barrygordon

Someone just reminded me of this thread which I have not been to in quite a while. Michel, I have no sympathy for any individual who will tolerate a malicious device on their private LAN space. I keep extremely tight control over my LAN and over my connection to the Internet, so I am able to operate a little less stringently (security wise) on the LAN. I do use passwords but they are not too complex, and all the computers can see each other and reference information stored on their neighbors. Last time I checked and nothing has been changed that I know of, the only port visible to outside my house is port 80 to allow others to get to my webserver. No other ports should be visible, i.e. responsive, but I have not checked in a while. Need to do that. I recently made some changes to my systems. With regard to the ISY I now use the heartbeat and if an iPad loses the heartbeat for 2 minutes it will re-subscribe to the ISY. That is working very nicely. I finally broke down and bought an iPhone 5s retiring my Razr flip phone. I did this so I could run all of my house control that is on the iPad on the iPhone as my "Portable" around the house device. I found out I could get a contract that costs me $57 a month with all the voice/text I need and a very small amount of Data. On the iPhone I turned off cellular so that the Internet hungry apps only ran in my home or at a wi-fi hotspot which there are tons of these days. The CommandFusion system only required that I redesign the graphics, as all of the JavaScript code on which my iPad systems are based ran just fine with almost no change. Where there was a slight difference required in the operation of some section of JavaScript I merely checked to see what the code was running on, iPad vs iPhone and proceeded accordingly. The app runs in multitasking mode on both the iPad and iPhone so it is always running in the background when the device is on, but goes to sleep when it is off. The CF system supplies a guiResumed event when the app is once again active. I use this to re-subscribe the iPhone to the ISY. Works perfectly. Not needed for the iPad as they are never turned off, just have the backlight is extinguished. A significant reason why I chose the ISY over the Insteon Hub was the support provided by the staff at UDI and the members of this forum. When I have questions/problems I bring them here and they get traction almost immediately and resolved almost as quickly.

I resolved the issue completely by changing the command used in HS from HS.execX10OnByName("My Programs All Inside Lights off", "runThen") to HS.execX10OnByName("My Programs All Inside Lights off", "on") to run the Then section and HS.execX10OnByName("My Programs All Inside Lights off", "off") to run the Else section. The All Inside Lights Off program references a bunch of scenes, one for each room, to turn off the lights in that room. Works like a charm

To close out the thread: I was using the Homeseer plugin in an unintended manner. The plugin was sending to the program address a command to increment value by 0 which makes no sense for the program in ISY. It does make sense for other non ISY devices. It seems the ISY when given a program command it does not recognize will run the program based on its current state. If the state is true, it runs the Then section and if false the Else section. Once again thanks for the assistance.

Thanks for all the replies. What I have gathered from the replies is: A proper Rest command with a runThen command should always run the then clause independent of the status. Similarly for a runElse I suspect the plugin may be issuing an incorrect REST command and will discuss that with the plugin developer who supports his plugin in the same manner as the staff at UDI supports the ISY. The suggestion for an always true if clause is a good safety factor and I will do that as there is no else clause in the program (The If clause is currently empty) Once again, thanks for the help.

I have a program that I use to turn off all the lights in my home. It has no If section, no else section, just a then section. The then section consists of a bunch of scenes, one for each room. This program is normally run when I leave the house or I go to "Bed" I normally run the program using Homeseer which has an excellent plugin for communicating with the ISY. A while ago this stopped working and I just started to look at it. I can force the program to run from a command in Homeseer which effectively runs its Then section using a rest interface addressing the program ID with a "runThen" as the command. When I do this I can see in the admi9n console that the program has run, but no lights turn off. I started playing around and noticed that in the program summary the line item for the inside lights program had the correct time of last action, the activity was idle and the status was false. I then ran the program from the console using the programs summary page. All the lights went out as they should and the status went from false to true and stayed that way. The Homeseer program now reliably turns off the lights by executing this program in the same manner as it did before. Ergo I have no real problem any longer, BUT I am curious. Is there a bug in the Homeseer program that the UDI program is not properly addressed? There are no errors or non error indications in the UDI logs. Does the program have to be in the "True" state for it to be able to be executed through REST? I would like to know the answer for future reference. TIA, Barry

I have progressed nicely with the assistance at this EXCELLENT forum. I now detect the loss of the heartbeat and restart the subscription for the device that lost the heartbeat. Works very nicely. I do not think I need the subscription info, but am curious. How do I get a subscription ID? Is that returned from the REST request to start the subscribe?

