dbwarner5

Hi Michel, am not really worried about the final price, but as you pointed out earlier, there is always a value/benefit proposition. Without a trial period or decent documentation / screenshots, etc to understand what you are buying, one is much less likely to “take that risk” with $. However, well documented, or good trial experiences can lead to developers getting “module” type pricing like UDI has offered in the past. THe Polyglot “store” as it develops from a developers page to a consumers page will need to morph into a more user friendly / information and sales base to attract $ . Hope it succeeds. Am willing to consider helping in this regards if you want outsider input. Cheers, GO UDI!

Thanks @bpwwer As per our other discussion under OpenWeatherMap, the config files directions were missing on the git hub documentation on the cloud polyglot. Your follow up there got it to work, albeit with the 270 degree temperatures.. lol,, still reading high By the way . IF you could cut and paste what you shared in that dialogue into the GitHub documentation, I am sure that would help many others,. thanks!

Yes see first page of this post for directions, step 7 under Install. it should be 5.16b to match the firmware., Install: 1. Backup your ISY (File | Backup ISY) - Do not backup from a version 3.1.6, or 4.1.1 system (there were bugs in those versions that caused the backup to be corrupted) 2. Make sure you have done everything in the Prerequisites section 3. Download firmware - ISY 994i Series including Z-Wave support - ISY 994i ZW, Z, or ZS Series (Z-Wave/Zigbee and/or if you do NOT have a PLM) 4. Login to the Admin Console and choose Help | Manually Upgrade [the name of your system] 5. Choose the file downloaded in step 3 6. After the upgrade, You must clear your Java Cache 7. Launch the 5.0.16 Admin Console and/or Dashboard by going to the following link: - https://isy.universal-devices.com/start.jnlp

and willl there be a "trial" period? What I am finding so far, is that documentation, screen shots, and implementation is highly varied and generally pretty poor. Its a try and see type approach currently. So without trying a module for 7 days, or 30 days, I will be very hard pressed to make purchase decisions based on what is shown in the "store" currently. But could definitely see it becoming similar to apple apps store etc.

So this thread has gotten me a bit confused. When and why does the z-wave dongle need upgrading? Are there any notes around this? The z-wave prerequisites on this thread (page1) says that 4.55 is adequate. I am on 5.16b, with z-wave Version 4.55.00, boot loader version 1.03, and Wave (21100) See below screenshots. Z-wave devices seem to be working as expected. Thanks,

To help you get going on the remote link, you would set up four separate scenes, each with the keypad button being a controller of the other two switches, and setting the light level in that particular scene to the level you would like. Then you can turn them on or off at that level. The alternative is to use a program that watches for the Remote link button to be pressed on and then turns on the light to the level you would like. Either way will work. Scenes are quicker to execute than a program, which is reliant on isy cpu time, vs scenes which are actually stored locally in the switches and does not involve the isy to execute.

yes, you could do either via programming with an ISY. Quite easy once you get the idea of it.

I recently had an issue with the portal/polyglot/Isy communication whereas I had to delete my ISY from the Portal and re-add it. As a result in this whole process I lost close to 100 verbal Alexa commands from the portal.NOT A GOOD DAY. This has led me to the discovery that there is no decent way to export and reimport your “Alexa file”, putting at risk the key interface I now use with Isy. My ISY is the BACKBONE of my home automation, however Alexa has become the daily user interface for it. I have seriously not touched a light switch, fan switch, stereo switch, fireplace switch etc, in months. To not be able to back up this part of my automation system is a serious hole, that I just learned the hard way to deal with. I cant stress the importance that Alexa has become to my successful ISY interface and therefore why backup of this link is SO CRITICAL to have. Likewise, I also use a large amount of “Routines” in the Alexa app. When the Isy/Alexa interface went away, any Isy related calls from these routines also went away and had to be redone. This is yet another but different hole in my whole automation process that is Amazon based. **UDI, @Michel Kohanimcan you add to your improvement list, a way to export a users Alexa / google home / etc settings from the portal, in a way that they can be re-imported? You currently have a CSV export which I have done now to at least have a manual list to reference. For others who may find themselves in this land of purgatory of a lost Isy on the portal, this was the process I finally figured out to recover my Alexa commands. Starting from zero would have been weeks of “remembering” all the things I had done. Process for recovery: 1)open the Alexa web page interface on a browser and do a copy from Alexa web page and paste into a spreadsheet. Do this for both scenes and devices. This will give you the total list of “devices” and spoken commands that Alexa has, of which any Isy related ones wont work. 2) use this list to reenter them into portal. The list has Isy addresses so confirmation of the same scene / switch is easy. 3)once the new ones are in the portal, delete the old ones from Alexa’s web page via web browser BEFORE doing any discovery. This makes it easy as ALL the Isy related items need to be deleted 4) After all the old ones are deleted, then ask Alex to re-discover and all the “new” commands from the Portal will go back into the Alexa. 5) lastly, any routines in the Alexa app on your mobile device will need to be revisited. Ones that relied on an Isy variable need to be redefined, as wil any calling an old Isy device. The routines will all be there, but often with blank fields after the above delete. Current best back up process is to export the CSV file, but ALSO, do another copy paste from the Alexa web page for both devices and switch, as their format is a bit easier for reading and re-entering manual per above. Let me know anyone if you have a different / better experience or suggestions for future. Thanks,

