bmercier

Absolutely, any device that can be controlled can also be queried. In the case of the temperature, I'm assuming that you are referring to the ambiant temperature of one of your thermostat, so it's yes. Benoit.

Hello Randy, Testing shows that "home" is accepted and speech recognition worked well with it. However, if the certification team tells us for some reason that we have to choose something else, the fallback plan is to use "My home". Benoit.

That should work well. From the Amazon perspective, it's two different devices, unaware of each other. They can be both configured to talk to the same ISY using the same portal account. It's similar to having 2 browsers connected to the same ISY. Benoit.

Hi Xathros, Finally I'm planning to change the token to another format which does not require urlencoding. The hash will be converted to hex string instead of base64. The advantage will be that you can use it as is in the networking resource, with or without encoding. The drawback is the url will be longer. For now, I'm holding on further changes while the Amazon certification is taking place. When this is complete, I will proceed with this change. This will unfortunately be disruptive for you, but that will be better in the long run. Thanks, Benoit.

I see what you mean. It's not ideal if you have many like this. I will discuss it with Michel, and see if we can come up to something. Benoit.

Hello, Just a quick update on Alexa skill certification; Amazon returned to us last week with certification results. There were some items that needed to be changed which are now completed. It has been resubmitted for a second round. We took the opportunity to change the invocation name for the skill. Based on feedback and discussions, the invocation name has been changed to "Home", instead of "I.S.Y." Therefore, you will be able to talk to Alexa like this: Alexa, tell home to turn on hallway to 50% Alexa, tell home to lock front door Alexa, ask home for the temperature of second floor thermostat It will be more natural to say things like: "Alexa, tell home to switch ISY to <ISY name>", for those with multiple ISYs registered on UDI portal. Note that in cases like above, based on your feedback, ISY can be pronounced I.S.Y or Izzy. Both are now accepted. Thanks, Benoit.

Do you mean the admin console URL show in the ISY information tool is not valid sometimes? Benoit

Yes and No. The issue is that the hash is in a base64 representation, and the / is a perfectly valid character. So this is why the admin console URL also url encodes it. The alternative I could see is that I could use an hex representation of the hash instead. That would become a longer URL, but at least, it would be valid without the requirement to be url encoded. Or, we could come back to a base url which is url encoded (The first part of the admin console URL). Benoit.

Hello Xathros, The portal URL for an ISY should not have changed. FYI, the current logic is that when an ISY connects to portal, portal will take the UUID and use HMAC encryption to generate a hash, and then updates a table if it has changed. The hash is what you see in the ISY URL. Technically it should never change if the UUID is identical and the encryption key has not changed. And I confirm it has not. So long story short, I don't know why it would have changed. In an attempt to fix this, I just made a change where the hash is created/updated for a given ISY only if it is empty. So, the hash will be created when the ISY first contacts portal. This will be in production tomorrow. Thanks, Benoit.

Hello Scott, The correct pronunciation is "Aye Ess Why". Unfortunately this is not customizable. An alexa skill can only have one spoken way to address it. Having different pronunciations or different word or sentence would require multiple skills. Thanks, Benoit.

Hi Paul, Integration with ISY is definitely richer & deeper. For the purpose of clarification, there are 2 integrations points. First of all, under Settings/Connected home, you will see the ISY there. That will give you "standard" device control. Basically On, Off, On to x%, Brighten and Dim type of functions. That's all that can be done under connected home. What is more interesting is the ISY skill; you will find this soon under "skills" in the echo app. You will be able to do the same thing as with the connected home (On, off, brighten, dim), but also: Thermostat control: Get the temp, adjust mode, adjust setpoints. Doorlock control: Lock, unlock, lock all doors, unlock all doors Program: Run (runIf), Stop, get status The difference between connected-home & skills is that connected home provides shorter spoken sentences. Example: Connected home: Alexa, turn on deviceXYZ Skill: Alexa, tell ISY to turn on deviceXYZ It's useful to be able to speak shorter sentences, so that's why both were developed. But underneath, it's really 2 different things. Both were submitted to certification, but Amazon seems to take their time. Thanks, Benoit

Hello, I have reports that UDAjax has trouble with Smarthome outdoor camera. Can anyone confirm that it is working, or not working? If not working, can someone try to choose Foscam / Foscam FI98XX (H.264) instead? I have reports that this config would work. I would need confirmation before doing a permanent correction to UDAajx. Thanks, Benoit.