Michel, I seem to be getting a heartbeat message every 25 seconds. You indicated that it is every 120 seconds. Where can I adjust this value?

I am trying to clean up my system re subscription processing. Is there any way in the admin console to see what IP's have subscribed to ISY feedback? I watch the heartbeat events (_0). They seem to come in every 25 seconds when things are normal and operating properly. If I lose the heartbeat event, lets say for 60 seconds, should I assume that the ISY needs to be re-subscribed to? In order to re-subscribe do I first have to endSubscribe, or is it sufficient to just startSubscribe? Am I correct in assuming that on an ISY reboot/reset all subscriptions are stopped? Is there any way to ask the ISY what the status of a subscription is for a specific IP address? Thanks,

I respectfully disagree. I use the broadcast address for the LAN 192.168.1.255 which is a non routable address on the Internet. The house router will never send it out of the WAN port, but will send it to all the LAN side ports. All switches will also send that address to all ports on the switch. UDP using the LAN broadcast address is quite safe since it never leaves the LAN. I do agree that if there is a malicious device in my home that is listening for UDP messages that will be a problem. Shame on me if that is the case.

Michel, I am very pleased with the API you provide, and I do not need you to be providing a UI (User Interface) other than what you have. I say that from my perspective and how I do things in my home. I am with many who have expressed the opinion that they do not want a cloud service involved in the control of their home or in fact any thing else in their home. I do not poll the ISY except when the iPads start up, and then I would not call it a poll. I request, using the REST interface, over TCP all the configuration that I need for my UI. I then subscribe to the ISY (from each iPad) and get status as things change with no further polls. I have debated releasing the ISY interface I developed for the CommandFusion systems on the IOS and android devices, but have not decided either way. I am not that familiar with the use of AJAX and what you have implemented but if you point me to a reference I am sure I can figure it out. I will look at the wiki. This thread has drifted away from my original question. I was asking the question since a friend, who is an Insteon aficionado, asked me to and sent me one. I had no intention of using it in my home as the ISY is totally suited to my needs. I just wanted to make sure that if I plugged it in I would not be asking for trouble with the ISY or the devices. I got the answer I was looking for and the hub is back in its box. I still would like to see a UDP broadcast capability as I mentioned. I would not use UDP for life critical events since it is a best effort delivery. All I would want is exactly what I get on a subscription when a status change occurs, with an added parameter. The added parameter is a monotonic increasing sequence number that changes for each message that is not a repeat of a message to enhance delivery prospects. Repeated messages would have the same sequence number so the receiver could trash them very quickly if that message has already been processed. There is a lot less overhead all around with UDP, on the server, in the client and on the LAN. While you are here I have a slight question but since it is a simple question a wholly different subject i'll post it in a new thread.

MustangChris04, I haven't looked at iRule in a few years so I do not know how far they have progressed. With CommandFusion (CF) there are no built in modules yet, but there are lots of examples and some systems posted on their Github. There are two ways you can use CF with no or very little JavaScript code or JavaScript based. I do the later, all my systems are JavaScript based. You do not need to use any of the CF hardware with their software. They are in the process of getting bugs out of their Android viewer, the IOS viewer is very stable. The guiDesigner is where you build your project. The same output file runs on all of the IOS devices and Android devices. I have no experience with the Android side of things. When I say the same file runs on all IOS devices that is true if you code it that way. Obviously you might need to have code based on screen size and resolution but all of the data regarding the platform the code is executing on is available at runtime as function calls, so the code can be developed to be device independent. Graphic resources (images) are kept separate from code and obviously images and page layout will need to change between things like an iPad and an iPhone/iPod. Support id very good with a large forum like this one that the developers are very active on. My system is run from a JSON configuration file that describes all the devices that I own including the ISY controlled devices and specifies how feedback is to be handled in a graphics sense for each device (e.g. a light switch/dimmer). The projects know of no devices and handles all devices via IP via a wi-fi connection, Apple IOS forces this. You need things like a Global Cache iTach to do IR or serial IO or you could do IR through the ISY. I use the Global Cache approach. The heart of my system is an ISY interface module written in JavaScript. At startup it grabs all the ISY configuration information from the ISY and sets up internal tables on the iPad to handle all the feedback. It then subscribes to the ISY getting the status of everything the ISY controls. My ISY has 155 devices (93 unique), 94 scenes and 20 programs, so it is IMHO a non trivial system. Each iPad keeps its ISY subscription connection open so it gets immediate feedback when things change. The feedback process then uses the configuration information to adjust the graphics even if the page is not visible on the screen. There are other interface modules I have written for the control of devices using IR, Pool/SPA control, etc. Generally the iPad is just the UI the actual control and event management/reporting is done by other control systems. If you are using my approach you better know JavaScript or be willing to spend the time top learn it. It will be time well spent if your hobby is Home Automation. The one change I would like to see UD make in the ISY is to allow, as an option, feedback (subscriptions) to be broadcast over UDP to all hosts on the LAN using JSON format. Obviously this would not work for IOS devices not on the LAN but rather access the ISY through the Internet. Each message would be sent n times with the same sequence number. Larger values of n for cases where the LAN traffic is not friendly to UDP. Autelis did this for their pool controller at my request, but did not use JSON format. This cuts down traffic for me and would IMHO simplify things on the UD side also. I generally use n=2, but could probably get away with n=1. Hope that helps. My web site www.the-gordons.net has a document describing in detail the system with many screen snapshots.

