Teken

All I got to say is I love the enterprising soul who came out with the idea. Good on him for thinking of a way to make some money while offering something usable for those of us that have a Echo. I really can't fault the guy for the price given I am sure these are small runs and the reality is its a solid piece of metal and not some cheap aszz plastic that I am sure someone will come out with. I can't really hate to be honest . . .

Stu, That really does make sense the way you explained it. Perhaps I already succumbed to the fact I would always have to call out a specific room / appliance instead of being able to say turn on the lights in a specific room. I agree its more natural and human like to be (in) the room and simply say: Alexa turn on the light, fan, etc opposed to saying turn on the master bedroom light which gets pretty old quick. Also trying to teach others to do the very same is a little painful for those who don't know the syntax or expected use.

Could you offer a specific use case where your idea would be used? As I am just a little unclear on some of the pro's / con's with having multiple Echo, Dot, Tap in one home. Unless you mean to have the ability to control other remote sites? Like a office, second home, customer site etc?

Good catch that is one situation that causes lots of head scratching from time to time. Also, OP best practices is to hard reset the device first before you enroll the device to the network. Anytime I am doing a replacement of a device I always hard wire it to a spare extension cord. This lets me do all of the programming and testing at the bench and not have to worry about standing in some random place in the home. Once the device is hard reset I do the replace with and let the system do its job. Once the replace with is completed you will notice the *Test* unit will have disappeared from the device tree, this is normal. After that process is done I test the new unit in the comfort of my test bench and if all is well I install it to its final location. Ensure you properly secure all wires using linesmen pliers or similar. Do not simply use the wire nut (Marrette) to secure the copper wiring . . .

Add the new device using a different name like *Test*. Once the new device has been added simply go to the device tree on the left hand side. Select the old KPL that needs to be replaced and right mouse click and select *Replace With* the (Test) unit will be one of the hardware selections from the list. NOTE: The device must be the same kind - meaning it must be a relay for relay, dimmer to dimmer.

I would think this would be a excellent next step for Amazon but think it would kill off any reason to purchase their hardware. Unless the requirement was that you must have a Echo, Dot, Tap, to use said smartphone application. It only makes sense to be tide to the hardware platform to ensure long term success and revenue for continued development of said technology.

The one or the other has to do with the Mobilinc Connect service and not the smartphone application. Meaning you can't have more than one cloud based service operating. If you have the Mobilinc Connect Portal Service you will need to submit a service request to UDI to disable the service.

Try with a Static IP address or reserve the MAC address in the router and try again.

Is the 994 Series Controller using DHCP or a Static IP address? If using a static IP address change it to DHCP for now and reboot the system. When I say reboot I mean remove power from the controller and not via soft boot via the Admin Console. It has proven to me and many others the soft reboot doesn't always clear the system and start fresh.

Hello Smokegrub, Apologies if I was not clear enough in my replies. The Water Hero System will detect any water flow from the meter itself. Meaning if the little dial which spins around in the meter to indicate water flow is moving - the system will detect this flow of water in the home. Which translate to you the owner being alerted to such a condition . . . As far as I am aware there isn't a plug & play water monitoring device that can accurately measure minute amounts of water flow like the Water Hero System. Keeping in mind it doesn't use infrasonic, hall effect, or spinner paddles. It actually uses the certified dial in the water meter via magnetic induction measuring which is extremely accurate and reliable since there is no moving parts etc.

I'm a little taken aback that the ISY Portal would have any direct impact on the NIC on the controller. Its apparent to me the cloud portal service was allowed to impact the network attributes of the controller itself. This should never be the case . . . I try to limit the use of the phrase impossible when talking about certain things in life. But in this case its near impossible everyone had a off line condition and many of us found the actual controllers NIC also not being seen by the modem / router. On a related matter I have stated this problem several times over the years. Since 4.XX firmware the controller does not respect the soft reboot and many times requires a hard reboot where the power must be removed for the controller to come back on line in a good known state. Everyday I thank God I spent the little amount of money on a remote web power switch. I can't even imagine asking someone to come to my home and to pull the power from some random electronic device in my home! Just to bring it back to life . . .

