ISYhbsh01

I just learned this the hard way... We had here on Friday afternoon, in the about 100 degree heat (not including humidity), a power outage which lasted for almost 24 hours. So I moved in to my parants' house for the day. I have a couple of window a/c's plugged into Appliancelinc's. I always assumed that since the settings are stored in non-volatile memory that once power comes back on they will return to their previous state & the house will be cooled off when I return home. Turns out all of them were off when I returned except for one a/c which was turned on by a scheduling program. In my opinion this is really a shame. Why can't the appliancelinc remember it's previous state? Does anyone have any ideas on how to get around this problem?

Hi Rand, I also thought the same thing after this happened and reviewing the programs, and I actually made this change right after I made this post. Still, I am not sure if and why this should have caused a loop. All it did was to send a duplicate on command when it should already be on and a duplicate off command when it should already be off. On the other hand, the loop did stop when I disabled this program, so it does seem that it had something to do with it though I don’t understand why. So I would still like to see if someone might come up with something that I did wrong other then this to avoid a costly recurrence. Or maybe someone can explain why this should indeed have caused a loop. Perhaps someone would want to take a look at my log file. Thank you.

Hi everybody, I use the “B†button of an 8 button KPL to control my M.B.R. window air conditioner which is plugged into an ApplianceLinc. A few days ago I made a program called 'Test M.B.R. A/C 1 Hour' that when I double tap the KPL “B†button the following happens: The MBR A/C goes on, the KPL button LED blinks 5 times, the A/C works for an hour, the KPL button LED blinks again 5 times, and then the A/C shuts off. Here is the program: If Control 'KPL-1-Main / KPL-1-B' is switched Fast On And Control 'KPL-1-Main / KPL-1-B' is not switched Off Then Set Scene 'A/C M.B.R. Scene' On Repeat 5 times Set Scene 'KPL 1 Scenes / KPL-1-B, Scene' Off Set Scene 'KPL 1 Scenes / KPL-1-B, Scene' On Repeat 1 times Wait 1 hour Repeat 5 times Set Scene 'KPL 1 Scenes / KPL-1-B, Scene' Off Set Scene 'KPL 1 Scenes / KPL-1-B, Scene' On Repeat 1 times Run Program 'Test M.B.R. A/C 1 Hour' (Else Path) Else Set Scene 'A/C M.B.R. Scene' Off Send Notification to 'hbsh01' The ‘A/C M.B.R. Scene’ has the KPL button “KPL-1-B “ as a controller & the appliancelinc “*A/C M.B.R.†as a responder. The 'KPL 1 Scenes / KPL-1-B, Scene' has the KPL button as a responder. I also have another program named “Status A/C M.B.R.†to make sure that the KPL button LED status is in sync with the appliancelinc, so when the appliancelinc is turned on/off thru the web interface or via a program and not thru the KPL button the LED should also be on/off accordingly. Here is the program: If Status '*A/C M.B.R.' is On Then Set Scene 'A/C M.B.R. Scene' On Else Set Scene 'A/C M.B.R. Scene' Off This 1 hour program worked fine for a couple of days. This morning when the A/C was off I asked my 10 year old daughter to double tap fast the B button. I don’t know what exactly she ended up doing. Whether she tapped once & then double tapped, or vice versa, or something else altogether. The next thing I know the air conditioner started cycling on & off rapidly. Nothing I tried helped until I disabled the “Status A/C M.B.R.†program then it stopped. Afterwards I re-enabled the program and double tapped the button again and everything worked nicely like before. Can anybody help me understand what could have gone wrong here? Thanks.

Hi Michel, I will email yoou the log soon. Interestingly, today was the first time since I set the timeout to 10,000 that I missed a notification. It used to happan more often. I ruled out it being a junk email issue as I mentioned earlier that whenever I missed a notification it wasn't even in the 'sent' folder of the sending email address. I don't know about it being a logical issue. Here is a copy of one program: If Status '*A/C M.B.R.' is Off Then Send Notification to 'Email' Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') My firmware version is 2.7.15. Thanks for your help.

I did check the junk mail, I even checked the sent mail folder of the email account I am using to send the notifications, it wasn't there. Also whenevr I did not get a notification I had always checked the notification program status. They were always correctly true/false depnding on whether the device was put on or off. Even the last time run was the correct time when the device status changed, but still no notification was sent. Thanks for your help.

In the meantime I changed the timeout in the SMTP settings to the max of 10,000. I will see if that helps.

I looked at the log and I don't see the word 'error' there. I did see a couple of lines where in collunm 2 it says 'null" and in colunm 6 it says '-5012'. Is that what you mean?

I set up programs to be notified by email when the status of my devices changes. I would say that 85% of the time I do get the notification email, but 15% of the time I don’t. I setup a separate program for on status and off status for each device. The programs correctly show as being true or false depending on if the device was shut off or put on, and it will even show the correct time of when the program was last run, but I still didn’t get the notification email. Any ideas?

I will try to temporarily turn off the firewall & see what happens.