Thanks taken. The link helps a lot. On the 5012 error do you know what the second number e.g "5012 59" represents? The other error was a 170001 which I do not see documented. Any ideas?

I was asked to try out the Insteon hub. I have no intention of using it to replace the ISY994i. I think I will pass as what I have works too well and I don't want to screw it up. I tried iRule but it was not powerful or flexible enough for my needs. I settled on the CommandFusion iViewer and guiDesigner. I have 5 wall mounted iPads that interface to every control system in my home; the ISY for lighting, Autelis Jandy for pool control, EDS one-wire controller for all one-wire devices (currently only temperature sensors); Homeseer for the security system, and time based scheduling (I could have used the ISY for that but it was already operating on Homeseer). There are sophisticated iPad screens for every function. The CommandFusion site has an article I wrote that describes the iPad system with pictures of the screens. I am currently developing my own HVAC control system as I am not happy with the Insteon thermostats, hence the temperature sensors in every room. The iPads are event driven by the controllers. They subscribe to the ISY, and get UDP/JSON messages from the other controllers. There is full touch control of everything including sophisticated sliders for lighting with full dynamic feedback employing animated icons. CallerID is handled by Homeseer and messages sent to the iPads for display and simultaneous announcement over the announcement speakers in every room. The iPads can run any scene on the ISY or any program. It took me about 18 months to get it all done and that was before I ever owned an iPad, an ISY or an Insteon device. I had a lot of learning hills to climb, but was a professional programmer all my life. Since I am getting OT, I can be reached via email to me (barry) at the-gordons.net if any one wants to discuss further. Thanks for all the responses.

I live in central FL where we get an awful lot of lightning. I just pulled an error log after clearing it out on 7/9/14. The ISY and the major LAN components are on a UPS so there are generally not affected by power outages or surges. The PLM's are not. The system (the house and all that is in it) is running with no issues. The following is a printout of the error logs since 7/9/14. There are very few errors and they seem to be of only 2 or 3 types. Could someone explain to me what they mean? Time User Code Message Wed 2014/07/09 11:01:44 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:16 error:6 Wed 2014/07/09 11:01:49 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:16 error:6 Wed 2014/07/09 11:01:54 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:16 error:6 Wed 2014/07/09 11:01:59 AM System -5012 49 Thu 2014/07/10 10:38:05 PM System -5012 38 Fri 2014/07/11 09:30:55 AM System -5012 37 Fri 2014/07/11 09:30:55 AM System -5012 39 Fri 2014/07/11 09:30:55 AM System -5012 34 Fri 2014/07/11 09:30:55 AM System -5012 35 Fri 2014/07/11 04:34:59 PM System -5012 55 Fri 2014/07/11 04:35:56 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:18 error:6 Fri 2014/07/11 04:36:01 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:18 error:6 Fri 2014/07/11 04:36:06 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:18 error:6 Fri 2014/07/11 04:36:11 PM System -5012 56 Fri 2014/07/11 04:47:50 PM System -5012 57 Sat 2014/07/12 08:31:05 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:19 error:6 Sat 2014/07/12 08:31:10 AM System -5012 58 Sat 2014/07/12 05:24:56 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:19 error:6 Sat 2014/07/12 05:25:02 PM System -5012 59 Sun 2014/07/13 08:18:03 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:16 error:6 Sun 2014/07/13 08:18:08 AM System -5012 60 Mon 2014/07/14 05:17:45 PM System -5012 31 Wed 2014/07/16 08:49:30 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6 Wed 2014/07/16 08:49:35 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6 Wed 2014/07/16 08:49:40 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6 Wed 2014/07/16 08:49:45 AM System -5012 62 Wed 2014/07/16 08:50:05 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:33 error:6 Wed 2014/07/16 08:50:10 AM System -5012 50 Thu 2014/07/17 04:08:10 PM System -5012 64 Thu 2014/07/17 08:21:20 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:18 error:6 Thu 2014/07/17 08:21:25 PM System -5012 65 Thu 2014/07/17 10:42:44 PM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:13 error:6 Thu 2014/07/17 10:42:49 PM System -5012 51 Fri 2014/07/18 12:20:50 AM System -5012 54 Fri 2014/07/18 09:26:59 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:25 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 09:27:04 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:25 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 09:27:09 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:25 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 09:27:14 AM System -5012 53 Fri 2014/07/18 09:50:40 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:13 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 09:50:45 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:13 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 09:50:50 AM System -5012 66 Fri 2014/07/18 11:36:13 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 11:36:18 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6 Fri 2014/07/18 11:36:23 AM System -170001 [uDSockets] RSub:27 error:6

