Jump to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.

Universal Devices Forum

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

Teken

Members
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Teken

  1. Assuming for a moment there was no need for remote access then leaving the controller on a closed network would remove that threat vector. To be clear with respect to the ALL ON / ALL OFF debacle this only impacts Insteon networks using the ISY Series Controller. There has never been a reported ALL ON / ALL OFF incident using any other home automation controller in the market place. Ever . . .
  2. True . . . But, that doesn't negate the simple fact everyone should follow and implement best security practices. We all know locks are intended to keep honest people out. But, do people really believe leaving their homes unlocked is the best practice? My uncle who owned a farm way back in the day would always leave his keys in the tractor, car, what ever. He would never lock the door to the car / home, ever . . . His mind set was he was so remote that it made no sense and the likely hood of a break in was near nil. For more than 50 years he was right ~ Fast forward his farm land and area was sub divided and brought in who / what? People . . . No sooner did the first crop of homes get occupied what did he find out? His tractor gone and miles down the road due to a few kids wanting a joy ride. A year later he comes back from the store to find his root cellar and barn wide open and canned good and vegetables everywhere. My uncle no longer leaves the keys in the tractor, car, unlocked. He no longer leaves the barn, cellar, or home unlocked. Like my old uncle he too had to adapt and this is what Smartlabs / Insteon must do in 2017. Failure to do so will leave them in exactly the same spot they are in now ~ Alone.
  3. The system will pop up a window showing you the restore process which (IF) its working can take many hours.
  4. Its all relative to the type of noise present and whether its a noise maker vs signal sucker. There are more signal suckers in a normal home then noise makers. This is because almost all consumer products made in good standing must adhere to the maxim RFI, EMI, output as defined by UL, cUL, FCC, etc.
  5. Agreed . . .
  6. Speaking more in a broader sense, failure to adopt and implement some kind of security protocol leaves you in a disadvantage when compared to the other market leaders. Given the endless and rampant online threats on the Internet it simply doesn't bold well from a marketing, adoption, and long term strategy. In 2017 if a product doesn't integrate and use the most basic security features in today's world. You Lose . . .
  7. If the stress vs reward outcome is too high for you which is dictated by the amount of hair on your head. If you don't have a large Insteon network its sometimes easier to start from scratch. By this I mean deleting the hardware from the ISY Series Controller. Followed by hard resetting all of the hardware which is outlined by the full users manual. Then, adding back each of the individual pieces until complete. On the surface this seems like a lot of work (It is) but the time to live is more productive and works.
  8. The controller is trying to communicate with the battery operated device. Since battery operated devices go to sleep to conserve power you need to wake it up like any other battery device by pressing the set button.
  9. Sounds like Fred Flinstone ~ Yaba Daba Doo!!
  10. Its not only signal strength its the improper placement of the internal antenna. If someone grabbed a brain and moved the antenna so its behind the front (plastic) cover plate the signal propagation and distance would increase. Just that simple move costs nothing but a change in the assembly process. Smartlabs has done this to several products already but sadly haven't moved forward on all the rest. As for the use of filters no matter what HA a person uses filters will always be needed in varying degrees. This comes down to what kind of electronics and loads they have in place. I've personally never had to deploy any filter in my home and that isn't because of luck. It came down to taking the time to test, validate, and deploy hardware that didn't suck / emit noise in my home. I can safely state 99% of the population have never taken the time, effort, or expense to do the same. In the ideal world none of this should be required but we don't live in the mythical world of ideal. We live in a world where producing the cheapest product as fast as possible to make X margins. As I have stated many times in this forum and others the average person really doesn't have many options when it comes to HA. Series folks use a hardwired solution that doesn't run on the power lines or use RF. Because of this all of the current iterations of protocols: Insteon, Z-Wave, ZigBee, X-10, WiFi, BLE will forever be hobbled and limited. As noted up above integrating a dual protocol like WiFi AC and (name your flavor) will increase the reliability and flexibility to integrate with X vs Y. Right now manufactures have their head on backwards . . . They believe using cloud hosted services and new *Standards* such as Apple Home Kit, Weave, Thread, name what ever make belief system out there is the magic bullet. It isn't . . . These are all band aids and stop gaps such as IFTTT / Stringify
