madmartian

Well, that was interesting. Turns out Comcast had set the modem up using the wrong MAC address. On the bottom of the modem - and I did ask which one they wanted - are "WAN MAC" and "HFC MAC". The correct address is the HFC MAC. They set it up with the wrong address. No idea how it was working at all, but it was working with some devices. My own app - "Simple Home Controller" - does not use the portal, so I need the port forwarding for that. Someday maybe I will learn how to program for the portal.

Yah, already went through all the listed troubleshooting steps. Will submit a ticket.

I swapped out cable modem combos from an Arris SBG7600AC2 to an Arris G36. eISY continued to work with the portal without issue. The G36 had an issue with spontaneous reboots so I decided to return it and swapped back in the same SBG7600AC2 I was using previously, and now suddenly the portal is offline. No idea why or how to get it back online. eISY otherwise works fine. I can connect to it via the computer admin console as well as a phone app via wifi. The Portals tab in the admin console shows both "Offline" and "Registered". The portal itself shows "Error - ISY is not online" when I try to bring up any menus. This is on the same computer I am running the admin console from. I tried rebooting both the router and the eISY without change. In the portal profile "my preferred ISY" is set to the eISY and there is no triangle exclamation on the eISY (there is a "!" on the ISY994i since it's not active and not plugged in). I verified with IP Scanner that the UUID is found and matches what's listed for the eISY. Expiry date in the portal has a 2025 date. I tried all the troubleshooting steps listed in Portal Access Troubleshooting - except for the last one that says to open a ticket. Thought I'd try the forum first. Note that I have changed nothing on the old modem - it still has the same config and port forwarding for the eISY it had before and the ports are still correct. Any ideas?

The word from Michel is "no, that's only if your eisy was a secondary controller to something else." Confusing warning message in that case... So looks like I can just click "yes" on the reset warning screen without any pre or post operations. I will post again if I have any issues.

Thanks Geddy. I filed a ticket. I'll post the steps here after I receive them and complete the reset so other folks can find the instructions.

The warning message says, "unless you plan on restoring a backup of the z-wave dongle [I don't] you should remove this ISY from the Z-Wave network before doing a factory reset" That warning implies additional step(s) before and possibly after doing the factory reset of the Z-Wave dongle, but does not specify the exact steps. I am looking for the specific menu selections to do both before and after the Z-Wave reset. This does not appear to be documented anywhere.

Please read the original post above. I already tried that and it pops up with a warning message, pictured above.

I appreciate your response, but I am not looking to learn all that about Z-Wave controllers. I just need the steps to reset the eISY Z-Wave dongle.

I decided to start from scratch with Z-wave on the eISY dongle after previously migrating the Z-Wave settings from the 994i. I do a lot of testing of devices and most of the Z-Wave devices aren't even plugged in, so the migration did funny things. Time to start from scratch and only add the Z-Wave devices I'm actually using - while keeping Insteon nodes as-is. When I go to Z-Wave/Advanced/Factory Reset Z-Wave Dongle, a message pops up that I don't understand (see attached image). What else do I need to do? (exact menu selections and correct order appreciated) The goal is: Complete reset of Z-Wave, including removal of all Z-Wave nodes and starting the numbering from scratch as I add them back in. As if I had never added a Z-Wave device and was just starting. Without erasing any Insteon nodes... Those migrated perfectly. I will individually reset each Z-Wave device before adding it back.

Just got this on ebay. Reset it first. Then tried to include it. Inclusion worked, but no nodes were created. Weird, So then I excluded it, then included it again. Both appeared to work with no errors, but again no nodes created. Is 5.3.3 broken with respect to the Everspring ST814-2? I can tell from old threads it was working in the past (2015, likely with the 300 board). I have the 500 series Z-Wave board. I know this is not a "Plus" device, but in theory it should still work.

I use Spotify. While it does let you add your own files to the library, it only lets you use them on the device they are stored on. Playing on Everywhere automatically skips manually added files.

Thanks to Asbril and MrBill, I was able to get this to work with remotes. You have to do the following: Set a state (not integer) variable in the ISY Create a program with an "if" that says "control [your remote button] is on" Set the "then" to "variable [your variable] = 1 add to "then": "wait 15 seconds" add to "then": "variable [your variable] = 0 In the ISY portal Amazon Echo Device List, select add variable and select the desired variable, setting the trigger to "1" Ask Alexa to discover devices. When setting a trigger in Alexa Routines, click on Smarthome and select the trigger you setup. Set a custom response to "play [song name] by [artist] to everywhere for [# of seconds] seconds" I can now use the GoControl WA00Z-1 as a doorbell. I added both buttons in the "if" statement so either one will work. These are super cheap, by the way, going for about $12. They are being closed out on Amazon, Ebay, and here: https://www.zwaveproducts.com/products/gocontrol-z-wave-scene-controller-wall-switch-wa00z-1 Get 'em while you can! The only issues remaining are the delay and Alexa saying "playing for 15 seconds or until end of the song" before the song starts. I googled this but could not find a single inquiry about it. Sadly, Alexa's "brief mode" has no affect on this. Just one of many things I wish I could get Alexa to stop saying, along with "playing from [device name]" when my tablet connects to Alexa via Bluetooth. <sigh>

