Michel Kohanim

Very interesting! As far as your KPLs not working properly (for the non-dimmer mode/toggle) we should have it fixed in the next release. Thanks so very much for both of your contributions, With regards,

sfhutchi, Consider it done ... With regards, Michel

Hi Rand, I hope you are enjoying it! With respect to having to do an air-gap, you would only need to do it: a. If the controller, within a scene, needs its own on level/ramp rate. The reason for this is that an Insteon Device can not be a controller for itself (the same reason that you cannot put two or more buttons from the same KPL In the one scene). As such, ISY converts your request to a local on level/ramp rate but ONLY for when you are actually/physically clicking on that controller. So, if you have controller A, and 10 other controllers in the same scene, for each controller (when they are the controlling device), the on level and ramp rates are the local on level and ramp rates where as the others are "group" on level/ramp rates b. If the controller is anything but a KeypadLinc. For KeypadLinc, we do Initialize RAM from EPROM which takes the place of the airgap I am not sure why the sliders do not get updated. You might have hit a bug but, unfortunately, I cannot reproduce them here. Would you please give me more details as to what you do and what is not updated. I'd sincerely appreciate it. With regards, Michel

Mark, You are correct. This requirement has been captured and we'll work on it in our coming releases. With regards, Michel

Tom, No, unfortunately ControLinc All on/off cannot be sensed by ISY (we are working on it with SmartLabs). With regards, Michel

Is there a way to Restore a Scene, or does one have to Restore every device individually? Rand Rand, good point! No, at the moment there isn't a way to restore a scene. You have to restore each device or, if you have time, just do Restore Devices (in the File Menu) which restores all the devices from which point on all the devices and ISY configuration will be fully in synch. With kind regards,

Mark, No. ISY does not do anything with toggle mode (yet). The only function it supports, at the moment, is button grouping (mutual exclusivity). Have you reset your KPL? You see, memory locations comprise two types: link database variables Button grouping, toggle on/off, and backlight level are all part of the variables which ISY only touches grouping. On the other hand, when you put a device in a scene, then that's when ISY starts playing with the link-database. As you see, link database and operational variables (as far as we know) are mutually exclusive except for the case when a device is fully reset. Please let me know if this answers your question. With kind regards,

Rand, good to hear but STOP before 256! Thanks and regards,

Won't this limit me to the same light level from both switches? If I want a different level/rate for each switch I will have to do as sfhutchi suggests and create two scenes, right? Rand Rand, No. Within the scene, click on the switch that you want to adjust the on-level/ramp rate. To your right, you can adjust the on level and ramp rate for each individual member of that scene. Please let me know if this helped. With kind regards,

Thartmann, Question: how about fast on/off? i.e. double click on the KPL button really quickly. If fast on/ff controls your lamp then the on level for the lamp for the KPL button is set to 0. To test: 1. Go to the scene where the KPL is the controller 2. Click on the KPL button within that scene 3. Make sure that the on level for the floor lamp is not zero (to your right) If the on level is not zero, then try a Restore Device: 1. Right mouse click on the KPL and choose Restore Device menu option 2. Right mouse click on your floor lamp and choose Restore Device menu options. With regards,

sfhutchi, The proper way for a 3-way (all 3 switches control each other) is to drop all the switches in "one" scene as "controllers". With regards,

Sloop, There's indeed an ISY Startup Trap Error bug which we've fixed in version 2.2. Thanks and with kind regards,

Clarence, Thanks so very much for your vote of confidence and your feedback. As you may have noticed, feedbacks comprise 90% of what's included in our releases. All your requests are queued for version 2.2 (please checkout the topic: What's included in 2.2: http://forum.universal-devices.com/viewtopic.php?t=31) to be released by 6.20.2007. X10 support will be released in our releases 2.3 and 2.4 but no dates have been set yet. In all likelihood, we will have some preliminary X10 support by end of July. With regards, Michel

sfhutchi, You are right ... also, we have taken your suggestion vis-a-vis Wiki and shall implement one within the next month (after we are done with triggers and X10). Thanks so much and with regards,

heatvent, my pleasure. Yes, I think we might have to do as you suggest. We are deliberating! With regards, Michel I have to quote my own quote since I just realized that we do actually provide that feature File->Restore Devices! This feature was put in there precisely because of cases where one needs to synch up Device Links to what's in ISY. For instance, let's assume you had a party where there were a lot of INSTEON experts and they decided to go around your house and do some manual linking (which would not be reflected in ISY). So, after the party, all you do is File->Restore Devices and all your devices will be in synch again with ISY. With regards,

heatvent, my pleasure. Yes, I think we might have to do as you suggest. We are deliberating! With regards, Michel

sfhutchi, We acknowledge the fact that starting afresh is a drawback of using ISY. As a side note, the functionality to "interrogate" a device is already there and that's what we started with but after a few use cases we realized that it's going to cause more confusion than good: If you have a scene with more than one controller and some responders then, interrogating is not sufficient; you would also have to "figure out" if all the responders really belong to the same scene which is something non-trivial. In most cases, we ended up with many disjoint scenes for the same group only because "one" of the devices had an inactive link (for each controller, keep an array of all its responders. At the end of interrogation, go through all the responders for each controller with the same group and see if the resulting set is the same). To make the very long story short, we pulled out the functionality because the users would then have to "merge" scenes and "delete" those not working properly. I hope this clarifies the situation further. With regards,

