Xathros

My Energy capable ZWave devices all have parameters that define update intervals as well as update thresholds. Once configured, these devices send their data regularly and reliably. -Xathros

To add to what Jimbo provided above, the ISY Skill is available on the Echo once you get connected via the ISY Portal. That skill allows more control of things beyond On/Off/Brighten/Dim but the language is still fairly restricted. I understand that the Mobilinc Connect portal now also offers their own Alexa skill. I have no information on what the MLC skill is capable of but I would have to guess it is similar to the ISY skill. There is a fair amount of overlap between the ISY Portal and the MLC Portal. Each has a few capabilities that the other does not. I personally have never used the MLC portal but do use Mobilinc (The App) frequently. I'm quite satisfied with using Mobilinc and the ISY portal. Given your listed goals, an RPi is a necessity in my opinion. It will serve you well and the learning curve is not that bad with all of the support available here and across the internet. As for alarm integration, the Elk has direct ISY support once you purchase the Elk modiule on the ISY and the extra interface gear on the Elk side. That said, once you have the Pi, IO_guy has DSCLink and NodeLink programs that both can be used to integrate a DSC system with the ISY. In addition, IO_guy has EcoLink, VenLink and Nodelink that can be used for integrating Ecobee and Venstar WiFi thermostats and I have heard some rumors that there may even be Nest support in the works. So, as I said above, the Pi is really a necessity. Hope this helps. -Xathros PS: ISYHelper is next up on my todo list for one of my Pi's. The IFTTT piece of the Harmony puzzle is the weak link making integration iffy at best. I'll be very happy to have that whole transaction local once past the Echo voice command.

Hey Stu, Just curious... did you get this working? -Xathros

I think a TTS solution would be more flexible and allow us to custom code the responses to each use case. I expect Amazon will eventually get around to allowing this. In the meantime, I agree, the ability to set a different canned response for on and off actions would be helpful. -Xathros

Likewise with the Echo->IFTTT->ISY, Turn On/Off TV works fine for me (except for the IFTTT induced latency). As soon as I have a free weekend afternoon, I'm moving to ISYHelper and bringing this as "in-house" as I can make it. -Xathros

At the moment, Amazon is not providing the ability for us to send speech to the Echo. This is a feature a number of us are looking for and I'm hopeful that Amazon sees the light at some point. There is a thread going here on this subject: http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/18000-can-isy-use-amazon-echo-as-an-alert-device/?do=findComment&comment=164292 Hope this helps. -Xathros

Excellent. I had to leave for the office before I could do any response time tests. I will follow up again after I get to play with it this evening. From the sounds of it I should see an improvement in response times. For what its worth, the response times for me prior to the server move were already quite acceptable. -Xathros EDIT: Response time does appear to be faster now. Both time to device response and time till Alexa says "Ok" have been reduced.

Just FYI... I had to power cycle my ISY before I could regain access via Alexa/Echo. Until I did that, I was unable to rediscover my devices this morning. ISY showed online in the portal. I tried a reboot via the portal but that didn't resolve the problem. Hard reboot did the trick. -Xathros

Hey guys, This has come up a few times before so I decided to do an overview for everyone. Under the hood, the ISY stores everything by ID#s rather than names. Devices, scenes, programs, variables, network resources etc all have ID numbers. In the case of Insteon devices, the ID is the Insteon address. When looking a a program in the admin console, the device ID is replaced by the pretty name that we assigned to the device when we added or renamed the device but what the program actually references is the ID. Here is a Device on my Testbed ISY: And the device referenced in a program: Now if I delete the device, the admin console will not be able to find the ID as referenced in the program and will instead display <not specified> in place of the device and "-unsupported ruleset" for any device function referenced. Now I re-add the device using start linking and just hit the set button. I didn't give the device a name so it will just use it's ID as the name. Now lets look at the program again: As you can see, the program now shows the device and the functions have returned. I have not edited the program at all. Since the device has the same ID and nothing actually changed in the program, everything will still work as it did before. Finally, I will rename the device (Slightly different than the original name - added "_" in place of the Space): And look at the program again: Again, the name flows right into the program without any editing. The same is true for references made to the device by substitution variables in custom notifications or network resources. Now, for ZWave, things are not so simple since removing and re-adding a ZWave device will result in a new ZWave device ID thus breaking references to the previous instance of the device. In that case, search and replace is your friend. Bottom line, if you remove and re-add something and it's ID does not change during that process, no additional editing should be required. If the ID DOES change then all references to the old ID need to be updated to point to the new ID. Hope this helps increase some understanding of how this works under the hood. -Xathros

@MWareman, Thanks for all of the knowledge that you impart to this community. I have learned quite a bit from your posts and really appreciate that education. -Xathros

