Teken

Maybe we can jump in and help. Whats the first problem you would like to resolve?

This is what the custom e-mail states when sent to me. All of the text are static to remind me what the thresholds are etc. The only one that is not static is the *Energy Consumed Now* which calls a variable for that circuit. Essentially, it displays the amount of watts seen on that circuit during that time. There are no other programs that call this custom email or associated with it. ======================= ======================= The X-MAS light program has been activated. This program runs from 5:30 until 8:00 PM each day. Idle power for this branch circuit is <8.00 watts. Energy Consumed Now: ${var.2.60} Watts

Hello Michel, You're correct the third image was generated using the ELSE clause as I wanted to show what is the normal expected completion email I expect and have received in the past. There is only one X-MAS program in my system at the moment. With respect to the *content* are you asking what the custom e-mail says when its sent to me?

I just started seeing this strange problem in the last few days and was curious if others have seen the same thing. Essentially I have a program that sends me a custom email alert indicating the XMAS tree is lit and what the power readings are at that time. This first alert simply confirms the tree is lit and what the energy demands are as you will see in the following attachment. Once the program has been completed and the lights turned off I simply use the *Default* option as an email. In the past this *Default* option would just confirm the action was completed and included a time stamp etc. Now, I am receiving random data that is unrelated to that scene / program?!?! Has anyone seen this problem before and what can be done to prevent it? Below are three examples two of which simply show you what the random messages are. The last one called (default) is what I normally see and expect when using the default message option. This is the very basic program listed below: X-MAS Tree - [iD 012F][Parent 012E] If From 5:30:00PM To 8:00:00PM (same day) Then Set Scene 'Kitchen Wall Plug' On Wait 45 seconds Send Notification to 'GMX' content 'Insteon - X-MAS Lights - On' Else Set Scene 'Kitchen Wall Plug' Off Send Notification to 'GMX'

With anything it comes down to first your budget and real world goals. Setting realistic expectations that mirror life is essential in a positive outcome. I can tell you based on some of your initial comments your idea is sound but the implementation is flawed. Meaning you need to think about this as a long term investment which will yield many years of dividends. If you spend a little now you will certainly spend a lot more later and be disappointed in the over all results. WiFi is not to be used for any serious security camera, ever. As you noted you don't wish to impact your bandwidth and regardless of the QOS settings and other means to reduce bandwidth that is part and partial. Ideally you should have a isolated network that is dedicated to the camera system. Some on a very cheap budget will segment the network to be on a separate IP range. Others will even try to use virtual networks to accomplish the very same. Both methods work but are inherently limited by the router anyways. This is why a dedicated and isolate network is key because it offers fail over, independence, and zero conflict with existing network devices in the infrastructure. WiFi even with the AC is great but make no mistake this is a terrible idea and does not lend to true security and only offers convenience. If you're unable to do the proper wiring I suggest hire it out and any one in the industry can and will do a quick work of it and the final results will be you will have more options down the road. Along with long term, secure video surveillance, and quality of image and build. Many cameras now come with embedded web hosting and on board Micro SD image capture. I really like this type of solution as it offers immediate fail over and redundancy in the network. Meaning you can still stream the content to a central NDVR but if it should ever fail or get stolen. All of the images, video will still reside in the actual camera system(s). Things to keep in mind cameras offer several types of compression methods to allow high quality but also reduce bandwidth. H.264, MPEG4, etc are all standard these days. Besides the compression it also comes down to FPS (Frames per second) and the resolution you're after such as 720 vs 1080P. In some areas you may not need 1080P at 80-120 FPS while others you do. Keeping in mind don't go into this thinking you're going to get license plate quality or face recognition at night for $200.XX. You won't and the reality is quality in this space requires a large investment that 90% of the population are unwilling to spend at all. It doesn't mean you need to spend $1000.00 per camera but it does mean if your budget is (reasonable) and allows at least $350 and upwards for a single camera. You can expect many long years of trouble free operations, quality of image, vast options for I/O, software, etc. If your budget does not allow many cameras then I always suggest one high quality PTZ camera. Just one of these high quality units not only provides massive scan area but the FOV is not an issue. Consider the information above from a person who has literally tried every cheap camera system you can think of just to find that golden nugget. NOTE: There are indeed some great value items in the 3rd tier product lines offered from Asian vendors. But it takes lots of time and investment to find those that actually perform in the long run.

