johnnyt

I have a DSC alarm with a PC5401 interface card in it. I run io_guy's DSCLink program on an always on computer and it provides the connectivity between the alarm and ISY. It's been about 90% reliable. I use alarm panel connected motion detectors and door sensors to turn on lights and an "away" keypad button to arm/disarm. I think the reason it isn't 100% reliable might be my (older) interface card but I don't know for sure. Maybe someone with a newer (IT100?) can provide some insight into those. Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

If you have HomeSeer with the ISY insteon plug-in , it gives you all the stats on the status page. I think I sometimes have a performance problem when a program sends a notification, which I do a lot because there isn't good program activity logging. For example I get default messages instead of the custom message I call for, or I get told the program is running false when the notification is triggered in the "then" clause, showing a delayed execution of the notification. When I add a wait 2 secs, everything works fine. That said, I don't think I have that many execution performance problems at this point (other than at reboot, not something that happens often thankfully). The bigger problem is the performance loading, saving, backing up (restores, of course) and updating HomeSeer. I can't be sure, though, and am worried about growing things to a point where there are execution performance problems.

So that's it, no one has more than 100 programs, never mind more than 500? Well I guess that explains some of my problems and why no one else is complaining about them. I'll definitely have to look at some program consolidation, moving to variables for my legacy programs-as-variables, maybe toning down my plans for ISY and keeping HomeSeer...

if you mean my homeseer plug-in, I don't do anything to my iolincs with HS. They are used exclusively with ISY. Can you glean anything from the event log I attached earlier (post 53) as to whether or not the options I set were reported as successful? Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I don't think I do anything in a program that is better handled in a scene but I'll look again. The only exception I can think of is when I want a different light level at night than during the day. In those case I could use the "adjust scene" command, although I would still have to have a program to adjust the scene and it would only reduce runtime processing load, which I don't think is a problem. So as not to detract from the question I asked here, I may start a different thread to test some of my programming logic and see where I might be able to trim some fat, particularly when multiple programs are needed to do one thing. Even if I took 100 programs off, I'll probably gain that back over the next year or so, particularly if I keep the push on for sunsetting HomeSeer so I'd like to keep the two conversations separate.

set options

I checked all nine of my IO Lincs this morning (all used in latching mode) and one of them changed to momentary after I queried it. I don't know whether or not it was behaving in latching or momentary mode before - I just thought I would query it. It's an older one (not i2CS). I'll keep checking periodically.

I recently read a post where veteran forum contributors LeeG and Xanthros indicated they had less than 100 programs. I'm pushing 500 and finding the time it takes to load them into the GUI and back them up, along with the time it takes ISY to update HomeSeer every time I save changes, to be getting quite long. No one else, however, seems to be complaining about this. I guess I'm wondering if 500+ programs makes me a bit of an oddity or outlier. I do have plans to add more programs as I continue to chip away at moving off HomeSeer after 12 years of using it. At this point, though, I'm not sure I'll actually be able to move everything off HomeSeer and am wondering if I should be continuing to do so. (I need support for a wired thermostat and forecast data, which I'm not seeing as coming soon to ISY). This means I will need to continue to wait for HS to get updated after saving programs (or turn off the HS Insteon plug-in, which I do when I'm going to sit down for a stretch but not when I want to make a "a quick fix" - which aren't so quick anymore) Am I the only one with 500 programs (~50 are used as variables from the days before variables)?

Good to know about using Wordpad. What about the IO Linc's changing from latching to momentary? Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I just upgraded. IMO, the -994 offers no noticeable speed advantages. I doubt that the programming taxes any current processor. I also assume that the speed limitation has nothing to do with processor, but insteon communication. Am not really worried about insteon network speed. It's more getting the data to and from the GUI, especially when the GUI isn't the only subscriber to ISY, although even by itself there seems to be a lot of overhead. In my case HomeSeer is also communicating with ISY, as is an Autelis RS232-to-ISY converter, and I may add another one. I also use notifications a lot since there's not a good program activity log. I sometimes get notifications that revert to default messages rather than the proper custom ones because the system is too busy (so I was told). I've had to add a 2 sec wait if I want to be sure I get a custom notification. I just wondered if a faster CPU, RAM (or even NIC) - if that had been the case - might help speed things up on these fronts.

so does the 994i with the Coldfire CPU and more (faster?) RAM run noticeably faster than the 99i? According to wikipedia, the Coldfire can be clocked at up to 300 MHz. what's it clocked at in the 994i? Also, when is the 99i expected to reach it's growth end of life, i.e. no more room to update with new functionality because of RAM limitation? I noticed Brultech functionality had to be removed from 99i recently - a sign of things to come? how much time did that buy? I guess I'm trying to figure out what I might get by upgrading when I don't need the radio. Greater speed is certainly something I would pay for if there's a noticeable difference.

