KeviNH

You might be able to do this with your existing alarm and sensors, just need an interface device, some software, something to run it on (e.g. rPi) Many, but not all, older ADT systems use a Ademoco/Honeywell "Vista" Panels (Vista20P, 21iP, 15P, 10P, 128P, and 250P) alarm "brain" which is compatible with the interface box needed for 'dsclinc' or the other two ways to integrate these specific alarms with ISY. Warning: Expect to spend +$150 and a fair amount of time getting this working.

This is a good application for "State" variables. Use a variable as the folder condition, and you have multiple options for setting the variable to a 1 or a 0 to enable or disable the folder: Folder Conditions for 'Away' If $I_am_Home < 1 Then Allow the programs in this folder to run. I have an Insteon "Open/Close" sensor attached to a key hook. When my keys are hanging on the hook, then the sensor sees the door as closed, and a program runs that sets $I_am_Home to 1. Pick up the keys, and a program runs that resets the variable to zero: Keys Up If Status 'Home / A.Wireless / Keys are Gone' is On And $I_am_Home is 1 Then Set Scene 'Goodbye' Off $I_am_Home = 0 Wait 15 seconds $I_am_Home Init To 0 Notice that this program only runs if the variable started out set to 1? If I use a program or otherwise set $I_am_home to 2, I can force it to always see me as home, even if the keys are on the hook. Or set it to -1 and it always sees me as away.

ISY994z on UPS works fine for me. My PLM is plugged into a "panel outlet" at the breaker box, then patched 30 feet away to where the UPS and ISY are located. The ISY recovers without an issue when the PLM loses power and then comes back, sometimes hours later. The biggest downside to keeping the ISY up during outages is that I lose all the benefits of Catch up schedules at Restart./ Missed Schedule Grace Period.

Pi is a very deep hole. Deeper even than Arduino. So far I've been able to resist both of those. I've looked around for simpler options to control a display or array of LEDs with something more specific to the purpose. Anybody worked with NodeMCU?

Lastly, don't forget the usefulness of the Network Module. With this, you can have a program update a local webpage stored on the ISY itself, or send a TCP/UDP network command to any intranet/internet connected device or service. Some of us have even implemented Text-To-Speech: local audio announcements via ISY programs. A Raspberry Pi board can control a dozen or more LEDs independently.

If you have Z-Wave and don't need extra sensors directly controlling the thermostat, the Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007 has worked well for me. I did read that Honeywell won't honor their 1-Year warranty unless you spring for the professional installation, but I was just swapping out an older Honeywell touchscreen, it was easy enough to copy over the settings, so I installed it myself. I figured that since it was selling at around a hundred bucks (only a slight premium over their $72 non-networked touchscreen model), and nearly all of the cost was covered by utility rebate, if I didn't like it I could sell or gift the thermostat to a relative who doesn't already have a smart thermostat. The YTH8320ZW1007/TH8320ZW1000 works perfectly fine as a standalone 7-day programmable when you turn off Zwave.

I'm not sure what they're thinking -- The ISY994zw has full control of the Z-wave thermostat, so you control it just like you would anything else connected to your ISY, e.g. via the Portal. While the ISY has a "Synchronize Clock" button on the UI, that does not work (returns a "Request failed" message). However the thermostat has a CR2032 coin cell battery to maintain the clock, though if you fail to replace the battery then the thermostat would lose the time and other settings when the power goes out.

I've gotten used to it. Might even say I've gotten so good at working around it that I've stopped taing notice. The sentence "adding a piece of hardware and spending time configuring some software because a piece of commercial equipment is missing a pretty basic feature" describes a significant source of my income for the past two decades. If you think it's annoying to spend a couple hundred bucks and find out the features you need are not only not implemented but aren't on the vendor's roadmap, imagine how corporate directors feel when that happens in relation to a six figure software package? I'm not saying it's the way things should be, but it's a living.

I didn't write my own interface. That's basically what I did; took a commercially available proxy and wrote about 5 lines of configuration settings to: Deny requests for admin Deny requests not coming from specific internal IPs Permit requests for the WebUI and certain REST commands (RunIf, RunThen, etc). Insert an authentication header with the ISY username,password. forward permitted requests to the ISY. Took me about an hour to set up and test.

There is no supported way to do this with just the ISY by itself. Do you have any sort of a server on your local network, something like a Raspberry Pi or another Unix-like machine that is always on? If so, you can make this work by running a listener on that machine that forwards lighting commands but blocks admin commands. It's not trivial, but it is possible.