Is it possible to use the ISY994i and the Insteon Hub at the same time on the same LAN? I have been sent an Insteon Hub for evaluation but my home is all controlled by the ISY994i. Will there be any issues if I have them both on at the same time?

I got the micro. I think I ordered by phone but I am not sure. I don't remember an order capability on their site.

Precisely, they will not sell it without the sensor. But an ugly case from Hobby Boards is $9.00 without the sensor. Hobby boards charges $18 for the DS18B20 mounted on a nice PC board with twin RJ45 jacks. Their case makes it impossible to hide the wires coming out of the RJ45 jacks. Its a lot easier just to tie wires together with a little solder and save a lot of money. The DS19B20 can be gotten for about $5.00 or free from maxim as small sample quantity. They sent me 10. The sensor is held in by a little plastic clip attached to the case with 2-sided tape or some kind of adhesive. Rips right out. The DS18B20 fits right through the hole in the middle of the wall plate, the bottom of the case, making it very easy to install

It is the TE-205 (a,m,p). It is on their webs site but a bit hard to find. Try: http://www.mamacsys.com/temperature_spa ... ensors.htm

I realize it is beyond the scope of what the ISY can do since it does not have a general programming language like JS as part of its capabilities. What it does do it does very well so I am not complaining just dreaming . . .

The more I think about it, I am not sure I will have any need for the ISY re the HVAC system. All my HVAC displays (Setpoints, mode, state, temperature etc.) and the control of all aspects of the HVAC systems is via the in-wall iPads. Right now they do that control Via the ISY to the Insteon Thermostats. I will only need the ISY if I keep the thermostats but I am thinking of removing them or leaving them on the wall just for resale. If I do the later there will be a manual control switch that well set the control of the HVAC systems and the associated dampers either under control of the wall thermostats plus the ISY or under control of the PC/Rpi that will be my HVAC control system handling the relays based upon the sensor values and the algorithms I use. I have 4 4PDT switches which allows me to switch 16 lines. currently I only need 6 total for the HVAC systems as R and C can always stay connected to both systems (thermostats and Relays). This leaves 10 relays for Dampers, and fan speed control, more than enough. These switches will only be thrown to Thermostat control when I sell the house or if I screw things up! I would really like the ISY to be able to poll a server and get the reply back so it can act on it, or react to a TCP or UDP message from a server sent asynchronously, but I do not believe that is possible at the current time

First off with the Insteon thermostats. Smarthome after arguing with me for many days has finally admitted there is a bug in the wireless thermostat firmware that will cause it stop being "Master" after some period of time all by its own volition. They have not indicated when it will be fixed. With regard to the wired thermostats not sending temperature readings to the ISY; several of their techs insisted that the unit does not do that, that the temperature must be pulled. I was finally pointed to the wiki entry by someone in this forum that stated to make sure the thermostat mode is "Off" prior to linking it into the ISY and to use the link management | start linking and the set button on the thermostat to link the thermostat to the ISY (PLM). The thermostats are now properly reporting temperature. With regard to my HVAC project. I have 7 indoor flush mounted sensors installed. They are 1-wire DS18b20 devices from maxim. I asked for some samples and they sent me 10 at no charge. I thermally adhered them to steel disks about 7/8 inch in diameter and glued them using clear bathtub caulk to the wall. I then painted them to match the wall. You can barely notice them. The actual sensor is sitting in the Sheetrock and measuring the temperature of the disk. Readings come back fine and are very accurate. The nice thing about these sensors is that wire length does not affect readings and they are factory calibrated. Unfortunately as someone pointed out the heat transfer function between the disk and ambient air is poor. I have purchased little wall mount cases that are used to hold temp/ humidity sensors by firms like Johnson controls and RCS. I got then from Mamac systems for $7.50 per case. They are white, vented and made specifically for just what I want. I will see if this configuration gives better results than the flush mounted disks. It should closely track the thermostat I will be putting it next to for evaluation. That's all for now. I really appreciate the comments and feedback from the community and the support by UDI Barry

