Teken

You and I share very similar thoughts about HA and other topics that is for sure. I can't speak for Michel but feel he is trying to balance the whole cloud vs local control. Everyone knows I personally hate the whole cloud idea when it comes to automation, services, etc. Its not that its a bad thing its the people who are behind it have such a poor grasp of how its supposed to be used. In Enterprise way back in the day it was well understood why remote access and having off site resources were important. With the current industry trend almost all of these companies have simply abused the whole concept of the cloud. They do it for for selfish reasons besides just being cheap . . . As I indicated in another thread (feels like ground hog day) I have no problem with UDI supporting cloud hosted services like IFTT at all. Because its the premise and idea behind it that makes it powerful for all of us. Meaning in no way does it dumb down the the 994 Series Controller but extends its ability and capability to link to 3rd party devices / services which normally would be near impossible to do. Doing it the *local command & control* first is already present in the 994 and by allowing it to use the power of the IFTT service to me offers lots of value. With respect to UDI following Smartlabs that's hard to say but if it forced his hand in moving toward with things like Echo, IFTT, etc. Better to have and not need . . . Then, to need and not have . . . I can tell by your written text and tone this is something that bothers you. As it has for me and many others in the past but I look at it this way. Regardless of why these services / hardware devices are being supported its better than: As Michel indicated over the years his company is small and to try to support all things in the market place is simply not possible from a business / resource perspective. This is why I am so happy they decided to move forward with Z-Wave as this has allowed them to capture another revenue stream and also hedge their bets should Insteon every falter. UDI may not be super speedy in the IoT area but at least you know someone is thinking about the long term and not a flash in the pan fad. My view is (IF) UDI makes a concerted effort to focus development and resources to make lots of the most common asked device support native in the controller. This will drive sales, adoption, and long term growth for the company and in my eyes the main drivers should be: Amazon Echo, Sonos, IFTT, Z-Wave, ZigBee, Plugin Support.

There must have been a problem on the server because this morning all of the spoken words all showed every phrase I entered exactly as I typed it. For example the spoken word: Kitchen Table, now going back into the portal you're correct all of the words are lower case.

I had chocolate milk pouring out of my nose when I read that! LMAO, well played my friend . . .

Once the controller settles down login and let us know the PLM link count. Also can you let us know what firmware you're running right now? Make sure the Help -> About indicates the UI & Firmware is the same . . . Aside from those basic things you should confirm if your system has any programs that have conflicts or if you have lots of network resources in use now. Specifically you need to verify there aren't too many tight loop programs running with short intervals. You also need to limit any of the many silly things I see people doing like making the controller flash and beep Insteon devices. Just doing this act will tie up the controller forever . . . You should also confirm best practices are in play which is - is your network and the computer that is accessing the controller is properly accessible from firewall, anti-virus, port forwarding, and random ISP IP changes. Best thing is to save both error logs and send it to UDI for direct support and reference this thread. This will get the ball going and limit all the guessing from this point forward. You may create a service request using this resource link: http://www.universal-devices.com/contact-support/

Yes, in the App it shows its in lower case yet in the portal it shows in upper case? Still not sure what the distinction there would be to a voice activated device. As its not like you're entering a password but then again the Echo uses Linux. Unless I am mistaken and in such cases it does make a difference in basic command structure.

The real question you should be asking is how old is the 2413S PLM and is it fast approaching the two year death mark? Also do a PLM link count and see how many links the system shows. Run it a few times to ensure its accurate . . . If you have like 25-50 devices and you see something really stupid like 12 links. Well, you have your answer and need to either repair the PLM or purchase another unit. NOTE: For the benefit of others please state if the ISY has any LED's lit up when you notice this problem arise. Using the Wiki you can determine what the LED's indicate and best course of action to take if its the controller itself. Lastly, its rare but ensure the power supply to the controller is fine.