I believe the need and market demand is in someone making a KPL key frame that allows native wide button insertion. Doing so would avoid the center shadow from being seen. As many others have used the six / eight button frame as a 4 wide button arrangement. It works quite well but for that professional look it would be best to avoid the center black ghosting effect. I've toyed with the idea for sometime but haven't gotten past the concept stage as the media per piece is still too much for such a small widget. Not sure if someone will be willing to part with $15 - 20.XX for a 4 wide frame kit. But since others have payed $49.XX for just eight small plastic squares you never know!

There is so much truth and honesty in the above posts where does one begin? As I have stated many times here and abroad in other forums. When you let *profit before people* and the focus on producing the cheapest hardware to ensure the highest profits. This will impact your long term business sales and the product line. As I also stated in the past the amount of public awareness (shaming) has driven what has been seen now. I don't personally believe that public shaming should ever be used to make a company realize their faults etc. Every company has R&D and procedures to determine root cause of faults when excessive warranty and out of warranty items are sent back. Its obvious to me they sat on this for awhile because there was a large 2-3 year gap where nothing was being done. But slowly with the advent and huge push of HA as seen from hundreds of vendors now entering the fray. That if Smartlabs (Insteon) was to be seen as a viable and serious contender in the *Long Term* HA industry. They needed to change the *Profit before People* mentality and change the hardware. This was seen in the PSU now used in many of the devices which support wide voltage ranges. The fact they natively support 100 - 277 VAC, higher surge, and lower energy consumption indicates most of the feed back was taken in and a revamp was done. This doesn't help those early adopters like you and me but it does bold well for others moving forward. To be fair to Smartlabs most of this is driven by Senior Management and not at the engineering level. Because we all know these people are more than capable of designing, creating, and building quality products. It simply comes down to the will to do so . . .

My apologies the plastic is indeed white if you selected that color. My comment was in regards to the font color which the OEM keys are a shade of green. The custom keys you will receive the font (words) will be a shade of off gray. NOTE: Also depending upon when you purchased your Insteon KPL's the actual plastic when lit will either appear as white vs others will be a shade of yellow?

Sorry I don't follow what you're trying to do? If you intend to use the 8 button set on a 6 button KPL how are you going to activate the top and bottom button? Are you actually going to use two fingers to press on the top & bottom keys?!?! EDIT: After reading over your reply it sunk in. Your plan is to use the 8 button set and split them in two. Two sets of four for each KPL. Yes, that would be a much better value for sure. NOTE: You should be aware that the OEM keys are green in color. Whereas the custom keys are a shade of gray so make sure you're OK with this.

I believe Jon was inferring to (new) 3rd party development of the Insteon product line. Those you have mentioned are old and existing vendors since product launch besides the camera's. Which have been in place for at least five years now etc. I am afraid outside of software support or where a device has some kind of open API such as the Amazon Echo, Harmony Remote, etc. You're not going to see a large vendor actually create product, integrate, or incorporate Insteon technology. That ship has sailed away long ago and those who enter the fray have decided ZigBee / Z-Wave, WiFi, BLE, is the path to follow. As I indicated in the past many times the business plan for Smartlabs (Joe Dadda) should be to offer the PLM chips for free or at a very low discounted price which can be incorporated into any appliance device. Essentially, this would allow a person to see the status, control it, and monitor the energy consumption of said product(s). I don't recall the name of the Chinese company last year that was mentioned. But, this one company has decided to do the exact same thing and if it takes off it will be a huge disrupt-er for the HA industry. On Topic: I am quite sadden to read that a hardware 2.XX 2413S PLM has failed. It would be great to know the exact details of production, firmware, etc.

Wouldn't this be a perfect thing to use a time frame instead of a dusk to dawn? Ideals are peaceful - History is violent

[emoji39][emoji4][emoji56] Ideals are peaceful - History is violent

Is anyone receiving multiple emails about the 20% off sale?!?! Smarthome has sent me four of the exact same emails just today and the last one just arrived? I am hoping this is a subtle hint there aren't a lot of buyers and they will go full on and up the discount to 33% as they did that one year!

