wired64

OK - I've implemented a solution that makes sense to me and is reasonably efficient to implement. I'm not sure if this is optimal, but I'll post in the hope to help anyone else working on this type of issue. Essentially, what I want is a set of scene's and programs that would enable multiple buttons to change what I might call the "states" of the outside lights. There are five different states: - Landscape state - Party state - Cleanup state - Patio lit state - Off state Some of these states require the security light to be on or off... What I ended up doing was the following: - I ended up making the following setups for the keypad A-D buttons - Each button was changed to be non-toggle - on (i.e. when the button is pressed, it only sends an "on" - A-D were made to be mutually exclusive through the use of scenes The way I implemented was: 1) Set the A-D buttons to be non-toggle (on only) 2) I setup a state variable that would indicate the 5 different states 3) I set a program for each of the A-D and the Off buttons that had the following programs setup (note, for a-d - the check is for an "on", for the off button it's an "off" - just sayin): if control keypad1 [a] is switched on or control keypad2 [a] is switched on then $OState=1 (the OState variable is one of 5 values 0 -4) I then have a program that has if $OState=1, set a scene to on. Finally, in that final scene, I set each of the keypad and other switches appropriately. The key for my thinking and processing is that scene is only ever turned "on". Most scenes will, as far as I understand, be turned on, or off. If you only set the scenes to turn on, it makes the management of which KPL buttons are turned on or off significantly easier. Since we look at the KPL as a toggle with one of five states (off, or one of the four settings), this works wonders and it's easy to implement. If others are interested, I can post more code, but I'm not sure how to copy and paste the code into a text based editor (simply have not looked into it - it's possible that a backup of the programming would provide me with that text info)... Gotta go, my battery is about to die ...

oberkc - Thanks for the reply... I came to the conclusion that a loop that checks for status of a rope light % is not the right answer - it's just technically "chunky". You're restatement of - the security light is always on except when in party mode is the correct "factored" version of the definition I am stating. I currently do have the light switch setup as a controller for the scene. It basically does the job - and it works quickly, but may not be the best option. Having said that, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if I can setup a scene for the on/off buttons as well - if so, I could setup a scene that ensures the security lights are on for any scene except for party. I may play with this a bit to see if I can get it to work. If not, I will likely take the 6 button switch out as a controller and simply have the ISY react to the status of the buttons. Xathros - One of my unstated goals is to have the lights on various controllers give me the state of various environments. There will be three areas where "party" can be turned on and these are far enough apart that I'd like to know that the area is already in "party mode". If I can't achieve this with scene's/controllers and responders, then I believe I will be able to do this with programming. Basically, I can say when KPL-1-C is switched on, check a state variable. If it's not on, set it to on and also set KPL-2-c and KPL-3-C to on. Then I can setup "party mode" as appropriate. I think the control + state variable will allow me to setup the program... I was just hoping that I could use the scene feature to do what I was looking for. Don't know how long it will take for the controller to drive things as opposed to having the scene do the work. I can tell you that with the scene doing the work, my wife doesn't get impatient and start pressing other buttons . Hoping that if I do have to use programming that the response time is sufficiently low that we're not looking at delays before something happens... I'll see! Thanks for the responses! I've not made a change to these programs as yet and may not until early June simply due to a busy schedule and some business trips where I absolutely do not want to be dealing with lights not working as expected while I'm away . I'm sure I'll be able to setup what I need with the Insteon scenes, or with the ISY programs, but it's clear to me that I cannot use both of those in an integrated approach that makes sense... Though I may be able to use scenes that are activated by the ISY programs... We'll see!

Folks, I am relatively new to programming with the ISY and Insteon, so I may not be using the correct terminology. I am working on proper term use and, from what I've seen on this board, I'm not likely to get flamed for using the wrong terms, but I'll say up-front that my issue may need some interpretation . I've setup a number of 6 button switches to control a few different scene's in the house. These are working great and I've been able to do everything I would expect, including having the A-D button LEDs turn-on/off and having control of multiple different modules that manage different loads. Now to my problem... I have 3 different scenes setup on one of the 6 button switches. These scenes and the general functions are shown below: landscape lights - turn on landscape lights - turn off rope lights - turn off patio lights party - turn on landscape lights - turn on rope lights to 40% - turn on patio lights to 40% cleanup - turn on landscape lights - turn on rope lights to 100% - turn on patio lights to 100% Turning these scenes on and off and switching scenes all works fine. Now, I have a motion sensitive security light that I want to effectively do just the opposite plus a bit more... This device is controlled by an on/off 2477S switch Essentially, I want to do the following (adding activate/deactivate to the scenes because the security light needs to do different things depending on the action being taken): Landscape - when activated - security light is on - when deactivated - security light is on Party - when activated - security light is off - when deactivated - security light is on Cleanup - when activated - security light is on - when deactivated - security light is on I do have some programs I use, but these are generally used for X10 devices at the moment. I don't see that there is a way I can detect a "state change" for a scene in the programming. I don't see that there is a way I could add a variable into a scene so that I can basically tell the ISY - I'm in party mode now - turn the security light off until I'm no longer in party mode. I may be able to do something like checking the status of the rope light and when it's at some explicit % (say 43%), then turn the security light off until the status of the rope light changes to some other value. This would generally then require a loop that would check every 10 minutes or so to see if the party scene is active, or not - doesn't seem to be a particularly efficient or elegant answer. Any other ideas on how I might be able to approach the problem? Thanks for any suggestions you might be able to offer! Cheers, SK