Barry, I will try this approach and see how the Echo reacts to this phrase. The system has always been set to DHCP with a reserved IP from the router. I could toggle over to a static IP address to see if there is any differences seen but prefer to leave it the other way for obvious reasons. Hello Benoit, Yes, not sure what the root cause is for such a thing to happen. But know with a high level of confidence its not my network or ISP. As I have several network appliances that monitor all traffic and network health. Any guidance or areas to focus on is greatly appreciated and will dig deeper into other logs to see if I can narrow down any pattern. You know I read that in another thread and don't recall off the top of my head what the answer was. Why does the system care if the spoken word is upper / lower case? If this resolves some of the odd behavior for sure this is something that can easily be changed. I will move forward and change some of the problem scenes and see if the lower case makes a difference. I will also use Barry's suggestion and use the shut command instead of off in case it doesn't understand tree hugger Canukian. LOL . . .

Not sure if the portal is being serviced right this moment but these pop up error message are showing up. They have occurred on January 26, 2016 at 3:17 PM CST and moving forward.

Hello Benoit, Yes this is something I did see also. Not sure why Echo would confuse the two words of on vs off. As a simple test to eliminate ambient noise, distance, pronunciation, and speaking cadence. I placed the Echo in a isolated room which is void of any sound reverberation. In audiophile terms its called a dead room because the sounds in that room simply drop hard in the air. Meaning if I say hello a person in the same room can hear every word due to the active / passive elements in that safe room. It made no difference to the Echo besides me sounding really pissed off. LOL . . .

Yup, saw that from another forum member and followed those steps. Still can't explain why the Echo will turn on various appliances with out issue but won't turn them off?!?! As I read from other people maybe I just need to come up with another word. But don't believe calling my dishwasher / microwave something like *Grunts Oven / Girl Friend Replacement* is the best choice right now. Ha . . .

SteinyD, There is never a stupid question when it comes to technology and how to obtain, use, manage. Cheers!

Login to the Admin Console and select purchase module and it will take you to the web page to purchase the UDI Portal.

Xathros, My friend it would be most excellent if you could find the time at some point and offer a real world review of this UBI device. Interested in the details of how it excels and were it falls short.

Hello Benoit, These errors were seen today (January 26, 2016) at about 9-11:00 AM CST. Yes, I could see in the back ground when the 500 errors were declared the rest requests were failing to complete. To me there just seemed to be a bottleneck in the service which to be fair I've seen the same thing with the Echo. Meaning I will ask her to do something and she will spin around and just think about it. When that happens sometimes she doesn't even reply back . . . I also found it odd certain scenes could be commanded to come on yet using the exact same phrase Echo would not turn that scene off? I saw this with my dishwasher, microwave, and some other device. Keeping in mind they operate just fine via the Admin Console and from a manual control at all times. Any programs that reference these devices also have no problem turning them on/off. Not sure how it can turn on a microwave in one command and not do so later? Asking her in a different way like *turn off the microwave vs microwave off didn't seem to make a difference.

I won't lie having gone through almost 18 hours trying to figure this all out left me with more questions. Technically any system should call out something that is associated or linked has been lost. That is the only way a lay person would ever figure out where to focus their attention and resources on. Lets all be clear here, its not lost on me there are many dependencies and links to various hardware / software platforms. The fact once its all set up and it works as intended is pure magic in itself. There is no doubt in my mind the global team will resolve lots of these issues. As more people find bugs like I listed above it will only serve to make the product better! For me this was a good exercise in critical thinking and trouble shooting. Don't get me wrong at hour 12 I was past annoyed and really needed to unplug. LOL . . .

Hello Benoit, As I indicated above the system did in fact accept the entries and the scenes as I defined them. Along with the speaking phrase I wanted to use. The problem(s) may have very well occurred as I saw lots of http error 500 at some point when trying to add devices. I also saw the portal slow in launching the pop up option to select the devices, scenes at several points. As a lay person it appeared to me like the server was busy doing other tasks and later when resources were available the commands were accepted. Here is a snap shot of one of several 500 errors showing up.

Hello Charles, As far as I am aware the Echo in its current form can not be made to invoke phrases. This also interests me as I am looking for something similar like if weather conditions which I defined in the ISY have been met Alexa would speak and say. *Freezing rain warning is forecast* *Tornado Warning* *Girl friend is approaching GEO fence* etc.