Yesterday I received several emails indicating the 994 Series Controller was down and not accessible on the network infrastructure. Using the various network tools in the system confirmed the controller was not listed on the router or visible. Performed a remote hard reboot from across town and she came back up. I detailed this same issue in the 4.4.6 RC3 thread and sent in my error logs to Mitchel the same night when I got home. Not sure if this is related to my incident at all but wanted to put that out there. Upon logging into the ISY Portal it says it was online since Saturday March 26, 9:02:23 AM. So its apparent to me the cloud service was down the whole night up to now?

Best practice that has worked for hundreds of installs has been to place any plugin dual band device on each level and at the corners of the home. I prefer to use the On-Off Module / Lamp Linc as they offer dual use whereas the Access Point (Range Extender) only offers coupling / bridging of the Insteon network. If you're going to spend money might as well have something you can use opposed to a wall wart that does nothing but couple the signal! I also like the On-Off Module because it allows me to turn RF/Power Line signalling when and (IF) required for testing and diagnostics.

Larry, Apologies if I am being unclear but there are three parts to the whole system. 1. Main board which contains all of the electronics, battery, I/O ports etc. 2. Either the plug & play clamp on shut off valve or inline shut off valve. 3. Remote sensor which houses the magnetic sensor array that is *affixed* to the users water meter. More than likely the sensor array will be secured with a strap of some kind. I wasn't by a computer early so here is the KS Project link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1115949672/water-hero-protection-from-major-pipe-bursts-and-c/description The main home page of the company I have been working with for over a year with: http://www.waterheroinc.com/

By clamp on for those like me who have a ball valve with 90' handle the Water Hero System has a frame assembly that clamps onto the handle and the shut off motor sits above it and turns this handle. Those who have a dial shut off will need to install the inline version of the shut off motor assembly. The clamp on assembly was designed for a quick and easy Plug & Play install and setup. Once the team completes the first round of Alpha / Beta tests we should be much further ahead in detecting the most minute water use(s).

Please append the program(s) for this email alert program for peer review.

Here are some bullet points for you and those who may be following this thread. Water Hero Whole House Water Shut Off Monitor: 1. Two choices of automated shut off: Inline & clamp on for plug and play 2. Clip on none contact magnetic sensor array to detect water flow 3. Monitors ambient temperature in the local area to guard against a freeze condition 4. Alert notification via email, SMS, and possible push notification. 5. Tracks water consumption with live view and historic recap. 6. Serial input & output for 3rd party systems like alarms. 7. Pulse output to send data to 3rd party devices like the Brultech Green Eye Monitor (GEM). 8. Cloud hosted and smart phone application to control on, off, cycle modes of the valve. 9. Open API which is being worked on to allow more integration with Home Automation. 10. Home, Away modes with user defined sensitivity for water flow detection. 11. Battery back up to ensure fail over during a loss of line voltage 12. Valve position detection to ensure ball valve is in its correct state. 13. WiFi enabled for quick connection and communications. Many more features that are still pending when full development is completed. Last but not least this is an American company that is designing and the bulk of the unit is made in the good old USA. Some parts are obviously used from global parts in the final manufacturer.

I would start with the program that is monitoring this and what conditions are required to be met.