As a point of information, smarthome has informed me in an email that there is a bug in the wireless thermostat logic where it stops being the master after some period of time. This is what I observed and reported to them. They have not indicated when it will be resolved. Not being satisfied with the way these thermostats operate, alone or with the ISY, I am working on developing my own HVAC control system based on 1-wire sensors. I haves sensors installed in every room and am getting accurate temperature information. I am using unobtrusive metal disks flush mounted to the wall and painted to match. The thermostat is attached to the disk with thermal adhesive and sits in the Sheetrock. The reaction time to temperature change seems to be too slow, so I am going to test a different enclosure. The new enclosure is the one seen in many hotel rooms in the USA, and used by Johnson controls and RCS as their remote sensor enclosure. It is a small white vented enclosure which puts the sensor directly in room air in a manner similar to the thermostat's sensor. If this plan works out I wall have an issue with the ISY as I will not be able to send it HVAC related info until the network module accepts input. I will however be able to control and view the HVAC systems from my iPads. The control of the system will initially be from an always on PC but eventually through a micro controller like the Netduino or an Rpi and a relay bank.

Thanks Michel, That should help me out. I will investigate your suggestion re the heartbeat which I currently ignore

First off let me thank those who have helped me with my questions/issues re the ISY. It is an awesome piece of electronics. I use it with Insteon devices, and have the PRO and network modules installed. It took me a while to get started with networking which brings me to my first suggestion. Get a good networking document published that describes how to get started and how to do all things related to connecting to an external device. I figured it all out but it was not trivial and I have been doing this, digital computer stuff (hardware and software) for more than 50 years. I still do not know how to process a reply, or if it is even possible to set up a network resource to get one back to the ISY. It would be nice if there was a way to do this Now to the topic of this post. Periodically, albeit infrequently, my ISY gets into a state where it really slows down. It still operates but very slowly. If I change the state of a light using a switch the state changes almost immediately as that is all Insteon. The feedback to the subscribed iPads comes back 2-5 seconds later whereas it is normally instantaneous. I don't know where to look for the problem, the event log looks fairly normal to me, so I reboot the ISY. I do this by powering it off, and then back on. All is then well, except . . . The iPads which have previously subscribed to the ISY when they were started are no longer subscribed to the ISY since the re-booted ISY has not seen a start subscribe for any of the 5 iPad IP address. I see in the documentation that a control of "_1' with action=1 (get status) indicates that the ISY "client", the iPad, should re-subscribe. I never see this and I guess I shouldn't as the ISY knows nothing about the iPads at this time. Is there a better way to re-start the ISY so that it still knows who was subscribed to it and will issue the feedback to indicate that a re-subscribe is required? -or- do I have to manually tell the iPads to re-subscribe to the ISY?

On the subject of placing temperature sensors here is what I did. I got a standard steel electrical box with 1/2" knockouts. I removed each of the knockouts so I had a bunch of steel disks approximately 3/4" in diameter. I tossed the box. I carefully ground the faces along the edges and the circumference of each disk to make it nice and smooth. I fastened leads to a standard DS18B20 sensor chip. I put shrink tubing over each lead, and then one more around the three leads. Using Artic Silver Thermal adhesive I glued the flat face, not the top so as to have maximum thermal contact between the disk and the sensor, of the sensor to the middle of the disk and clamped it to let it cure. When it was cured and firmly attached, I bent the leads (right where they enter the chip) to be 90 degrees from the steel disk. I drilled a 1/4" hole into the sheetrock and stuffed clear adhesive bathtub caulk into the hole and around the hole in a thin layer. I pushed the wires into the hole and pressed the disk against the wall so it was grabbed by the caulk and held it with pressure for a minute or two. Holding the disk against the wall I wiped away the excess caulk that was squeezed out between the wall and the disk. When the caulk was completely dry (I gave it an hour) I painted over the disk and the shiny residue from the caulk. You can not see/notice it unless you are looking for it!! The temperature sensor reads perfectly the ambient room temperature.