Michel Kohanim

MikeB, Thanks so very much for your vote of confidence. We would do anything in power to make INSTEON/ISY a success. I am sure there are a lot of other like-minded people out there who believe that we make INSTEON a success if and only if we cooperated. Again, I remain optimistic. Thanks again and with kind regards, Michel

upstatemike, I agree with you that this is a little discouraging but I am a little optimistic since there are quite a few very helpful people at SmartLabs who would make sure things get implemented if the business justification exists. Also: I am sure we'll find a way to integrate with the touch-screen. They do have a brilliant solution for a small installation with one touch-screen (multiple PLMs). But, they will run into the same issue (as with ISY) as soon as you want to add another touch-screen. So, I am confident that not only the touch-screen integration will add value to ISY/INSTEON, ISY will add value to the touch-screen solution for larger installations. All it takes is the willingness to cooperate and I remain optimistic. Also, as I promised, I did contact HomeSeer and had a very pleasant chat with the president. What we have to do is to simply create a HomeSeer plugin. Due to shortage of resources on our side, this is not going to happen immediately. Do you know of any HomeSeer developers who might be able to/interested in creating an ISY plugin for HomeSeer? This would certainly be much more efficient since: a. We wouldn't have to assign resources to learn HomeSeer b. The Plugin Developer may choose to charge for each one sold c. This will get done much quicker since the learning curve is lower If you know of anyone, please do let me know. With kind regards, Michel

Hello aLf, It's quite simple: Tools->Generate Topology. This will create an HTML version with all of your configuration including the addresses, scenes, controller/responder relationships, notes, etc. Please do let me know if this is not what you were looking for. With kind regards, Michel

Hello Adam, I just wanted to follow up and make sure you've been able to create scenes. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you are still experiencing problems. With kind regards, Michel

upstatemike, Your questions is too general so let answer it in two sections: 1. What happens when you link a device to ISY 2. What happens if, after you have alraedy linked a device to ISY, you manually link another device to it In case 1: You have a choice: you can bring in all the existing links and ISY will keep them for you. But, since ISY does NOT know what they are, nor does it know how to represent them, it will never allow you to remove and/or modify them. Now, if you remove/modify these links using an alternative method, then ISY would NOT know anything about what you did and continues thinking that they are as they were In case 2: ISY will not be privy to what you do to any device after it has already been linked to ISY, unless you go through ISY. So, assuming that you have configured all your devices using ISY, and then you get the touch screen, and you also link all your devices into the PLM on your touch screen then: 1. ISY will NOT know anything about the slave links in your devices to the new PLM (that's the only way that the touch screen can control your device) 2. If you add that device to a new scene in ISY, then since ISY does not know anything about the extra link, it will overwrite it We do acknowledge that ISY is not the BE IT ALL nor have we ever aspired to be. As such, we would love to integrate with any third party solution within limits: 1. What we do has to be supported by the underlying protocol. i.e. if INSTEON does not explicitly specify the cases where two "generic and un-documented" devices should link and behave, then we will not "invent" our own solution. This said, however, we would surely (as we have done so many times) suggest solutions and hope that they will be implemented and incorporated into the protocol 2. We prefer to promote communications via Web Services and TCP/IP rather than physical connections. This will give us the flexibility to implement solutions quickly (i.e. ELK integration in less than a week) + extensibility for the future generation of devices most of which will be network enabled MikeB, Adding/maintaining dummy nodes in ISY goes against the first principle above. The main reasons are: 1. If they are dummy, we don't know what they are capable of doing (on/off/wash/open/close/volume/up/down/ring/smoke/zone/temperature/setpoint, and all the different supported actions in INSTEON specification) 2. If we don't know what they are capable of doing, then we cannot explain them 3. If we cannot explain them, we cannot document them 4. If we cannot document them, we cannot train our staff to handle the support issues In short, I think it'll be better to have an INSTEON specification specifically for these cases (even if a draft) so that, at the least, what we do is official rather than one-off, proprietary, short-lived, and a maintenance nightmare. Thanks so very much, With kind regards, Michel

Hello aLf, Unforutnately, there's no way since the backup files are stored in binary. I am so very sorry for the inconvenience, With kind regards, Michel

Mark, No drops today. Thanks and with kind regards, Michel

Hello sceaton, We have found the "source" of this issue and it should surely be fixed by v.13 or the official 2.5 release. With kind regards, Michel