I upgraded to 3.3.4 RC1 and my IOlincs started getting changed to momentary A from latching. It started (that I noticed) with the addition of a new 2 week old IOLinc, which showed latching but behaved in a momentary fashion. It wasn't until I queried the options that momentary A showed up. I changed it to latching and all was fine after. But then one of my other older IOLinc's began behaving as though it was configured momentary ON. It had been operating in latching mode for about 2 years until now. It also showed latching until I did a query and it changed to momentary A. I changed it no problem and decided to check all my other IO Lincs and sure enough the same thing happened - showed latching, queried, showed momentary A, changed it, all seems to be fine now. A bug? A known issue? What's the risk this will happen again? Have attached the relevant section of my event viewer log output set to level 3. Lots of new xml-type stuff I've not seen in event viewer before... (ignore the variables being set along the way - they stream in from some temp sensors via an Autelis RS232-to-ISY converter but it's too hard to go through what comes out as a single line txt file in Notepad to find and delete them out) ISY-Events-Log.v3.3.4__Wed 2012.11.28 03.50.48 PM.rar

I meant what are the hardware specs? CPU, RAM, real time clock?

What's in the 99ir? Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I will also confess that part of my performance problems are because HomeSeer is subscribed to ISY and every time I make a programming change, I have to wait while ISY updates HomeSeer of what seems to be everything all over again. I hope to one day get rid of HomeSeer but I will need ISY to support a wired thermostat (even if I have to buy a new one.) I don't really want a wireless thermostat because my furnace is on a UPS and I need to be able to send it commands when the power is out. Plus I don't trust wireless for this mission critical function.

Hi Michel,When I copy a file using my high powered computer I get throughput of about 60MB/sec. A 155KB file would take a fraction of a second but that's not, in fact, my expectation. I will, however, admit that my expectation is closer to that than 3 minutes. I like - make that love - that ISY is rock solid at doing the stuff I program it to do - and doesn't need regular reboots to keep going. There's also great support for it, as well as support for other insteon/electrical issues that frankly are Smarthome/other issues. I also find its impeccable logic refreshing. Once one has figured out it's nuances, it's amazingly powerful and predictable, although it does often require writing multiple programs to do one thing, making it a bit hard to follow and dangerous to mess with a year or more later. It was only after the ELK stuff was added (3.1.x) - even though I don't use it - and that I had reached about 300 programs that I did kind of hit my annoyance threshold for the time it takes to make a quick change, and to do backups when I'm doing more than quick changes. Anyway, that's just me. Obviously if no one else is complaining, I'm just going to have to keep sucking it up. Everything comes with a trade off, doesn't it? Thanks for the effort you do put into making ISY a solid product and addressing your community's interests.

I just updated to 3.3.4 RC1 from 3.2.6 and a backup now takes 20 seconds longer (~13%) and adds about 4KB (compressed) for a throughput of about 56KB/min, or 0.94KB/sec. I don't know if it's all or mostly because of the file locking being done but would storing the data uncompressed make things notably faster? I'm not worried about disk space. I can always put the files in a compressed folder and let the core i7 in my system do the compression in milliseconds. My system backup solution also does compression. If asked to chose only one, I'd pick a fast backup over an automated one since I do backups as I'm programming, which is when waiting close to 3 minutes seems like forever.

So will the query all that runs at 3 AM and on a reboot reset a low bat? I ask because I've had them happen then disappear then a month later - maybe longer - the motion sensor stops working. The notifications were a bit premature, never happened again and I don't remember ever query them since I knew they wouldn't respond. Have kind of given up counting on them... Am hoping one day ISY will provide a last changed time stamp on devices for this and other reasons. Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

Hi Michel, Thanks for the question. With a day job and 3 kids, I typically do my ISY programming in chunks of time over 3-4 days. Am currently migrating more stuff off HomeSeer (details here viewtopic.php?f=78&t=9840&p=74640#p74640) so working almost weekly in that fashion. With 484 programs, 103 variables, 135 nodes, 71 scenes, and 13 network resources, I've had many chunks of 3-4 days or more of work over the past couple of years, each time running a backup that takes over 2.5 minutes (throughput of about 62KB/sec). An automatic daily ISY backup, or an automatic backup on exit (with a way to turn it on/off?) would help if more processing speed (what I'd really like viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7768) is not an option. At 155KB per backup am not worried about wasting space on the days I'm not making changes. I might also point out that I do backups of 4 computers and 4-5 VMs on a daily basis and don't change stuff on them every day. Don't worry about a debate around incremental backups. That would only be of notable benefit if disk space was an issue, IMO. edit typo: throughput is 62KB/min (1.0333 KB/sec)

but once you get to a few hundred programs, it's painfully slow (like loading programs). I'd like to be able to schedule a nightly backup - or better yet, be able to buy a faster processor and/or gigabit network speed.

I had this problem as well as the same error when I tried to change toggle mode. The KPL in question was one I had done a "replace with", which I learned can cause problems intermittently. I ended up having to reconfigure the KPL manually from scratch. Or to be more accurate, I plugged in a spare I keep and built it up to match the problematic one (don't forget the programs) then removed the problematic one from ISY and physically swapped the h/w. Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I have a program that runs every 3 mins after it last ran but on Sunday morning it stopped running at 1:58 AM, 2 mins before DST kicked in... Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

How does one send a REST command to ISY from a DOS batch file? How do I do it from a VB Script? I did browse the wiki but found nothing on how to actually make a REST call. (I did figure out that I can do it using firefox but I can't call FF from a DOS box.) Maybe I just didn't look in the right places? Any info would be appreciated.

With a scene only one insteon command is sent over the power line and all devices in that scene respond. Very clean. If you want to do it the other way, i.e. one device at a time, then you would need to add a wait between commands to give the command a chance to work otherwise you're just flooding the power line / airwaves with commands. Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I suggest you put all the devices in a scene and just set the scene fast off/on. Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk