don't have to. I still would much prefer to run this locally. Latency has to be a significant issue when adding another internet hop into the picture.