Unless the part is known to be iffy this is just another case of a *parts swapper*. I am not sure how some of these people get certified to be a technician but its clear to me there isn't a lot of actual *trouble shooting* and diagnostics. Keep us all in the loop because I am interested in the outcome. Let us know how you get on with that TSTAT swap and (IF) it does anything for you.

Perhaps to ease your mind I would remove the Insteon TSTAT and see if the system comes back up, no? As noted by many others in the past there have been several models of Insteon TSTAT's that which had huge amounts of traffic caused by the older Venstar T1700 - 1900 Insteon Adaptor. The fault wasn't with the Venstar TSTAT it was with the plugin module that allowed Insteon control and interaction. I haven't read too many complaints about large amounts of traffic from the new style units though?

Since the HVAC technician has been out at least twice what has he said that has been done or observed? What is the code for this issue, and has anyone measured if there is sufficient line voltage with respect to ground? Dirty power is always a huge possibility depending upon where you live and the age of the power line. Keeping in mind dirty power from a real world perspective are harmonic frequencies outside of the 60 Hz bandwidth. Keeping in mind most electronics are designed to operate with in a large area of tolerances. Its too bad you don't have any sort of data logger to see if the problem is isolated to time of day, dependent upon other auxiliary devices coming on, or power line issues such as sags, surge, freq drift, etc. In my home I measure and monitor every aspect of my incoming, generated power as seen below. This system has been set up to pick up any variance on the line. This is obviously an extreme case of monitoring but it was done to validate key things for my project(s) and also to determine what level of resolution would be required for the other back up unit. As there are two of these data loggers that track the power. The system detects anything from freq drift, sags, lulls, surges, spikes, phase shift, and how many cycles the incident occurred. As noted none of what you see is out of band but typical of a normal operating system. The system can render if and when a deviation is in the safe range or out of band. Here is a perfect example of a 131 volt surge well with in tolerances. Given how quickly they come and go as they do in any power line. Just more charts to quantify the surges / sags for a *At a glance* view. It goes with out saying you don't need a 15K Fluke data logger like I have on hand to give you information. But, its very helpful to help eliminate one aspect of the problem in the home etc.

I have to assume you didn't read the link that was provided to you?

I wanted to (hopefully) close off this topic as I believe another program in use works to meet the same intended goal. Below are the two programs that will be turn on the fan linc in the bedroom and will continue to operate for an additional 5 minutes after the furnace has turned off. I've tested this program by adjusting the value(s) to detect when the central exhaust is turned on. In each case the ceiling fan came on and continued to run while the central exhaust was operating. Good . . . Next, I turned the central exhaust off and the expectation was to see the ceiling fan continue to operate for another XX minutes to help circulate the warm air in the building. Results, success . . . Here are the two programs which my partner in crime apostolakisl help me create back in the day. MBR Ceiling Fan - Monitor - [iD 00D7][Parent 00D9] If From 7:00:00AM To 8:00:00PM (same day) And Status '01 Main Left / 08 Furnace' > 500 Watts (Current Power) Then Send Notification to 'GMX' content 'GEM - Master Bedroom Fan ' Run Program 'MBR Ceiling Fan - Watch Dog' (Else Path) Else Set Scene 'Master Bedroom Fan Low' Off ============================= ============================= MBR Ceiling Fan - Watch Dog - [iD 00D8][Parent 00D9] If - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition') Then Set Scene 'Master Bedroom Fan Low' Off Enable Program 'MBR Ceiling Fan - Monitor' Else Disable Program 'MBR Ceiling Fan - Monitor' Set Scene 'Master Bedroom Fan Low' On Wait 5 minutes Enable Program 'MBR Ceiling Fan - Monitor' Run Program 'MBR Ceiling Fan - Monitor' (If) =============================== =============================== Sometimes I forget the use of IF, THEN, ELSE, programming can become extremely complex and attention to detail is a must when deployed. Once again much thanks to all of you who took the time to chime in and give me a nudge to reevaluate my existing program(s).

