Michel Kohanim

Hi Ron and Chuck, Thanks so very much for your votes of confidence. It means a LOT and pretty much what we strive for. We'll get this figured out soon especially since Amazon has been excellent. Thanks again and with kind regards, Michel

Hi Scott, May I suggest 4.4.1 UI? It allows you to change the font sizes and, although there are some anomalies (programs), it should help: http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/17359-release-441-beta-is-now-available/ With kind regards, Michel

Hi Chuck, I am not sure I understand what you are asking. We are waiting for certification from Amazon Connected Home (which is different than the Skill). Unfortunately I have NO ETAs and cannot provide any guarantees as to where they will go and how long it will take. We would gladly refund your money for the portal. With kind regards, ​Michel

Hi kowaj, Yes, Benoit pushed a fix into production over the weekend and, thus far, it seems to be working very well. With kind regards, Michel

Hi jmed999, It's not the thermostat. It's ISY. Please take a look at all the: Thu 12/17/2015 07:16:21 PM : [iNST-TX-I1 ] 02 62 14 BA D7 0F 6A 20 INST-TX is transaction from ISY. So, it must be one of your programs. With kind regards, Michel

Hi whywork, Thanks so very much! Fixed ... I am going to have to waive this to the impact of age! With kind regards, Michel

Hi klebel, Have you recently changed the PLM? Does the scene actually work when you click on On/Off? Do devices respond when you physically turn on/off the controller in the scene? With kind regards, Michel

Hi klebel, Have you recently changed the PLM? This is usually due to the PLM not having the same address as what's in the nodes. Also, have you ever done a File | Delete Modem? What you might want to try is to right mouse click on any of the devices in the scene | Diagnostics | Show Device Link Table and then click on Compare. Once that's done make sure a) they are identical and you don't have any 00 00 00 records in the middle. With kind regards, Michel

Hello everyone, Thanks so very much for all the feedback and offer to help funding certification. This said, you have already paid for ISY Portal and it would not be fair to charge you again. In the meantime: 1. Benoit and I decided that we'll add a Tool in the portal so that only a select few devices/programs will be included in the Skill and you can name them. This way a) changing names and spoken words take effect immediately (you don't have to ask Alexa to refresh devices) changes to the tool won't require firmware updates in ISY and c) it's more user friendly (getting away from Java/Admin Console) and d) the same paradigm can then be used later for IFTTT integration. I must admit that every time we decide to do anything in the portal, I get the hibby jibbies alas, at least in this case, I am convinced that it makes more sense to put this in the portal than it is in ISY/Admin Console 2. Alexa Skills Team contacted us and provided invaluable suggestions as far as how to structure the utterances. We'll have to go through recertification but the combination of your invaluable feedback and Alexa Team's recommendations I think we'll have a very fine tuned Skill 3. Heard back from Alexa Connected Home team ... they are having a discussion about our predicament and they will get back to us shortly ( I am optimistic) Hi Digger, You can NOT say "switch x on". It has to be "switch on X". With kind regards, Michel

Hi Jrissmill69, This very much sounds like the thermostat itself. Is it possible to change the dead band configuration to 3 degrees (temporarily) and see if that works? If not, then I would suggest contacting Venstar. With kind regards, Michel

Hi Ryan0751, Please make sure you follow the instructions in the link below after you replace your PLM: http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i/ISY-26_INSTEON:File_Menu#Replace_Modem_.28PLM.29 With kind regards, Michel

Hi mwester, I agree with a configuration utility that only links devices and programs to nodes. As far as adding constraints, I think that would be a good idea too but not included in the spoken field but as a parameter. Hi Bxsteez, Is the profile ISY or MobiLinc Connect? Please note that the credentials are those for the portal. If you are still having problems, please do not hesitate to submit a ticket. Hi Barry, Thanks so very much for the offer. At the moment, though, we lack resources for setting up an RPi with emulator and, at the end, all has to be moved to the portal with a different programming environment (Node.js). Amazon requires a certificate for which the subject (or alternate subject) is that of the domain and verified. So, in the long run, having emulator locally will probably not work unless everyone gets a regular DNS name for his/her IP address with all that goes with DNS records and their administration. If they lax this constraint (or if you have managed to figure out how to do this) I would love to have a local solution and yours will be the ultimate since it already works and most probably we can include it in Polyglot. Hi kck, I totally agree. As a matter of fact, I was at IPSO meeting last week and we went through the same exact things alas with no results! With kind regards, Michel

Hi Ryan0751, Please check the pattern of lights on the front of the unit: http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Help#Front_Panel_LEDs.2FLights With kind regards, Michel

