LKO

My eisy and 2413s cable adapter arrived moments ago. Will set it up and restore my dead '994s backup to it after I finish "my day job". Out of curiosity, in the eisy packaging was a tiny ziploc baggie with a swatch of pink... film? It reminds me of a piece of heat sink tape that might go on an M.2 SSD. Is that what it is? If so, thanks UD for providing one in case I do add some storage that way.

Now that I've made up my mind to buy eisy, it's out of stock. Looks like the last stock refresh was April, any signs of when the next batch will be in?

Yep, swapped in known good cable, known good port; in the words of Bones, "He's dead, Jim!"

Sigh, sd-card checks out fine, and the power brick reads 5.2 volts on a multimeter. Tried a different one anyway, with the same results. Acts like no lan cable present. So, looks pretty much like the ethernet port got fried. Probably going to press "buy" on an EISY, and try to replace the six dead Insteon wall switches, after some reading... Appreciate the advice, many thanks!

That's my thought right now, too. I had two other devices that lost their LAN ports in that hit. They otherwise worked, but the ports were dead. Still gonna check the 994's power supply and sd-card, but I do think its ethernet port is fried. Maybe not; hope for the best, plan for the worse.

I will try another power supply, and pull the SDcard and see if it's bad. Probably this evening after the day job. As for upgrading, I'm fine with having to go to EISY just to modernize, and to get more programmability. I had been thinking a couple years ago about going to Polisy, but kept putting it off since everything was working fine. Now, if our 994 is really dead, I'm going to go with the latest and greatest just for additional programming capability.

Alrighty, EISY is my only choice. That gives me something to look at and see what it can do. As for the '994, I am willing to poke at it a bit and see if it will do anything. I know the ethernet switch it was connected to was killed in the strike, as was the 2413s. Another nearby device had its ethernet port fried, but worked otherwise. Our 994 powers up, but the ethernet port never shows link or activity (like no cable connected). Replaced the ethernet cable to no avail. The lights on the 994 "look like normal on startup", but end up with power LED steady on, memory and error LED flashing at 1hz. I do have backups of the ISY settings. The replacement 2413s appears to be ok, except I can't get into the ISY to verify more than the PLMs LED comes on.

Lightning recently caused some damage in our house. Thought at first just the PLM was shot, along with several Insteon wall switches. Replaced the PLM, but it seems that our ISY994i was destroyed also. With the 994 at EOL, time to upgrade! But to what? Polysys or EISY? My criteria is: no dependence on "the cloud", no dependence on Windows or MAC (I use Linux), programmability (loved the ISY994 for that), flexibility (I could connect the ISY with non-Insteon devices through the network interface and ioLincs). Can I control other than Insteon devices with the upgrade? Is the EISY the latest iteration of the ISY family? Advice on my upgrade path, please? I'd like to get my home automation stuff back up soon; we've become rather used (dependent?) to it!

Good points that help me catch back up on the state of things since I last thought about integrating the thermostats into the home automation system. I'd really rather not involve the cloud in the home automation, as everything works now without the cloud, and if for some reason our internet access was down, so would anything dependent on the cloud. Zwave or Zigbee would be fine, since all the existing Insteon-compatible thermostats are wireless in some fashion. Unless, it would require replacing my ISY; I'd rather not do that, since it's working fine otherwise (and expensive) -- I like my ISY! Our house is large, I guess, but I figure as long as I can get whatever allows the ISY to talk Zwave or Zigbee close enough to the thermostats I'd be ok. As for latency with traffic between the thermostats and the ISY, not real sure on that. I'd figured that a thermostat with 7-day programming like the Venstar would work as a normal thermostat, unless overriden by the ISY. The thermostat would report back to the ISY the temperature at some interval, or when the temperature changed, or when polled. I was more concerned about the ISY being able to override the normal programming of the thermostat, as needed. Some examples would be the ISY turning off the heating or cooling after an outside door or window had been opened for a few minutes, and restoring regular activity once all outside doors and windows were closed; switching the unit to fan only if the outside temperature and humidity (from our weather station) indicated that just circulating the air would be comfortable enough; adjusting cooling or heating based on inside (and outside) temperature and humidity; using motion sensors and the like to determine occupancy, and adjust the thermostat appropriately. Back in the early 80's I spent 4 years writing software for facility automation and energy management, and have a lot of ideas on how to more intelligently control the heating and cooling other than by just glorified timers as is done now in most thermostats. The Nest, for example, is impressive, but there's not an easy way I know of to control, or influence it, from an ISY. I'd first thought of putting the thermostats under computer (ISY) control a couple years ago, before Insteon came out with their own thermostats, and Venstar was the only option. In that time, Insteon has come out with their own thermostats, but they can't handle heat pumps. And Venstar evidently had issues, based on searching the forums here, so I was concerned about their reliability. Plus, they seem to have gotten rid of the Venstars with the integrated Insteon controller, limiting me to a Venstar T2700, T2800, or T2900 commercial model plus the add-on Insteon controller, and I'm not sure the commercial versions would be appropriate -- the fan has to run if the building (home) is occupied? So that bit may take Venstar out of the running. Which puts me back at the beginning: if I am to do this, I need an ISY-controllable thermostat (two, really, as we have two units) that will work with our heat pumps. Present Insteon thermostats aren't compatible, and the Venstar might not be reliable, or would insist the fan run constantly. It may be that I need to wait for a Zigbee or Zwave capable thermostat, along with whatever's needed to allow the ISY-99 to speak that. Sigh; decisions, decisions. I do appreciate the discussion, it really helps to bounce ideas around with others!

I have an ISY-99i PRO, and am really wanting to get my heating and AC under some more intelligent control. I have a heat pump system, so the Insteon thermostats are not compatible. What choice does this leave me with, one of the Venstar thermostats? I see that the only Venstar ones left are commercial, is this OK? I'm planning to use the ISY to provide more intelligent control of the heating and AC than just a setpoint based on day and time. For example, if we open a window or a door for more than a few minutes, then turn the heat or AC off (as we might do in the fall or spring). Also, we have a weather station at the house, and can use the ISY network module to provide outside weather information to influence the heating or cooling. I just need to decide which thermostat will be best controllable with my ISY.