last update: was able to go to the Alexa web page and copy and paste into a spreadsheet the list of Devices and Scenes. Reentering them in the portal became manageable with this list as it has the spoken name and the isy address of the scene or program. Variable a bit trickier but doable. had to go and repopulate any routines that called old scenes variable and devices. Process for recover: 1)copy from Alexa web page and paste into spreadsheet 2) reenter them into portal 3) delete the old ones from Alex via web browser 4)re-discover..

continued saga.... all of my commands are still in the Alexa app, but they of course are not mapped to the ISY properly anymore,. So the dilemma is do I delete all of these and redo them or is there a way to backward populate the portal? hours of work ahead....

RESOLVED.... I deleted my isy from the portal and re-added it. Had to reboot it to get the approval to go through, but once I rebooted, and approved, I am back on line at the portal and polyglot... whew. UPDATE--> NOT RESOLVED : its showing green on line, but nothing is connecting again.. polyglot worked for about 5 minutes. If I try to access Amazon, I get error message that ISY is not online... SORTA RESOLVED --> I repeated the above action, but this time went and immediately deleted the dark sky server and things are now stable, however I lost ~100 amazon commands... never downloaded a copy.. this is a very very bad day...

I can log into the portal.. but for example if I select tools / isy web portal, I get the error, isy is not online. I am going to go ahead and open a ticket.. something seems to have gone haywire on UD end I think.

I have been successfully using the portal for a long time, and more recently the polyglot cloud. In trying to solve a Dark sky node issue, I decided to try and reinstall it. Somehow, I wonder if broke something in this process such that now BOTH the Portal and polyglot cant find my ISY.. Says ISY is offline. All I did was delete the profile in the isy node server config file and then try to delete the dark sky node server on the polyglot cloud. However, I have no problems running the Admin Council locally, or using mobilinc over the cell network (not my lan), They connect just fine. So its something to do with the portal? Is it down? or did I do something? thanks...

Also applaud Wes for all his work on this and past versions, but will also stay with Pro as the dashboard is also my first go to look at things in my house for that macro view with ability to drill down as noted. Also the whole portal thing has me a bit confused. I am using universal devices portal for their items (Alexa, polyglot etc), and my mobil linc goes directly through a dns service to my ISY, so why would I want to change all of that to add a third annual fee / portal to manage? I still need my dns for other access points when not at home so I cant give that up, for now. thanks,

right click on the link and chose "Download linked file" and the zip stays together.

