shifmeister

I bought the same water heater about a year ago and would definitely recommend it. I agree with all his comments about the water heater. The extra cooling/dehumidifying in my basement shop is an excellent side effect. I would say it is definitely quieter than a standard dehumidifier, but my point of comparison is an 80's era rattler in my parent's basement. In a workshop, it doesn't matter at all. The initial cost was about $1000, same as tmorse305. But, with a $500 BGE rebate, $300 federal tax credit, and the energy efficiency 2.5 greater than a straight electric heater, the water heater should pay for itself in 2-3 years. I have not made the jump to tieing it into my ISY yet. There are two options that I found when I first bought the hot water heater. The official GE Connect Plus adapter, which seems to work well through IFTTT, is the easiest option. However, there is also a little device called the Green Bean that acts as a usb bridge to control GE appliances with a raspberry pi or similar machine. https://github.com/GEMakers/green-bean Does anyone have any experience with this guy? It might be a more direct way to hook into the hot water heater controls and can even control all individual components of the hot water heater, bypassing the built-in controller. This seems to give more direct monitoring of the inner workings. https://github.com/GEMakers/gea-plugin-water-heater I know some programming, but am by no means a programmer. Thoughts from others would be appreciated.

Stusviews, thanks for the input. I've got the motion sensor output wired to sense 1, as DavidJ101 describes. David, that's exactly what I am trying to do. It does sound like I am up against a limitation of the hardware. I thought about the pulse circuit. I've seen stuff that would work with low voltage DC circuits. High voltage AC is another beast. Maybe use a AC relay to trip a 555 timer circuit which causes another relay to trip and signal the sense wire. That is quickly using up all the volume in my wiring box, if it will even work. I remember reading the old In-Line Lincs would disregard the sense wire with a Fast On or Fast Off command. I've had no luck with that option in the new micro modules.

I know this is an older post, but hopefully someone has had some luck with setting up a micro module with an existing motion controlled light and could help me out. I have four exterior fixtures with built-in motion detectors (2 sconces, 2 floodlights) that I am trying to integrate with the micro module for a little more fine grained control. I have one of the sconces pulled and onto by workbench for testing this setup and I am almost where I want to be. The wiring is pretty straight forward: neutrals together, light hot to micro load, red switched wire from motion sensor to yellow sense 1 wire. My issue at this point is getting the software to behave correctly. Ideally, I would like the motion sensor to just send a signal to the ISY and have programs there handle the timing. I know that the sense wire is unable to be fully disconnected from the local load, so this is not perfectly possible without a pair of micro modules (1 to sense, 1 to control the light). That is not a solution I want to go towards for expense reasons. I would be OK with the motion sensor turning on the light, but don't want it to turn the light off. This way I can override the motion sensor if desired. I can have it do this if I set the micro module to Dual Momentary, Not a 3-way within the ISY options menu. Under this, the micro module sends a FDUP command with motion and FDSTOP when the motion sensor clicks off. I can work with this. My issue is that if a Momentary button is held for more than 5 seconds, the module enters "Set" mode. This causes the module to stop sending commands until it is power cycled. Not ideal. What settings on the micro module have worked for you guys?

I'm not sure if you're using Android or an iPhone. I've got my Android phone alarm calling scenes and programs based on my alarm clock app via Tasker and Mobilinc. The alarm clock app that I use (Sleep as Android) sends intents that Tasker sees and acts on. I don't think I can post a link but search for "Sleep as Android Tasker" and it should come right up. So, I have Tasker launch a wakeup scene which brightens the master bedroom overhead light over 9 minutes. I also have an "alarm dismissed" that sets the ISY's Sleep Mode off. I also have an "alarm snoozed" tasker action that just reads me the current time outloud and doesn't actually do anything with the ISY. This solution has been working well. I don't have to bother setting variables in ISY for an alarm time, it just responds to my phone.

Thanks for the info, Michel. I will see if I can find someone at BGE who knows what they are talking about. But, it sounds like thermostat control is very unlikely and meter pairing is also unlikely at this point. That almost simplifies my decision process a bit. The ISY is my pick for controller, but it wouldn't be able to communicate with Zigbee, Z-wave and Insteon with a single box. (I have two z-wave locks and plan on doing Insteon lighting.) Eliminating the need for Zigbee solves that issue. I may be able to work out how to control the thermostat through the web page controls. And I can replace direct meter monitoring with something else like the Brultech GEM or something similar.

Hello, I don’t have an ISY yet. I am in the planning stages of my home automation project. I am leaning towards the Elk/ISY combo and have a question regarding Zigbee compatibility with my home’s smart meter and thermostat. I have service through BGE (Baltimore Gas & Electric) in Maryland which has installed smart meters and thermostats to those most houses. This gives them hourly energy usage data and allows them to remotely control my thermostat. Through their website, I can view hourly usage details and remotely set my thermostat settings. They have “Energy Savings Days†where they will cycle my AC off 50% of the time. They also give me a $1.25 discount for each kWh I use less than average during the hours of 1-7PM. All in all, it’s a nice deal. Anywho, I am wondering if anyone has had luck interfacing through the ISY-994iZS to the BGE smart meter and thermostat. I know it operates over the Zigbee Smart Energy Protocol, but there isn’t a ton of information on BGE’s site. I emailed them if they allow people to interface with it like all the guys at SCE I see around here. Their response was this: “Smart meters will bring enhanced online features with the Smart Energy Manager tool. Some customers already have access to their usage through this feature, which allows you to track your usage yearly, monthly, daily and even hourly, compare it with similar homes, and track fluctuations in the weather as well. BGE does not evaluate customer-owned equipment; unfortunately, we are not able to advise whether or not the device you mentioned is compatible with our smart meters. We apologize for any inconvenience. However, as more smart meters are installed throughout our service territory, additional features will be made available to our customers.†That doesn't explain too much, so I am wondering if there is anyone that has tried with their equipment and had luck. I have done some searching, but found nothing regarding BGE.