  11. LOL ~ That's a lot of filters you got there mwester!!! RE: Reliability can be improved upon by increasing signal strength. Nobody in the HA space is coming even close to FCC limit, none. This is why Gen 5 devices are able to offer better performance because they have increased the signal strength so has Insteon. They all still fall short of the limit set by the FCC though . . .
  12. Z-Wave / ZigBee is very much like X-10 . . . One only needs to ask all of the Z-Wave folks who have 9999999999999999 siren / repeaters all over their homes!!!
  13. I'll preface in saying (which most people know who have read my past replies) that Smartlabs needs to do better in almost every possible area: - On board new 3rd party hardware vendors - Support existing 3rd party vendors with clear, concise, and detailed API documentation - Use the highest quality components in all hardware - Actually use the Alpha / Beta program to make the product(s) better and for God's sake reply to freaking questions posed!!! - Return the EDOC's to the public domain as they were in the past - Build upon the strengths of the power line / RF Insteon protocol by increasing the signal output - Engage the general public to obtain critical feedback about the ups and downs of the product(s) - Get rid of the off shore sales and support ~ They truly suck ~ As they hurt sales !! - Continue the development of i3cs and integrate the latest encryption standards - Fully utilize the cloud as its intended and not the [censored]ized version you and the rest of the world use now - Incorporate energy monitoring / energy management into all of the products - Incorporate environmental monitoring while supporting analog sensor arrays Having said all of the above I've come to know first hand you should never count Smartlabs out. Consider this single company has been able to endure the onslaught of Z-Wave, ZigBee, WiFi, BLE, for the last five years. They have consistently released or updated one new Insteon product each year since coming to market. No other home automation player can say the same . . . Bar none Insteon offers the sexiest, modern, and pleasing hardware product in this space. Aeotec is a close second while the rest simply look and feel like X-10 junk from the dollar store. With the advent of Joe Dadda leaving (Thank God) this new VC has the opportunity to push Insteon further into the market place. How?? First, by releasing every NA hardware device to EU, Asia, Eastern countries. Its only been five freaking years and the stupid idiots that ran the show failed to tap into the other 5 billion humans chomping at the bit to purchase said hardware!!! After this has been done push forward to redesign the 2413S PLM so its not a 2 year ticking bomb. Better yet how about you (Ya you ~ New Guy) start selling the PLM chip to UDI so they can push sales even further into EU, Asia, Eastern countries by the sales of ISY Series Controllers. Now . . . Some have coined this as the VHS vs Beta wars . . . There is no war ~ That ship has sailed long ago due to the lack of vision, common sense, and greed. The only people who are going to take on *Insteon* are smaller companies who see value in their wares. Larger companies with true vision have already decided to adopt a hybrid environment where supporting a multi protocol only makes sense. I dare say the first company who offers WiFi as the base protocol and includes a combination of Z-Wave / ZigBee will have the best longevity in the HA Space. This assumes their product has the same look and feel of Insteon. Many don't and every quarter there is *Yet Another* Z-Wave startup that has failed and went bankrupt. This is why if there were to be a *Next Generation* protocol Smartlabs should integrate WiFi AC into all next gen hardware. Doing so is so obvious it just makes me cry. A HA network that can support both protocols takes advantage of all the strengths such topology brings. In closing, I still believe Smartlabs / Insteon has a fighting chance to taking market share. But, only if they follow the listed ideas posed above.
  14. Backwards Compatibility, yes . . . But, older hardware would not have the newer security features. This has been seen in the evolution of the Insteon protocol of i1, i2, i2cs. i3cs has been in the works for ages and there is no view in sight as to when it will be released.
  15. The program I listed up above does that already. ☝️[emoji106] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  16. First thing is to have matching firmware and UI. Next, based on your feedback there seems there is another program firing off a email. You can confirm this via the level 3 logs. As a quick test increase the wait to ten seconds this will eliminate any chance this is a debounce error. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  17. The easiest method is to change the time interval from minutes to seconds. That same value would be saved as a Integer and then relayed to you via email. The only downside in going this route is (IF) you have lots of other programs this very short (second) counting may tie the ISY Series Controller up. Also keep in mind the ISY Series Controller would of course need to be placed on a UPS to keep counting. This program your reading about is to track when the controller has been rebooted. It's not intended to track when there is a power loss in the home for that you would need something else to monitor and track. If you need a Insteon solution let me know . . .