When you say "double switches" are you talking about 3-way switches (multiple switches in different parts of the house, both controlling the same light), or do you have two switches, controlling two different lights, in a single-gang box? Double switch: My previous home had a bunch of these installed (usually rotated 90 degrees), and they were a pain as were the very cramped single-gang shallow steel junction boxes they were installed in.

FWIW, my monochrome touchscreen Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat doesn't have the same issues as their WiFi models. No unexplained dropouts, and the temperature reported by the thermostat is always within half a degree of the temperature reported by an Aeotec Zwave multisensor (about 8 feet away). The user interface is almost as good as the older Honeywell monochrome touchscreen thermostat, it does lack the ability to set "Hold temperature until ..." when manually setting the temperature at the thermostat.

Yes, a multimeter will be fine. I think by "Voltage Indicator" he means the simple single-lamp devices intended to just show that some AC voltage exists (also known as a "Voltage Detector"), but not the voltage level (e,g, 24, 48, or 120VAC). The multimeter will give the voltage level.

I'm happy with my Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007 z-wave thermostat. I've had it installed for a year, am about to install a second one for my other zone. With no dependency on WiFi/Cloud, it works great as a 7-day programmable without depending on outside resources, and provides fast remote control and reporting via Z-Wave. I track how many minutes/day the heat or AC is running with a simple ISY program, and also have a program to do geofencing so the thermostat switches to "Energy Save" mode when nobody is home. The Honeywell package includes a "wire saver module" for upgrading 4-wire installs.

UDI should add the option of automated backups to the portal.

Sounds like a good application for an opto-isolator. Commercially potted optoisolators usually provide multi-kilovolt isolation from mains current. You could buy one, or build a simple circuit in 5 minutes with white LED and photoresistor or phototransistor. See here: http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/9381-laundry-monitoring/?p=74800

I was thinking of a linear Hall effect sensor with analog output, then I did some googling There's a device called a "MagnetoPot", which looks perfect for this, translates linear position of a magnet into variable resistance. (5" model #MP1-L-0150-103-5%-ST) If you already have an A/D converter (e.g EZIO), at around $15 for the MagnetoPot , looks like an easy and cost-effective solution to monitoring the float gauge. I just ordered one to test.

What kind of tank and indicator do you have today? Do you want full/empty or something with more granularity? If you just want "Tank is really low", check out this inexpensive approach: http://wiki.winkathome.net/Tripper_as_an_Oil_Tank_Low_Level_Sensors_by_Jon_Jenkins

Have you tried putting a "RunIf garage man door left open' below the enable?

Does not appear to be directly compatible with ISY, nothing indicates it will make an outbound HTTP call on motion, nor that it can easily be controlled by sending HTTP requests directly from ISY Network Module. Blue Iris would appear to be the best option.

Personally, I plan to remove all my automation and take it with me when I sell. I've kept all the original switches and switchplates for re-installation.

I don't think there's a need for an ethernet cable from his Mac. Assuming the house has either cable or DSL, he should plan on plugging the modem (or a firewall), ISY-994, and Airport Extreme into a hub, and make sure all 3 of these devices have static IP addresses. Then he just needs to launch Firefox and browse to the IP address of the ISY. That should at least get him the dashboard to view and control devices.

I don't trust my ISY to disarm my alarm, so I went the other direction, but I'm fine with the ISY knowing the status of the alarm/sensors via state variables. Going to 'ARM-Away' mode triggers a program on the ISY, waits several seconds after the alarm is armed, then all Schlage locks are locked automatically.

I think many of the AXIS cameras can do this, but it requires several extra steps to configure within ACAP. Y-cam calls this feature "HTTP alarm sending", some of the Y-Cam clones call it "HTTP event alarm management". Y-cam cameras are not easy to control from a Network Resource, they don't publish an API, and changing settings requires using POST, if the message isn't exactly the same as what the WebUI would send (all headers and parameters), weird things happen. The other downside to Y-Cam is that they are currently focused on their cloud-tethered "HomeMonitor" product and service. Of the Y-Cam clones, the best is Sharx. Their SCN-3905 is particularly interesting because it has all the above HTTP features, and also hard-wired alarm input and output; you can forcibly trigger "motion", record based on input from an external signal source.

Not all cameras are readily controllable via TCP/IP, some cameras get into a weird state when you just push settings at them without actually going through their WebUI. Some cameras can actually control the ISY994 -- I have IP cameras which can be make a HTTP call upon motion detection. I configured the camera to send a REST "RunIf" command each time motion is detected. Agreed, seems like all cameras on the market today only use IP network, not other wireless protocols like Insteon/Z-Wave. Even the Schlage "Z-wave" branded Nexia cameras don't actually use Z-Wave protocol.