Mark, At the moment, it doesn't look like it. With kind regards, Michel

sloop, V2R4M222 with support for tazerlinc will be available soon! CopyRon, I am so glad you got everything working again. With kind regards, Michel

Hello Jon_W, YES. There is: For all devices except KPL, the Local Load on levels and ramp rates take effect only after you do a physical air-gap on the device. To do so, simply adjust the on level/ramp rate to your desired levels, and then go to each SWL, take out the Set button, leave it out for about 5 seconds, and then just "nudge" it back in. KPLs are different: you do not need to follow on level/ramp rate changes with an air-gap. With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, So do I. And, yes, we received the old PLM. With kind regards, Michel

Clarence, You do not need to use your external address if you are at home (local area network). In short, 1. When you are home, you will use your http://192.168.x.x:port 2. When you are away, you will use your http://external.ip.address:port/0/x If ISY has enabled your Remote/Internet access, then DHCP changes are taken care of automatically. If not, then you would have to monitor your IP address. In all cases, it's always better to have a static IP address assigned to ISY. We'll be there at EHX on the 7th (in the afternoon only), 8th, and 9th. See you then? With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, If you can see your router, it means that you can see UPnP enabled devices. So, the only reason why you cannot see ISY is in all likelihood your Parallel system. With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, No. Then, in all likelihood, your firewall (or something in your system) is stopping UPnP traffic on port 1900/UDP. Can you see your router? With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, I am so glad that we finally resolved at least one of the issues. The no icon problem is due to how Vista configures networks. 1. In the Network dialog, click on "Network and Sharing Center" 2. In the ensuing dialog, at the center, you will see "Sharing and Discovery" 3. Make sure Network Discovery is On This should do it. With kind regards, Michel

Yes, that's the internet address for the ISY in our lab. So, this tells me a few things: a. Your Java settings are correct b. You do not have any firewall issues c. The problem is "finding" ISY on your own subnet Have you tried accessing your ISY's URL directly and, if so, what's the result? With kind regards, Michel

Aha .... finally things are becoming crystal clear! Apologies ... I must've sounded like a ... while discussing Parallels! Ok, now that I understand where we are, I think I am better able to handle the situation. Can you try accessing http://75.80.22.57:64390/0/x . Please let me know what you experience. Thanks!

C Martin, Yes truly! But, at the end of the day, are they all emulated except the MAC? Better yet, what software is it that you use so that we can test it with our MAC? With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, This is how it works: 1. ISY searches your network for a UPnP enabled router 2. If one is not found, then ISY terminates the Internet Enablement Process 3. If ISY finds a UPnP enabled router, it does the following: a. Request a list of port mappings b. If it finds the list contains its port but not its current IP, it deletes the port mappings c. ISY creates a port forwarding rule such that all traffic (on the net) directed to your ISY's port are forwarded to your ISY's IP address (NAT - Network Address Translation) d. Finally, ISY asks the router for its external IP address and shows it to you as the URL through which you can access ISY So, if ISY is telling you that Internet Access is Enabled and that your remote access URL is http://1.2.3.4:56789/0/x then you should rest assured that 1.2.3.4 is the external IP address through which you can access ISY. In short, ISY creates the port forwarding rules for you so that you wouldn't have to do them manually. With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, By under Parallels do you mean something like VMWare/Vine which runs in MAC or are talking about dual-boot which you boot up either this or the other operating system? With kind regards, Michel

AHA! No wonder then ... the main issue is that your Vista can NOT find your ISY. We just have to figure out why! Here's my suggestion: 1. Use your iMAC to find your ISY's URL ... Help->About->My URL 2. Open a browser window on Vista, and just type in ISY's URL as you found in step 1 If you do NOT get the splash page, then we have to trouble shoot the network. If you do, then we have to figure out why you can't get to ISY through our web-site. With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, This does not make sense at all! Do you have the same issue if you went through http://www.universal-devices.com/beta? With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, Do you have any firewall software? With kind regards, Michel

C Martin, Ah ... I think you got it. On Vista, type Java in the Search bar, and in the ensuing dialog, click on the Security tab, and remove the Universal Devices Inc. entry. On MAC, go to Applications-> J2SE5.0 -> Properties and do the same. Please let me know how it goes. With kind regards, Michel