Hello Michel, In the image capture you will note there is a Microwave and Office load defined. When I initially set it up the appropriate scenes that control the loads were selected. When I used the Echo to activate the scenes the Microwave scene did not operate and I was greeted by the Echo that the device was not found or similar. Later when I instructed Echo to turn on the office lights the microwave came on? When I looked in the Amazon App it was apparent the scenes were assigned to something else. The system also added in extra words as you can see the duplicate MicrowaveMicrowave in the App. Going into the UDI Portal showed the portal appended the scenes to the wrong loads and also added the above extra phrase of Microwave. The fix was quite simple as deleting the device from the App and also correcting the UDI Portal entry a second time.

So here is a perfect example of the system doing things it's not supposed to. Can anyone guess what is wrong with this set up? In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Specifically, in the Skill tab disable the ISY skill. Log out of the Amazon App all together then wait about ten seconds. Log back into the Amazon App. Go back to the Skill tab and enable the ISY skill. If the system is operating correctly it will move you to another web page where it will ask you for your Amazon account information. When I first did this literally 10 freaking times I was never asked to provide creds to my Amazon account. The system just showed it was connected but I already knew that was B.S. It goes with out saying there are lots of moving parts in this whole set up. The Amazon App is a little buggy too as it will sometimes log you out or flash its screen and show you random things? So if that portion doesn't work no matter what you're trying to do in the other related sections like the connected home or skill. You are just going to relive ground hog day over and over again until you pull the last thread of hair in your head. I wasn't going to let a stupid App stop me so went and smoked a big phatty LOL

Barry, As always your insight, contributions, and endless support is greatly appreciated! So glad I am not the only one seeing there is a difference in a soft / hard boot. Not take this thread too left field but the above booting was never an issue in 4.1.X releases but seems to be ever present in later firmware. The reason I call this out is because with service such as the UDI Portal the system doesn't seem to allow all network elements to operate fully. I will document this in another thread as its taking away from the main intention of this one.

No offence but I am so glad you're seeing the exact same things I saw and endured last night! This is what I did several times once I got the ISY to show up on the Connected Home via the smart App. You need to enable / disable the skill a few times and you will know its properly finalized when the App brings you to a new page to plugin your Amazon account information. Again, no one calls this out or even has any image captures of what to expect. Super frustrating to those literally in the dark but like I said with persistence I hung on until the whole thing finalized. Now, the next step is to have others explain why the following bugs appear or have been allowed to happen:

Yup, like I said that link Michel references must be used and not from any other source. Because the system will show you in a general nature most of the elements are present when in fact they are not. Also note if you some where started to add in devices, scenes, in the UDI portal and it discovered them in the Connected Home you best delete them because at some point the Echo will either gray them out or say over and over its not found. Don't ask me how I know . . .

I'm going to write out a huge step by step of what needs to be done to first get the Amazon Echo for those in Canada working. Next the steps to have a smoother experience connecting the Echo to the ISY Controller. At the moment I am documenting all the bugs and issues that are seen in doing the current set up. Its strange there must be a time lag from when certain steps or processes are complete. Its no great surprise this is seen in a cloud hosted service vs a local emulator that Barry G has created. Regardless, the fact it all works at all once the system has been set up is a testament of the Internet. To your question about the *Requested Service* up above I indicated the system would not respect the validation button press. It would just pop up a message like *Bad Response* or something like that. I should have captured it but was so frustrated at that point I decided to walk away fro a few moments. It goes with out saying that is one of many important steps that must be done in sequence because the portal seems to allow a person to do things out of step regardless of if the system is operational? I am sure lots of this will be ironed out as the service becomes more developed. Thus far this is another excellent stepping stone for the entire team who have worked so hard to make it public ready.

The connected home is under settings unless you mean something else? [emoji53] Also you really need to do this in order. After two hours of screwing around it just made sense to delete it all and start from the beginning. Now I have to figure out which key words operate fine because the system doesn't seem to do anything using the connected home vs the skill? [emoji35] In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.