Barkster, Using "Status device is not off" is the best approach if you want a simple timer. I took a more sophisticated but also more complex route that I can share. My requirements were: 1 - Shutdown lights gradually, so that if the room is occupied, this leaves a chance to turn it on again before being in complete darkness. 2 - Provide a way to give more time, if you know you will occupy the room longer than usual (example receiving friends late). The approach here is that a Double Click (FastOn) will provide me 1 or 2 hours, instead of just a few minutes. This unfortunately requires 4-5 programs and a variable, for each of your lights. The complex part is that you want to trap the "Status is not off" independantly of the "Fast On"... which will also trigger a status change. And during the shutdown, dimming the light will also trigger a status change, which you don't want either. That's the reason for the variable. This is how I did it. Program 1: StatusOn DeviceXYZ If ( Status 'RC / Cuisine' is not Off Or Control 'RC / Cuisine' is switched On ) And $TimerStateCuisine is 0 Then Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' Wait 30 minutes Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') $TimerStateCuisine is an integer variable. 0 = Normal operation 1 = FastOn timer or Shutdown in progress (Bypass status detection) The Status "is not off" is useful to catch all cases of having the light turned on no matter how. The Control "is switched on" is useful for the case where the light is already On. This will restart the timer. Program 2: Shutdown DeviceXYZ If Status 'RC / Cuisine' > 50% Then $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Set 'RC / Cuisine' 50% Wait 1 second $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Wait 1 minute Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (Else Path) Else $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Set 'RC / Cuisine' 25% Wait 1 second $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Wait 1 minute Set 'RC / Cuisine' Off This program is always disabled. This means a change of status will not trigger the program. The only time the program will run is when it is called by another program. The idea here is that you want the shutdown to start at 50% if the light was 50% or more, but if the light was let's say 30%, you don't want to brighten it to 50%. It will start at 25% in this case. The 1sec delay after changing the light state is to allow reevaluation of the Program 1 (StatusOn program) Without it, the TimerStatus would be set to 0 too rapidly, and StatusOn would be reevaluated while the variable is set to 0, allowing the StatusOn then clause to run, and therefore stopping the shutdown sequence. The shutdown could very well be done using a change to the ramp rate, then just turning it off. I preferred this way. Hint: If the switch is not a dimmer, you can have it beep a few times before turning it off. Program 3: FastOn DeviceXYZ If Control 'RC / Cuisine' is switched Fast On Then $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' Wait 2 hours Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') When you want more time, the FastOn would you 2 hours, instead of the 30 minutes in the StatusOn program. Setting the variable to 1 will prevent running the Program 1 (StatusOn) then clause. Program 4: StatusOff DeviceXYZ If Status 'RC / Cuisine' is Off Then Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - FastOn' Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - StatusOn' $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Whenever a device is turned off, no matter how, you want the timers to stop. Otherwise, a shutdown will eventually run... brightening the light to 25% before turning it off again. Program 5: Shutdown at midnight If Time is 12:00:00AM And Status 'RC / Cuisine' is not Off Then Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') I normally put all these programs in a folder which is active only between midnight and 4pm, depending on the room. For example, I do not want timers in the kitchen or dining room during the evening. Only after midnight, or day time, should someone turn it on. Therefore a program is required to initiate a shutdown, because if it was left on, no timers will be active and it will stay on all night. I have several variations of these programs. The delays are different depending on the use of the room. You can also enhance it so that the timer is reset if there is motion in the room. Benoit

There is no need for the nexia bridge as it will communicate directly with the zwave module, and therefore can be accessed and controlled by ISY. Your assumption is right, in the sense that you would need nexia if you want a web-based access outside of ISY. However, you can have a web interface to ISY that will give you access to your thermostat. Out of the box, the standard ISY web based interface (UDAjax) allows to access/control the thermostat. And so does the Home Automation Dashboard (HAD), which allows you to customize yourself a web interface to your ISY HAD partial screen shot with thermostat controls: ISY UDAjax (ISY standard web interface) partial screen shot: I'm not familiar with the Nexia bridge/account. I assume it may possibly be simpler for someone to get remote access to the thermostat, outside of your home. But personnally I would not want to have a separate web interface limited to thermostat and other nexia accessible devices like doorlocks. I want a web interface to control everything. I don't think you can do anything more than you could with ISY.