  18. Assuming you have only one active email program in place. Insert a 3 second wait in the then section prior to the email path entry and report back success vs failure. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  19. Having dealt with two of their *latest* Developers who just so happens to be off shore. [emoji849] They / He is a fail!!! [emoji35] If I ever hear another soul utter the words: Do the needful! I'll crawl through that telephone line and crush them! ☝️ Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  20. No worries, please do remember to make a back up once you're done. Fire a copy to a USB drive / stick ~ The other to a cloud hosted storage service for off site storage and safe keeping. Rock On . . .
  21. LOL . . . I through a rant out and you come back with calm, cool, and collected!!! Great steal my fire and roll with it ~ I love it. Regardless, on many points I do agree and not to broad brush everyone who does work in Smartlabs. There were a few really great folks who offered great insight, help, and follow up support. What I can say is the 3rd party *Off Shore* technical support is a utter fail. Dealing with East Indians for more than 35 years in the tech support role from Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, the list is endless. Has always be a disaster and this falls squarely on Managements insistence of pushing down costs. 3rd world nations that have a feeble grasp of the English language is a fail. Their technical prowess is even less than fail but results in endless call backs, poor customer satisfaction, and loss of future sales for the parent company. Having personally worked, trained, and forced to coach these $0.05 employee's is waste of oxygen. Anyways, back on point: I would very much like to see the latest motion sensor have 100% support in all aspects which includes the 16 options stated in the API!!!
  22. I would offer your personal experience relays when all recommended steps are completed but don't yield the positive results one expects. The end result is a hard reset is the final solution . . .
  23. The last official 4.6.X firmware is said to support the most basic feature of this sensor. The 5.XX branch also offers basic support but many of the other features are not. One year is fast approaching since this product was launched and this device and others are still poorly implemented. How the general public is supposed to have faith and confidence in dipping their toes into the whole home automation space with hardware that is so lack luster in support and developmentation. Having dealt with four Smartlabs, so called developers in the past the phrase useless comes to mind. If the API documentation does not offer the insight to yield a end result. That is a failure of the company who released said document to the general public. If the hardware does not do as the API states it should ~ Again, that is a failure on the mark of the company who made said hardware. I'll never understand how it is Insteon / Z-Wave is so hard to implement when the so called API is supposed to be clear, concise, and to the point. The reality is none of this is the case because manufactures can implement some, part, or all of the Z-Wave protocol as has been seen countless times in random products! With Insteon I am at a loss as to explain why it is basic features can't be provided. Are people reinventing the freaking wheel here?!?!? Its only been a year since the new motion sensor has been released . . . Which leads to the final question: This new motion sensor is supposed to support 16 other features. When are these features going to be provided and supported??? 1,3, 10 years??? I've posed the same question to the Beta team with the various team leads over the course of a year. There has been zero response to any of these basic queries!!! That makes the entire Alpha / Beta program useless, waste of time, and pointless. This new VC guy who purchased Smartlabs needs to fire the lot of them and start from scratch.
  24. Anytime you update the firmware on the controller you must *Manually* download the appropriate Admin Console. This information is boldly listed in the steps to follow. There are several things that need to be done in order as listed out by the other forum members. - Remove power from the ISY Series Controller. - Apply power to the 2413S PLM for at least ten seconds. - Apply power to the ISY Series Controller. - Complete the PLM restore which can take hours to complete. If that process is completed in mere seconds / minutes ~ Its failed. - If the above has failed you need to complete a ISY Restore. Once complete you can perform the PLM Restore process. - Additional steps may to complete a hardware restore of each device. If you have a large Insteon network this can take a lot of time. - If none of this works and based on your previous replies its just easier to start from scratch as you did in creating new scenes. The cost vs value ratio comes down to how much time, patience, and hair on your head . . .

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.