Heatvent and GPG, I am not going to feign mastery of this topic and I urge others to chip in. Each INSTEON device has a database also called a "Link Database"; this is a flat structure of 1024 bytes (1K) which holds all the linkages between this device and other devices. In this database, each link record is 8 bytes long. When you create scenes, using ISY, manual mode, or through HouseLinc, this is the location where all the links are written/read from in a sequential manner. In order to achieve higher performance rates (not having to go through all the links), each link record: 1. Could have an inactive flag (it's neither a slave nor a master) 2. There's a high watermark beyond which no links are valid When you use ISY as the linking tool, ISY starts at the top and overwrites existing links at those addresses but any existing links beyond where ISY last wrote remain intact. If you wish to reset the device (to get rid of all the old links without having to do a reset), all you have to do is to followup with Restore Device (when you click on a device in the tree and right mouse click to get the menu) in which case your device will be in synch with ISY 100% and the highwater mark is moved to where it should be. All INSTEON devices also have some variables that dictate the way they should operate/behave such as on level and ramp rate presets. For KPLs, there are also button grouping, back light level, and toggle mode variables. You can set these variables programmatically but, unfortunately, for these variables to take effect, they have to be written to the volatile memory (load RAM from eeprom). At the moment, the only device that supports reinitializing the RAM is KeypadLinc. As such, when you change the on level/ramp rate for any other device (such as LampLinc or SwitchLinc) you wuold have to do an airgap or unplug the unit and plug it back in for the changes to take effect. ISY, currently, has the capability of updating the following memory locations: 1. On Level -- all devices; requires airgap for any device except KPL 2. Ramp Rate -- all devices; requires airgap for any device except KPL 3. Button Groups -- KPL only; does not require airgap We are thinking of adding support for: 4. Backlight level -- KPL only; does not require airgap 5. Toggle vs. non-Toggle -- KPL only; does not require airgap So, if you use your HouseLinc (or other programs) to program the backlight and toggle/non-Toggle, not only ISY would not "care" but also it would not even touch those memory locations. So, you can use your HouseLinc (till we add support) to program the Toggle/Non-Toggle and backlight level, shutdown HouseLinc, and continue using the whole system as nothing ever happened. Lastly, I think there's a misconception that ISY is directing traffice between devices. I have to emphasize that this is not the case. All the programming/linking is done between devices. As such, you can unplug ISY and the whole system should still operate the way you had it designed within ISY. For the sake of completeness, ISY creates a maximum of two links: 1. A group controller link for any device within any scene. This enables you to control the whole scene from ISY (or your computer by extension); i.e. a schedule to turn on the whole house to 10% 2. A master link only in a controller (such as KPL) and a slave link in the PLM. This allows ISY to "listen" in on the activities of the controller (i.e. button pushed) and thus let you do triggers based on those "events". Again, ISY can be totally taken out and the whole system should work as designed. ISY is only there if you need "trigger" and "scheduler" functionality. I hope I've been able to answer some of your questions, With regards, Michel

Hi sfhutchi, At the moment, we do not support "programming" KPL beyond button grouping. There are two more functions on KPL which we are "thinking" about implementing: Toggle/Non-Toggle Backlight level Unfortunately, though, due to major demand for more elaborate triggers we have been putting all our effort on triggers for our next release. With kind regards, Michel I would vote for backlight level. Very good idea. Any chance this is something that can be programmed on a switchlinc. If you look around techmall.com there are many people who have complained the LED's are too bright. I don't think so! KPL, for some reason or another, has more features than SwitchLinc the most important of which is its capability to take in a ramp rate/on level programmatically (with others, you have to do an airgap). And, I think it's this feature alone that allows it to be more flexible: all and all, we are just setting bits in some memory location which, then, the KPL has to read and reinitialized based on them. With regards,

sfhutchi, We are working on a solution. Yes, you can program using HouseLinc; ISY does not touch those memory locations. With regards,

Hi sfhutchi, At the moment, we do not support "programming" KPL beyond button grouping. There are two more functions on KPL which we are "thinking" about implementing: Toggle/Non-Toggle Backlight level Unfortunately, though, due to major demand for more elaborate triggers we have been putting all our effort on triggers for our next release. With kind regards, Michel

GPG, Buttons inside a group are mutually exclusive. i.e. if you put button 1 in group 1 and button 2 in group 2 then nothing happens. If you want buttons 1 and 2 to be mutually exclusive, you should put buttons 1 and 2 in the same group. I hope this helps, With regards,

Hello all, Release 2.4 is all about enhanced triggers. Enhancements More triggers. Status: being implemented Triggering schedules/scheduling triggers. Status: being implemented GUI Facelift for triggers/schedules. Status: being implemented With regards

Scott, my pleasure. Your unit will be shipped today. With regards,

Hi Scott, ISY supports up to 64 schedules in total; each schedule may be applied to an individual device, a scene, or the whole network of devices (globally). In release 2.3 (we are at 2.1 now, so in about 3 weeks to a month), triggers and schedules shall be linked so that you could have scheduled triggers and triggered schedules. I hope I've been able to answer your questions. With regards,