Nobody has to guess my position about how Smartlabs / Insteon could do a lot better in this area. Having said this I will give them a benefit of the doubt because Joe Dadda and his engineers have come out with a few services / devices which I didn't think would. Now, that has no relations to the fact some of the support, services, and device(s) are half baked. One only needs to look at the following products since release have essentially been left to die. Most companies will try to improve upon an existing product because it reduces R&D and starting from scratch. But, not Smartlabs / Insteon . . . They would rather keep selling a half hobbled product - then abandon it mid stream with out any notice! Products left for dead are in no specific order were / are: Energy Display, iMeter Solo, SmartLinc, Alert Module, iGate Way, Touch Linc, HUB Pro, Synchro Linc, etc. More to your point though regarding plug in modules: Manufactures are generally too stupid to accept such a easy concept because all of them have that whole mental attitude very much like Apple that everything must be under their control. With respect to whether the entire industry ever unifies under one protocol it would be nice but that will never happen. People have too much skin in the game to abandon their current market share. What existing makers should do is offer a bridge standard that is pervasive or abundant. The first thing that comes to mind is WiFi, next as much as I hate it would be BLE. Meaning the first guy out the door like Insteon, Z-Wave, ZigBee, etc that offers native supported in the box hardware support for WiFi / BLE will start to capture more of the new and existing market share. As much as I hate having more RF devices in my home the most natural connectivity is WiFi to an appliance like the Washer / Dryer. The problem with this fantasy I have spinning in my head is you guessed it. Some aszz hat would require it to be connected to the cloud, and there would be no way to talk to the device with out said cloud. The fact all of these really smart people all around the world are pushing the cloud infrastructure pisses me off to no end. Just one day - and I mean one solid 24 hours - I hope to see the entire Internet just shut down . . . This would highlight to the stupid all around the world that rely so much on the *Happy Cloud* as to why its such a terrible concept. Its safe to say lots of people would lose their Sh^T if that ever happen. I would just sit back and laugh and enjoy the Gong Show . . . Everyday I watch tens of millions of people wondering why its taking so long to print a job, access a file, can't retrieve some random piece of junk mail, to wondering why systems are slow to react. Because all of these people are just stupid in thinking the cloud was the best thing since sliced bread! But oh no'sssssssssssssssssssssss . . . . We have a SLA with a written guarantee of 99.9999999999999999999 up time they say to me! I just sit back and laugh and say you're stupid . . . Enjoy your cloud . . . Ha!

I agree people need to consider the long term use and installation of the final solution in place. Human's by nature are lazy and most people won't bother checking if something is operating correctly until something forces them to. All of this would be a moot point if alert notification was more available from the various hardware vendors. I know in the past several companies going off the top of my head like Samsung, LG, etc were offering smart units which had some kind of HA integration. Given the massive costs for these appliances it just seems like a simple thing to add to a washer / dryer?!?! But then again at this stage of the game I've become more and more adverse to having lots of electronics in my gear. The whole KISS principle is my living mantra moving forward in almost everything I do now. Our reliance on IC's, Software, and Networking, is pushing the envelope of where we should be. I freely admit I love all of my toys - But at some point having Google know I'm washing my underwear is just too much!

Stu, Can you offer a little more insight about that as I have never read or heard about that offer? Is there a reference link a consumer can read about such a replacement policy? LOL . . .

Here is my reply from Cassie B at Amazon. ========================= The highest calling in life is to serve ones country faithfully - Teach others what can be. Do what is right and not what is popular.

In some places I continue to use the new open-close (Trigger Linc) with heart beat as the leak sensor. Doing so allows me to extend the grid sensor(s) where ever and mount the PCB up high for the best range while avoiding any possible water contamination.

My feed back to them via the smart application was to include the option to toggle between the two choices of either voice vs tone response. I also reiterated that the company should use the technology already present which is the smart application. To announce service outages, updates, and pending changes. Thus far the Amazon company has proven to be very responsive to the client base while offering probably the most value from service / products. For now I am going to abstain and give them a pass and see how they move forward in the next 18 months.

All 12 of mine still have the plastic cover on the units as I didn't see any harm vs benefit in leaving it in place. In a few places like the sump pit I didn't want any kind of random debris hitting the unit and staining it etc. Then again it probably made no difference considering two units I got came with a yellowish antenna?!?!?