dwengrovitz

I have several RGBW LED strips (indoors) that I control using Shelly RGBW2 devices, and they integrate directly with eISY just fine - though I believe the RBGW2 is an older device at this point. I'm able to turn the strips on/off via Insteon switches (which just basically turns the 24v power supplies on/off). I have several eISY scenes setup to control colors and those can be activated a variety of ways, including virtual switches setup in eISY as well as via Alexa voice. Additional tweaks to colors/brightness can be made via the Shelly app if needed. I haven't tried the RGBW PM, but it doesn't look like anyone has updated the Shelly plug-in for eISY in several years. That was too much of gamble for me when I was starting to play around with LED strips, so I just went with the RGBW2. I have since setup a Home Assistant instance, and that allows for integration of eISY/Insteon as well as a broad range of Shelly devices, so I have additional options and backups for control.

There are lots of fun options to play with if you also have Home Assistant. Take a look at the Ring MQTT add on in HA as it lets you integrate most all of the Ring ecosystem into your home automation setup (including contact/motion/flood sensors, smart lights, keypads, etc.). And Yolink also plays nicely with HA via an integration. Definitely sounds like you have a weekend project coming up.

I'm not suggesting abandoning Ring or Insteon sensors just yet, but I've had a lot of success integrating outdoor sensors to eisy via Yolink devices. The LoRa technology works great over long distances, battery life is outstanding, and the Yolink plugin for eisy works quite well (the developer has been very responsive to requests and feedback via the forums). I also have a ton of Ring devices but I prefer Yolink for anything where distance is involved. For example: I have a Yolink contact sensor inside a mailbox about 150 yards away to detect when mail gets delivered, with a hilly terrain and lots of trees in the line of sight, and the sensor is rock solid. I suspect one of their contact sensors would work quite well for gates. If new to Yolink, one would need a hub, but the starter kit cost for a Yolink speaker hub plus two outdoor contact sensors is pretty reasonable at around $65 (the speaker hub adds a nice dimension by providing the ability to easily integrate custom audio alerts). And it just reliably works without a lot of hassle.

I only use the Bond Bridge to control some deck lights, but after updating I am also seeing the issue of PG3X showing the old version is still installed and an update is available.

Has anyone with I3 paddles tried using "resume dim" in a multi-way switch configuration? I have several groups of I3 paddles, and in each group there is one I3 controlling the load (i.e., the master) and others acting as secondary controllers via a scene. If I enable "resume dim" for all of the switches in the group/scene, I can dim the lighting from any of the switches, and the master (if turned off and back on) will remember and resume the dimming level as expected. But if I turn off/on any of the secondary controller switches, they do not resume the dimming level and, instead, the brightness goes to whatever the on level was set at for those switches in their configuration. Perhaps this is a relatively new function and it isn't fully implemented yet, but it would be nice if "resume dim" worked in a multi-way configuration. Just checking to see if anyone else has observed this, or if a solution or workaround might exist.

I haven't been able to add a standalone Matter device to my eisy yet, but I did have some success onboarding my first device through the Shelly Matter gateway to control some RBGW LED strips. I noticed a new version of UD Mobile for IOS was available through TestFlight (v1.2.3) a few days ago. I wasn't successful trying to enroll a Kasa Matter Plug, but I scanned the onboarding QR code for a Shelly Matter gateway I built on a Raspberry Pi and it quickly loaded entries for all my LED strips into the Admin Console. Most of the entries that showed up don't seem to have anything on the display panels with the exception of the On-Off switch entries, which do work as expected. I was also able to put a bunch of the devices into a scene so I could turn them all on or off in one step. Hopefully the ability to control color, brightness, and effects will be added over time, but this is a start. In any event, it's nice to to see some real Matter devices showing up in the Admin Console.

Can someone provide details on what the eisy setting "Relay at Full On" does for an I3 switch? I can probably make an educated guess, but I don't recall seeing anything official that explains this setting.

Yep. I only have a few switches in the garage, along with some Ring and Yolink devices, and they all integrate with the single eisy just fine.