Any idea when 5.0.3 will roll out? As a regular user of Mobilinc, this fix will be most welcome on my ISY. -Xathros

The Connected Home method works beautifully and does not require "Asking Izzy" for the majority of things. You will still need the Izzy skill for access to thermostats and door locks, but for lighting commands, "Alexa <whatever> On/Off" or "Alexa, set <whatever> to <some>%" works like a champ. -Xathros

Or, you could use shielded cable to make the runs to the door sensors and tie to a good ground at the Pi end. -Xathros

Stu- I was under the impression that the ONLY devices Alexa could control using the Connected Home are those specifically mapped to spoken names via the portal. Otherwise, the Skill could be used to access ANY device on the selected ISY whether mapped or not. -Xathros

Hi Ron, Glad I could provide some inspiration. I have had no such issues with my setup. I wonder if your picking up some noise on the wire between the sensor and the PiFace. What are you using for sensors? Mine are just some cheap miniature reed switch/magnet combos that I picked up on eBay a while back. -Xathros

I like the method described by MWareman. -Xathros Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's the blue screen of derth... -Xathros

Hi Bob, The "URL to ISY" would be what you use to access the ISY's /rest interface from the outside world. For the admin console to work, you would need to append /desc to the end of that (making it the same as the "Admin Console URL"). -Xathros

H Bob- I agree. It would be nice if the AC Login would allow us to remember the user id and only need to enter the password. Alas, it does not. My solution is to use TextExpander on my MAC. This allows me to type a short code that expands into my full email address instantly (I use this frequently). If your on Windows, look at AutoText for the same capability. Hope this helps. -Xathros

Stu- If you add an ISY to the ISY Finder using the portal URL (as found under ISY information in the portal - see attached screenshot) for the ISY, then attempt to connect to that entry in the ISY finder, you will have to use the portal credentials to log into that console. I do this now for my office ISY which is behind a firewall that I cannot port forward through. Connecting to the ISY using it's IP address, for via port forwarding will use the ISY credentials instead. As others have pointed out above, this can be confusing as there is no indication from the admin console login dialog as to what method was used to connect. Hope this helps clarify. -Xathros

It's software only. Nothing physical will be shipping. -Xathros

It all works fine for me in Safari, Chrome and Firefox on MAC OSX 10.11.3. After filling in all of the info in the portal, all fields in this display are populated. -Xathros

Very nice job Keith. Welcome to the UDI forums. Maybe Michel could add a link to this post into post #1 of this thread to make this easier to find. -Xathros

Hi Guys, The UBI is an interesting little voice activated android computer backed by what else? ... A cloud service. Initial setup involves using a smartphone App to connect to a WiFi signal broadcast from the UBI, then using the App you can program the UBI to connect to your regular WiFi. Once that is done, you create an account in the UBI Portal and associate your UBI's ID with that account. From there, you can crete "Lessons" that define what the UBI can do. Some lessons listen for utterances then execute commands, trigger IFTTT, call URLs, play music, turn On/Off various supported IoT things etc. Unlike the Echo, you can have UBI actions triggered by an API call to the UBI portal. I use this feature to trigger a number of different announcements via ISY network resources. I do also have UBI lessons that call ISY programs for things like: Good morning, Good night, secure perimeter, Game Over (Blocks the kids XBox from my network). These are things I will transition to Echo as the Echo integration matures. UBI is capable of making local calls to the ISY's /REST interface. It does still require cloud access as that is where the voice processing takes place and the lessons are stored but the end call to the ISY happens locally from the UBI->ISY on your lan. This was a feature the I and several others lobbied for early in the UBI beta and, to my surprise, they were actually pretty quick in implementing that for us. The voice recognition in the UBI is OK. Not as good as Echo but functional. It does not work well if there is background noise from a TV or music playing. UBI false triggers quite often during normal conversation or when the TV is playing near by. That said, I've yet to see any commands executed from a false activation. UBI development is slow but seems to be steady and there is a small but fairly dedicated bunch manning the UBI forums. I haven't spent much time there recently. Last time I was there, a number of folks had bailed out to the Echo camp. There very well may be a future for UBI if development continues and it's capabilities keep growing. At the moment, compared to Echo, it feels more like an Alpha stage product. If Amazon decides not to bring announcement capabilities to the Echo, UBI could find a niche filling that void. @bernieb- If you have the UBIs already, it would be worth putting them to use. Hope that helps. -Xathros

I do this with my UBI. I have a number of announcements triggered by ISY network resource rules that let me know when the washer or dryer have finished, an exterior door is left open too long, my pellet stove fails to ignite, my well pump runs too long, a leak is detected or the dog is out of water. I am quite hopeful that this capability will come to the echo at some point and I will be able to retire the UBI. Hope this helps. -Xathros