Thanks for the replies. I am playing around with Alexa Routines and have run into the following issues: 1. I have to choose a specific Alexa device to play on. It will not let me choose "everywhere" or a custom group if I am not using the custom command. 2. While it will play a song, I must choose the length of time in 5 second increments. I can play the song for 10 seconds or 15 seconds, but not 12 seconds. (again, when not using the custom command) 3. I must play the song from the beginning - I can't choose to skip any. My desire to play Devo's "There's No Place Like Home" as my doorbell won't work since the song does not begin with the chorus. 4. I tried the custom command, which does work on "everywhere", but there is a six-second delay. This appears to be an artifact of the "everywhere" command as there is a three-second delay when I play spotify on my PC to "everywhere" that otherwise isn't there when I play to one device. 5. I found I can add "for 15 seconds" to the end of the custom command, and that works, but then Alexa will say "playing for 15 seconds or until the end of the song" before the song starts. Quite annoying! 6. Reading the ISY/Alexa instructions, I found I can setup motion sensors and contact sensors to trigger Alexa Routines. However in practice this did not work so well. I tried to setup three different remotes as contact sensors and none of them worked to trigger the routine. I also tried telling Alexa they were motion sensors (following the removal and rediscovery protocols) but that didn't work either. Only actual motion sensors set as motion sensors worked to trigger the routine. False triggers make a motion sensor terribly impractical for a doorbell, though.

Are you talking about an ISY program or a computer program? If ISY, can you screenshot the program and post it here? Thanks much.

I'm basically trying to use Alexa as a doorbell chime. Specifically, I want her to play 15 seconds of a specific song when someone rings the bell. Detecting the ring and triggering a program in the ISY is the easy part. How do I get the ISY to play a sound file on Alexa? Playing a song from Spotify isn't good enough - I want a 15-second clip, not a whole song. Also, I want it to play on all my Echoes at once so it won't matter what room I'm in.

Correct, no flap to mount a switch on. The membrane switch sounds like it could work, but the website you linked to - adaptivision.com - does not exist. Is there a typo?

Which motion sensors would work for something that does not generate heat (mail) and is inside a metal container? And can handle the heat of summer inside a metal box?

I would like to setup a z-wave mailbox alert. Problem is I have a locking mailbox with a slot - thus a tilt sensor on the door won't work. Any suggestions for how to detect mail in the mailbox without using a tilt sensor? IR beam interruption would work - if such a Z-wave device existed.

Upgraded today in hopes of fixing the "always green 10101" problem for some z-wave battery devices. At first the problem was worse - with "cannot communicate with" errors. I tried synching and Update Neighbors for individual devices, but that did not fix the problem. I removed and re-added the devices - THAT fixed the problem for two of the three devices. Sadly my smoke detector still has the green 10101 even after removing and re-adding, and then later changes to "!" with a "cannot communicate" error. Problem was happening with these battery devices: Fibaro The Button FGPB-101 v3.2 US (fixed by removing/re-adding) Fibaro Motion Sensor FGMS-001 ZW5 v3.3 US (fixed by removing/re-adding) First Alert Smoke/CO Alarm ZCOMBO (NOT fixed by removing/re-adding) Problem was NOT happening with these battery devices: GoControl Remote WA00Z-1 NodOn Remote CRC-3US-6 Dome Mouser Ecolink Flood and Freeze Sensor FLF-ZWAVE5-ECO Things I tried before removing/re-adding: Disabled automatically putting devices back to sleep Put all devices within 2 feet of the ISY Triggered the devices so they would not be sleeping Synchronized individual z-wave devices Ran "Update Neighbors" on individual devices Tried "Query" and "Write Updates" for individual devices

Yes, all that is correct. It appears my issue is one of wanting to do something that is not possible - automatically load all devices, defaulting to their name for the spoken word. After further reading it appears one-at-a-time is the only way to load the modules into the portal. Please let me know if that is not the case. I likely did this when I set it up originally and just didn't remember.

New devices were not being added with "Discover my devices" in the Amazon Echo app. I noticed the list of devices in the portal was out of sync with my ISY admin console. Renamed devices still had old names and new modules were missing. I tried "Delete All" but then could find no way to refresh the list. I then deleted the ISY entirely and started the setup all over again, adding the ISY UUID and approving the connection via the admin console. I have the green light, but still no modules in the Amazon list in the portal and discovery via the Echo app does not find anything. How do I fix this without adding each device one at a time?

Well that's disappointing. My current setup is a Hub for devices and a Wemo emulator with ISY for scenes and a couple older modules that the Hub doesn't support. I guess that's what I'll stick with going forward. Odd that an emulator would do something that the hardware it's emulating won't allow me to do.

Why does the ISY require a cloud service when the Insteon Hub, Wemo, and Hue do not? Why would Amazon require Universal Devices to do things differently from the others?

Some of us suspect this is caused by an Amazon-imposed 20-second timeout. If it isn't finished discovering all the devices on your emulator in 20 seconds, it fails and nothing is discovered. I contacted Echo support and they said they would note it as a feature request to be able to set the timeout in settings. It is not currently configurable. Discovery using an emulator runs much slower than with an actual Hue or WeMo bridge.

I am still waiting on the programmer to respond. I tried Python 3.4 and it fails at multiple points. I made the appropriate syntax changes in the code, which allowed it to run, but then it crashed. So Python 2.7 is a must. One thing - the guy did a good job of explaining in detail what his code is doing: http://www.makermusings.com/2015/07/13/amazon-echo-and-home-automation/ Someone could take this info and rewrite it in any language. Since the only language I know is Delphi, I won't be doing that.