Hello all, 1. stusviews problem: if you have two portal modules installed, ISY will deactivate one. That was the issue 2. Digger, Benoit is working with us on the portal and Echo and can be considered part of the team. This is not a third party solution. We own everything 3. We have submitted our app for Connected Home certification but have not heard back 4. We are still waiting for Amazon to get back to us ... I'll send them another email 5. As it is currently, I would say that the whole solution is only usable for simple things. I am thinking that we should forego downloading all nodes/spoken and make a clean interface whereby only most important nodes/programs are downloaded As Benoit suggested, the feedback has been fantastic and quite invaluable. Please do continue posting your experiences and bugs. So, THANK YOU. With kind regards, Michel

Hi Jim, I am not sure how you got the impression that this is a production ready solution. It's not and we never claimed it to be (otherwise it would have been advertised all over the place). Furthermore - and explicitly - I stated that there are some issues and that you are welcome to "test": http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/17082-interface-with-amazon-echo/?p=157836 Hi whywork, Yes, scenes should work. The issue is with the words used such as bedroom and light. We are definitely working on improvements. IFTTT is not using a skill otherwise you would have to have: "Alexa, tell IFTTTT to trigger xxx". The issue is with Skills and slots that may have other meanings to Alexa. Personally, I think the concept of skills and predefined slots is not going to work for automation because there's really no way to have all different permutations and combinations of locations predefined. We are waiting to hear back from Amazon and hopefully we can figure out a way to make this a little less stringent. In the meantime, Benoit has been playing with utterances and interpretations by Alexa but with very little improvements: Alexa needs a list of words/phrases from which it can infer what was said based on some weights for each. With kind regards, Michel

Hi stusviews, The log you sent me was from 4.2.22 with last entry of January 2015. Have you downgraded? Please note that you need 4.3.x for Portal to work. With kind regards, Michel

Hi stusviews, Please go to Admin Console | Configuration | Portal and make sure it's still registered. Once that's done, please check your error log for any connectivity issues. If you wish, you can send your error log to support@universal-devices.com. With kind regards, Michel

Hi Randy, Sincere apologies. While fixing MobiLinc, we had a regression. Please try again. With kind regards, Michel

Hi barrygordon, I just renamed it for you. With kind regards, Michel

Hi stusviews, Please do the following: 1. Open Echo app (http://echo.amazon.com) 2. Ask Alexa something and make sure it understands it in the card (under Home) 3. Make sure your sentences are structured as follows: Alexa, ask (or tell) izzy TO switch on Please note that both izzy and TO are very important. Once that's done, please do let us know what you said and what Alexa thought you said. With kind regards, Michel

Hi benbennett , Thanks so very much for invaluable feedback. We heard back from Amazon ( I am still very impressed ). In addition to the input from Amazon, we worked with a customer whose echo didn't work with anything. In summation: 1. There's definitely a bug with Alexa whereby the utterance is considered as a Connected Home command. Every time you hear "... not found in ... profile", then the answer is coming from Connected Home not ISY's skill. To address this, Amazon recommended to use "switch on/off" instead of "turn on/off" which is used by Connected Home 2. When you use a Skill, you MUST use "ask/tell izzy TO " ... if Echo does not hear the "to" pronounced correctly, then it'll invoke Connected Home 3. Light(s) might have problems for the same reason as above 4. Alexa uses utterances for a good match and, if not found, then uses literal ... unfortunately we cannot add more utterances to the list because we can never come up with all the combination and permutations of all utterances. Furthermore, we cannot add more utterances since Amazon portal hangs above 170. So, what we are going to do is to fine tune these utterances to maximize understanding. This said, if we change anything, we will have to go back for certification Thanks so very much for your patience! With kind regards, Michel​

Hi 502ss, Thanks so very much for the invaluable feedback. We do know that Alexa has a very hard time with 3 words. This said, the main concern is with things such as "kitchen room". We are working through these as we speak to figure out the algorithm used by Alexa and what's being sent to us. Thank you all for your patience while we figure things out. With kind regards, Michel

Chuck, At this juncture I am not sure what algorithm they use. This said, we are trying to reverse engineer and figure out the root cause. At the moment, our hypothesis is that we have so many utterances (about 170) that Amazon probably times out before calling us. We were going to add more but their tool hangs with anything above 170. From my perspective, if Amazon has to depend on exact match, then it's pretty much useless. This said, I do not want to draw any conclusions till we have further proof. Connected Home: just submitted our application. NAC has to get back to us with cost and time. With kind regards, Michel

Hi bguzik, Thanks SO very much for your kind words. It means a lot to us. I am sure we'll find a solution and hopefully Amazon will help us along the way (they have been very good thus far). With kind regards, Michel

Hi bguzik, Yes, it should. We are working on a few anomalies and most point to the fact that Skills (unlike connected home) require predetermined utterances and, we have reached a limit on Amazon side. So, it seems that even though Alexa hears the correct utterance it has a hard time matching it with the skill's slot (these are all on Amazon side). In the meantime, please do make sure you do: Alexa tell izzy to refresh devices (after every change to your topology/spoken/names) With kind regards, Michel