Maybe others have had better luck than I have with sharing Insteon between two buildings that have some distance between them. I have a garage about 60 feet from the main house structure, and it's on the same electrical service as the main house (which is where my eisy is). I tested a few Insteon devices in the garage to see if I could get them to respond but wasn't successful. Network connectivity, however, worked great across both structures. So I used Kasa WiFi switches instead of Insteon in the garage. They connect to the eisy via a plugin and work just fine.

I use the Shelly plugin with my eisy to control multiple RGBW LED strips, mainly for illuminating a vaulted wooden ceiling with ambient light. The LED strips I use were reasonably priced and are available through Amazon (Pautix RGBW 2700K COB LED Strip Lights). Most of the time they just display a warm white color, but it's kind of fun to introduce some color on a game day or holiday. The strips run off 24V, which helps with consistent brightness on longer runs. They use about 5W of power per linear foot (the Shelly devices can typically tell you, via their app, the power usage). I have the strips in aluminum channels with diffusers (also purchased from Amazon), and the density of the COB LED strips is high enough that it just looks like a solid line of light versus a bunch of bright dots. I could probably get away without the channels and diffusers, but in addition to physically protecting the strips they also offer some heat dissipation which could help prolong the strip lifespan. Overall, I've been happy with the warm white and color capabilities, brightness and dimming, control via eisy (with a Home Assistant front end), the Shelly devices and app, etc. The Shelly plugin is kind of limited in terms of which devices it supports (mainly the RGBW2), and it hasn't been updated in a couple of years, but it seems to work for my limited needs. I mainly use the eisy to turn them on/off or set the colors via a four button Insteon i3 switch (I don't use the switch for dimming). The native Shelly app provides additional capabilities to easily group lights together, adjust brightness and dimming, adjust colors, etc. I believe Shelly has a matter bridge, so once the eisy fully supports matter that may help with future proofing automation through eisy if the Shelly plugin has issues.

You might also check the switch firmware to make sure you are running the latest/current version. I have three Zen30 switches and they were pretty wonky at first, especially when I tried to get two to work in a group via associations. I reported some issues to Zooz and they eventually put out a new version of firmware which helped, but just an FYI that there are several versions of the switch, and several versions of firmware. I think you can view firmware details here: https://www.support.getzooz.com/kb/article/393-zen30-double-switch-change-log/. I now have two Zen30s working as a group, and one that operates as a single. Here are some screen caps from my install for the switch that operates as a single: Top Level: Main Switch Control (021): Dimmer Control (021.1) Relay/Fan Control (021.2):

I've been using multiple SmartWings motorized shades with Matter (but no POE) for over a year now. Initially, they worked well with the SmartWings remote but control via Matter was kind of hit or miss. I use Amazon Alexa as the main environment to control my Matter devices. The shades would pair fine via the Alexa app but would frequently lose connection and automations were not that reliable. Early on, I questioned my decision to go with Matter versus something like ZWave, but the hope was that things would get better as Matter matured. Fortunately, things have improved over time. I still get drop-outs occasionally but the connections are better and more reliable than they used to be. The code in the shades hasn't changed, so I suspect improvements have happened elsewhere (like the Alexa app and my home network). The UI in the Alexa app is pretty weak, but I share the Matter connections to Home Assistant and the UI there is much better. It provides a nice simple compact status and control interface with the added benefit of being able to show battery levels for the shades. I think Matter still has a ways to go, but I'm happy with the SmartWings shades overall. The price was reasonable. They function well with the remote (worst case), and automations (such as lowering automatically in the late afternoon when the sun is coming through the window) happen reliably enough that I don't think about the automation at all - it just becomes an invisible convenience.

Unfortunately, I really can't say - other than installing the software (which seemed uneventful), I haven't tested the UD Mobile beta or the new Matter functionality at all yet. But I got the sense that some folks were waiting on an iOS update to do some testing, and they may not have been aware of this option to get started.

There's a beta version of UD Mobile that was released today through TestFlight. That version (1.2.1 (224)) does appear to have some level of Matter enabled. I have no idea what the formal release plans or timing look like for general updates through the iOS App Store, but I'm sure the UD Team will push it out when it's ready.

Is any information available on how to setup or configure eisy to control Matter devices? I've enabled it via the Admin Console and can see "Matter" in the menubar, but I'm not quite sure how to go about adding devices. Also - does the network connection from eisy need to be WiFi to work with Matter, or can I continue to use a wired network connection?