If that can help, I do use zwave thermostat, a Trane TZEMT400BB3NX. I have absolutely no range issue with it. My ISY is in the basement, and the thermostat is on the second floor. I have very little zwave devices here. I find that zwave range issues are mostly related to doorlocks, and other battery operated devices. Doorlocks in particular require a secure connection to the ISY, either directly or through the use of another secure device. Also, if reliabiality is a concern, it's not worse than a regular thermostat. I mean, even if there is no zwave connection, the thermostat will still continue to work by itself. But I agree, there does not seem to be great thermostats available which you can use and control by the ISY. The best I could find is a Trane XL624, which I just ordered. I was looking for a zwave thermostat to which I can hook up an outdoor temp sensor, to use on the main floor. Beware, the high-end trane thermostats like the XL824 and XL950 do not seem to have an exposed zwave interface.

I would suggest to base your choice on the mobile app, but also on the integration options, in general. The ISY web interface has a feature to configure and display cameras. It has built-in definitions for a few cams, but you can define just about any cam, given that there is a URL available to get image snapshots. So that should not be a criteria, most if not all modern cams should have this. However, with API from the camera, you can potentially control it using network resources. You could for instance enable/disable recordings. I know you can do that at least with Foscam and Axis cams. On the opposite side, you may be able to control devices or scenes using the ISY rest API with some cams. With Axis, you can create custom scripts that gets triggered based on events like when there is motion, and I think that with such a custom script we could trigger events on the ISY. I have not tried that though. Foscam does not have this capability. Hope that helps, Benoit.

Wow, I'm impressed. Thanks for sharing! Benoit.

You are right, camera support is a feature of the web client only. There is no reference to the camera in the admin GUI. As far as network resources are concerned, the only thing that could possibly be done is trigger an event on the camera to start recording based on an event. And that's only if you can find an API specific to your camera to achieve that. I personnally have a Foscam camera (a 9805), and I don't think we could do that. Also, you cannot gather data coming from a network resource, if this is what you are trying to do. If you really want to, You could use the camera motion detector to systematically store images to a server when there is motion, and then use ISY network resources to trigger cleanup scripts on that server to only keep those images within a certain time range relative to that event. Benoit.

I also had this problem. Try to enter manually your city and state. This is what worked for me: "dorval,qc,ca" Benoit.

I'm using the Zwave Trane thermostat. It works flawlessly. No issues with range either. Benoit.

Hello James, I know you don't want polling, but if you don't find anything else, maybe the "Home automation dashboard" would be suitable for your need. It is a web based interface to ISY than can be easily customized. It requires polling, but you could set it with a refresh rate of let's say 2 seconds. You can choose the devices that you want to monitor. IOlink, Kwikset, EZflora are all supported. Variable are supported. Camera support is available too. Alarm integration is not available though, but there would be an easy work around. You could have programs to set variables based on a zone, and monitor that variable. For more information on Home Automation Dashboard: viewtopic.php?f=100&t=13548 Benoit.

Actually, I checked my Elk documentation, and yes, it could detect it. I have to set the zone for a "Fast Loop response", and configure this to lower than 50ms (Can be as low as 20ms). But still, I'm not sure it's a good idea to use an Elk input for counting. I don't know how the integration works between the Elk and ISY, and there may be too much overhead. Any input on this appreciated. Thanks, Benoit.

jrainey, I'm looking into doing the exact same thing. I was to try out a rain collector with a tipping bucket, until I saw this post. This Hydreon Optical Sensor seems to be a very interesting solution. Have you purchased it? Does it work with the IOlink? I'm not sure if I would hook it up to an IOlinc, or to an unused input of my ELK. I would guess that the ELK can detect a 50ms pulse. But I'm a bit worried that the Elk integration with ISY adds overhead and causes problems if the counting pace is too high, compared to an IOlinc. Anyone knows? Thanks, Benoit.

Ok, so we are saying the same thing then. I though you meant it ran only once. Thanks, Benoit.

Hi Johnny, My take on this subject is this; Whenever persistence is not required, it's preferable to avoid writing to nvram. Not because of speed, but rather longevity of the SDCard. Maybe it's negligible if you write to it only once in a while. But if you have programs that writes "frequently", I would try to avoid it if possible. As you guessed, enabling/disabling programs, or using InitTo on variables is not better. But if you don't need persistence, use variables without InitTo. As far as speed is concerned, at execution time, writing to nvram takes longer that writing to the ram, but it's really negligible unless a program is looping continuously. Your post seems to suggest that writing often to nvram causes performance issues in the long run. I'm not sure how this file system works, and if this could cause things like disk fragmentation. Maybe changing the enable/disable flag writes a new file, maybe it stores it's data on the nvram in another spot than the file system, I really have no clue on this one. Benoit.