It's my own small business office with my own standard windows XP computer & a standard off the shelf Norton Internet Security firewall, nothing fancy or sophisticated here. I don't have an IT department or I might call myself the head of the IT department...

Hi Rand, It happens when I try to connect from my own office computer. If it's the firewall wouldn't it been blocked completely?

Hi, When I am logged in remotely into the administrative console, about every 3-4 minutes or so the screen asking for my credentials pops up. It has my user name & password already filled in, I just need to click "ok". About a minute or two before it pops up the ISY won't accept anymore any changes that I make. Once I see it doesn’t accept any changes I know I have to wait for a minute or two for the credentials screen to pop up. Then after clicking "ok" I lose all the program changes that I didn't manage to save & have to start again. That leaves me with about 1-2 minutes after clicking "ok" to make any changes fast before it happens again. This only happens when I login remotely. When I am logging in from a computer on the local network it's working fine.

Thanks everyone! So it's obvious from what everybody is saying, that the SmartHome guy was actually right with what he told me.

I am far from being an electrical expert & I don't know much about the difference between watts/amps/volts. So I called smarthome's insteon gold support line a couple of days ago and asked if the appliancelinc would work with a window ac. The rep said "sure people do it all the time". I asked if he is sure about it since the specs say it has a maximum of 480 watts. He told me that the watts is only applicable for bulbs and lighting and is irelevant for non-lighting apliances. He said that for appliances you look at the amps not at the watts, and window ACs usually use 7-8 amps, while the appliancelinc supports up to 15 amp. He told me I can look at the circuit breaker to see if it's 15 or 20 amps. If it's 15 I am definitely fine. It didn't sound quite right to me but I took his word for it since I am not an electrical expert. Does that make sense?

Good luck!

That's an important point. I indeed always made sure to buy a model that will auto restart after a power outage since I was going to use them with plug-in timers. I think that virtually all of the latest makes & models, even the digital ones, have the auto restart feature. Thanks.

That's good news. Thanks for the update.

All are 120V units.

You mean to say that I don't need to connect the 2 other wires? How would the switch have power? Can I have it poll the module every 2 minutes or every minute? Thanks for your help.

Hi everyone! I am looking to buy some Insteon products for the first time now. I am not completely new to the Insteon technology as I have done quite some research and read about Insteon on this and other sites & forums in anticipation of jumping in soon for quite some time. So here is what I am looking to do with Insteon for now: I got 6 rooms that have window A/C units. I live on the top floor of a building with no attic. When I am away for a weekend or for a day & I return at night it can take a couple of hours after putting on the a/c for the rooms to cool off. So I would like to have all the a/c units controlled by Insteon so I can put them on remotely before I get home. I also want to install a keypad in the master bedroom, so I can turn on the a/c in the other rooms from there. Each button for each a/c, and the button’s LED status should tell me what the status of the a/c is. Maybe I would also install another keypad somewhere centrally located in the house. However, in order to make sure that nobody shuts off the a/c by powering off the unit itself which would defeat my purpose, I also need to give everyone a way of controlling it locally in each room. But from what I have read here on this forum, pressing the button locally on either an ApplianceLinc or an OutletLinc will not send back the status to the ISY, and would cause the ISY not to know what the status of the a/c is. And the way I understand it the Keypad also wouldn’t know if it’s on or not. The a/c might be turned on locally but the LED on the button will be off. In which case when I will press the button thinking I am putting it on I will actually be shutting it off. Am I correct? I guess I can install a keypad in each room & only link 1 button of it to control the a/c in that room only (I don't want the kids to be able to controll from their room ALL the a/c units), and have everyone use the keypad instead of pressing the button on the OutletLinc or ApplianceLinc to turn it on/off locally. However that option is too costly for me now & seems overkill. Also I am going to move in about half a year from a rented house to my own, so I would like to keep my wired-in Insteon products to a minimum. So does anyone have any suggestions on how to set this up correctly other than installing a Keypad in every single room? Thanks for your anticipated help.

Wow! They changed their minds again! See here: http://www.smarthome.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6418

They don't offer it seperately on their normal pages or when doing a search. But when on the page of one of the kits and you scroll down the page to "Specifications", there is a link there which would take you to a page offering the applicablle ISY99 version as a standalone. Here is a link to the ISY99/IR Pro as a standalone: http://www.smarthome.com/12234/ISY-99i-IR-PRO-INSTEON-Compatible-Automation-Controller-with-IR/p.aspx

On their website it says that the 2412S has been discontinued. The only option with SmartHome for now is to buy the ISY sperately and a refurbished 2412S seperately. Or buy from other 3rd party websites.

Hi everyone! I am considering getting the ISY-99i. My question is if I should get with it the old 2412S PLM or the new dual band 2413S? Aside from the fact that it's dual band does the 2413S do anything better than the 2412S? Does it have any problems that the 2412S didn't have? Currently SH does not have the 2413S in stock and it is expected in stock on 11/30 (!) and as a result the ISY-99i kits will also be available only on 11/30. They don't have the old 2412S anymore but they do have a refurbished 2412S.