Stu, I will modify it to use the central exhaust as it consumes about 4XX watts and report back in a few moments.

Really?!?! I guess in about four hours we are going to find out won't we? I still don't understand how when I ran the (THEN) statement that using the normal scene it would not turn off. Yet selecting the Fast Off command does turn off the fan linc? Something doesn't add up here and there has to be something more than the furnace just reevaluating causing the wait to keep running.

Your going to have to spoon feed me because I fell off and hit my head. So explain to me in plain simple words as I don't understand what is being said?

Hello LeeG, This is something I considered for a brief moment but that is not the case. When the furnace is in full operations it consumes more than > 500 watts. This is why I set that threshold as anything above 500 watts would indicate its operating. With respect to your second line *Of course any change in furnace load above 500 will restart the Wait.* I have never seen that happen before? Are you sure that is the expected behavior?

I have a little bit of a head scratchier on my hands and would appreciate any insight / feedback. To start these are the current parameters I am working with. 994 Series Controller using the latest 4.4.1 Beta build. The Fan Linc shows up as .41 firmware in the ISY Admin Console. My goal was to integrate a new ceiling fan which operates perfectly fine in all aspects. The initial HVAC regulation program I crafted was in pretty simple in all aspects in my mind which is seen below: MBR Ceiling Fan - [iD 02B3][Parent 00D9] If From 7:00:00AM To 8:00:00PM (same day) And Status '01 Main Left / 08 Furnace' >= 500 Watts (Current Power) Then Set Scene 'Master Bedroom Fan Low' On Wait 20 minutes Set Scene 'Master Bedroom Fan Low' Fast Off Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') As seen above this program is as simple as it gets for a starter program. The fan comes on fine when the system detects the furnace is actually running based on the wattage defined. The problem I saw was the fan never turned off after the time interval was met? Using the KPL in the bedroom turns the fan on-off with out issue. Using the Admin Console to turn the fan on-off again has no issues. Going directly to the Fan Linc node again has no issue in operating the (low) fan speed or via the scene WTF?!?!? So at this point I'm standing there scratching my head thinking is this a noise issue? A link issue? Or a combination of the two? Yet the Fan Linc operates perfectly fine in all other aspects but won't turn off via this program? Out of curiosity I recall someone saying way back in the time machine this was something they saw and the only solution they came up with was using the Fast Off command? So, this begs to ask the question for my own personal edification. What is different in a Fast Off command when compared to a normal off? Is the payload larger, longer, stronger, ?? My initial thoughts prior to stumbling upon this solution was to install a snubber as per others who were seeing strange behavior in other related threads. I may very well purchase a few just for my personal arsenal of filters that may be required in other projects. At the moment the program operates as intended using the Fast Off command. So this is the method I will use moving forward as it doesn't impact other objectives I have lined up later on. Some insight about this odd behavior would be most welcome! NOTE: I would love to include the level 3 logs but my system streams dozens of line of activity due to my energy module being in place.

Larry, LOL . . . As noted earlier I am OK with pricing so long as that translates to new hardware, refinement in existing gear, and inclusion of new services or features not available now. The reality is it takes money to R&D these devices and like others there are lots of intangibles that cost money. There is lots of over head and I don't want anyone to think for a moment that I don't recognize these basic elements. I've been in big business my entire life and I know about profit / loss. In the end for me as a consumer is want, need, and demand for better thought out Insteon offerings. There is always a place to do better or to evolve a product. Sadly, the history of Smartlabs has been either ham strung from doing its best or if we are led to believe. Simply not capable of thinking past today and ignoring tomorrow . . . I yet hold out hope as the listing I posted a few months back indicates movement in the iMeter field. Along with updates to some core products like the I/O Linc etc.

This set up guide was created for a specific piece of hardware I own but the basic principle are the same. Essentially I wanted to high light how to get data in and out of 994 Series Controller and relay the same to a cloud hosted service like SEG. This same method can be modified to go else where or to a local data server. http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/16095-autelis-bridge-pushing-data-to-smart-energy-groups-seg-guide/