Understand your point. Shut the garage doors on this example is pretty much the only natural thing to say. For other situations where there are multiple natural words I will add several voice options in the portal for the Alexa command or in some cases 2 or 3 routines with different but similar voice commands My wife is my natural tester. And as you would guess I hear about anything annoying pretty quickly lol. And currently she loves what we have done with Alexa and has good enough luck with it that she not only doesn’t complain but even shows it off. Lol But again I understand your point Lots of time and patience to get to the level of use that I have with it But I wouldn’t do with out it Cheers Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Resolved as usual by Michael. Thanks! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have had great success with Alexa. But have found you crate have similar names across groups and scenes and devices and routines. Try renaming your office group to something like upstairs office. I generally don’t use Alexa groups for this reason An example of my crazy naming sequences. Alexa routine : “shut the garage doors” initiates an ISY Portal voice command called garage doors shut alll which is linked through the ISY portal to the program or scene that initiates my garage door sequence If I had used the portal voice command of shut the garage doors I get error message of “I don’t understand “ since shut is an Alexa verb that can’t be applied to this situation but also part of the voice command I want to give. This is an example of the workaround So yes it’s a bit convoluted for sure but once you get it set up (I use voice activated routines in Alexa for a very large number of Alexa actions) it is fabulous Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@ISY Newbie Bottom line, there is a TON of ways to automate your life. You will need to decide the balance of complexity of setup / programming vs how much you want to exactly meet every situation. By reading all of the posts and accepting your newbie experience, I would suggest simplifying and growing as follows: -Use the MS to initially turn on the lights upon entering. -Add a 6 button keypad to a light switch somewhere handy. -upon entering, decide which "scene" you want from the keypad, and press that button. -This would then initiate a series of programs: 1)disable the MS until either a certain time expires ie 3 hours, or the main light switch is turned on again 2) depending on which button was pressed, adjust the lighting scene inside the room for the way you want it... movies probably darker than sports etc. 3) program that resets everything when the main light switch is turned on with a slow brighten affect. this is a pretty simple and straitforward approach that gives you a pretty good start for what you are looking to do....control the lights in your movie room. Or you can achieve all of the above without a keypad by using an Alexa and simple voice commands as the initiator vs the keypad (my preferred route) you can always grow from here with polyglot, node servers, multiple MS, door sensors etc... but that starts to get pretty involved if you haven't mastered the basics of isy programming such as I have explained above. If you choose to do something simple like this, feel free to reach out and I can explain in more detail if you need it. good luck and WELCOME to the ISY.. you won't ever look back once you get the hang of it...

@Michel Kohanim I have submitted a ticket. In trying to get the IP address changed so that the dashboard would work, the polyisy is now nowhere to be found on my network. Pushing the reset button does NOT create any beeps fyi.

Larry. Lol. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

bob.. go to universals devices website and you can see the ISY... there is definitely a learning curve with it, but it is well worth it if you would like to really control things, both automatically, and via Alexa or your phone etc. For example, I have three garage doors. I have programs that if any of the garage doors are open, several keypad buttons light up around the house. If after dark, they will start to blink to attract my attention. I can then either press any of them, or ask Alexa to "close the garage doors". The Isy will then determine which doors are open, blink lights in the garage as a warning, then make two attempts to close them. If any of them fail to close after 2 attempts, then the house announces the problem (could be through Alexa) that one of the doors is still open. If they all close successfully, the same keypad lights will blink slowly and an announcement will be made if my rear access door is also left open (often done in the summertime). Meanwhile, I can at anytime, open or close any of the doors simply by asking Alexa ("Alexa, open the north garage door") or pushing a "dashboard" button on my cell phone mobillinc app. All very easy. The point is, that with ISY, there really is no limit to what you can do; it just takes time, patience and a little experimenting to figure it all out. This forum is an excellent resource, but at times, some of the answers you may get may be a bit more complicated than often is needed for a beginner, so just keep asking.

I did not use a secondary z-wave controller when I updated from 4 to 5. But did do a z-wave backup before and a restore after. No problems. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

yes glowing hair.. easy enough to do, but you still need to check once in a while, and having the LD is a really quick way to scan down your program list to see if if indeed they are set they way you intend them. Will do your suggestion in conjunction! thanks.

Have been waiting for less trouble and finally updated last week from 4.7.3 to 5.16a.... followed hart2hart's check list below. Upgrade went flawlessly with exception of leak sensors. Just upgrades to 5.16b. Again no issues. Waiting 24 hours for heartbeat to know for sure. One additional tip / idea to the list below: - I have historically had issues with certain programs that should be disabled, becoming enabled due to power outages etc. and have always had a challenge going through my hundreds of programs to sort them out. -So a while ago, I adopted the nomenclature rule for my system where if a program is meant to be disabled, then I end the name of the program with LD for Leave Disabled. See below for an example -This is a one time effort to rename, but it made it super easy during the upgrade to reset everything as it should be w/o the need to compare two lists as recommended by hart2hart Thanks UDI and everyone who actively contributes to this forum.... you all are great! Merry Christmas.