ulrick65

I am curious, it wasn't showing up in "your skills" right? So when you say "found it" that means you searched for it and then when you clicked on it it showed as being installed right? Seems to me that is what I had too. Glad you got it sorted. Now we will see if the work arounds Michael mentioned above fix the issue with the device not responding problem. I have not seen it happen today yet.

I can, works fine. My one question was around standard ISY functionality. What I am wondering is if there is confirmation to the device level (which you previously said there is), why does ISY not use that confirmation in normal operation (unrelated to the issue here in this thread). In the example I gave with the scene...why does ISY report the light on when clearly it isn't (when I query it, it shows off...which is correct). Thanks.

Ok, thanks for that. So for sure if the serial cable is causing a loss, then Alexa would know about it. I am definitely seeing more issues...I will shorten the cable back up and report back on findings. I have other options, this was just an easy way to get ISY powered by a UPS. One question @bmercier that this make me ask then: If the ISY is getting confirmation from the device, why does it report in the admin console that the device turned on when it didn't? I have been doing testing for example, I have "light A" that is part of a scene and I tell Alexa to turn it on. Light B comes one and all the keypad buttons associated in the scene come on, but light A does not. However, ISY Admin shows that light a is at 100% and on. If I right click on Light A and query...it updates to OFF. Thanks.

I have been having the similar "Device Not Responding" for the past week or so...I am trying to figure out if it is Alexa or something else (i have a post here about it)...maybe it is something with Alexa service. Anyway, I upgraded to V3 a while back and i had the same issue as you. I thought I had done everything right...but I got duplicates. I went through the whole process as documented here again and it worked fine. Are you sure that when you disconncted the old skill, you disabled both the original and V2 (if they both exist?) I don't remember exactly, but it seemed like there was two skills before V3 and I had to disable them both. Then go into the Alexa App and forget all devices. I think I also did a "refresh devices" to see what would happen and of course got none. For some reason, it sounds like Alexa kept your old ones. All of spoken words would be forced to lowercase in the Portal. The names that Alexa shows are all working with proper case format for me. For example Guest Bathroom Vanity is the name in Alexa, but the spoken is guest bathroom vanity. I would go through it all again and see how it goes. Thanks.

Thanks, I was doing 1 and 3, but forgot about the web interface on the portal. I will try that next time it happens. Would still like to understand the actual communication pathway, sends and receives, etc. if anyone knows how that all works I would love to know. This would help me understand if Alexa talks to the portal and that's it, or if it actually gets confirmation all the way from ISY on the success or failure of the command. Thanks.

Thanks. I believe the actual standard is 50' for RS232... Back in the late 80's/early 90's when I was doing equipment installs in papermills, we ran a lot over RS232 and panel to panel was often over 25' not at that high a baud usually. I do think that 50' is probably pushing this install...but again, it all seems to work except Alexa gives these errors at times. I am curious to know if the cable could be causing that or if there might be something else going with the connection.

I have been using Alexa with ISY for a long time and really very few issues...responds well, etc. We had some power issues here this past week and decided that I needed to get my ISY on the UPS with the rest of my Network gear, servers, etc. Up to this point, it has been stationed next to the power panel as that is the best spot in the house I found for it way back when I set it up...I get good signal to all my devices (using a wired in phase bridge in the panel). I have a LOT of older devices that are not dual band. So basically after reading on here that others extended the serial cable to 30' plus, I decided to try it myself. I basically, took isy and moved it near my network switch and took the old network cable (it is a 50' - CAT6 purchased cable, not one I made) and plugged that into the PLM and then into ISY's Port, then a short network cable into ISY and into the same port on the switch it has always been in. Everything worked great, no issues. I have seen zero problems from the admin console, controlling devices, etc. (at least all that I tried). However, I have started to see issues from Alexa now. She complains "<device> is not responding". Sometimes I can do it 3 times and nothing...walk into the other room and ask the other Echo and it works first time. Sometimes, it will give me the error, I turn it off from the admin console and then ask Alexa to turn the same device on and it works first try. Just odd stuff like that...not all the time, but more in the past week then it has in the past year...so I am wondering if that long table is causing a problem? My questions: 1. Do you think the cable would be the issue? I am not sure how the discussion goes between Alexa and ISY (hence my next question) but I would think as long as alexa can talk to the ISY, it doesn't care what happens at the PLM? 2. How the discussion go between the two? I assume something like this: Alexa talks to Amazon, Amazon talks to the ISY Portal, the ISY Portal talks to my ISY and then it reverses with a confirmation or something? I would like to understand how this all ties together in detail so it would help me troubleshoot in the future (and this time really). Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the robust answers @Scyto I really appreciate it. You may regret it, because it appears we have very similar use case, so if I jump off the cliff I may be looking to you for some parachutes quite often! I have two Synology NAS boxes on my network and I use Unifi access point and an EdgeRouter (love that thing) with Cisco SG300 switches through the house. I started with two HP NAS boxes running Windows Server (don't remember what exactly, but I am talking 15 years ago)...a whopping 1 TB of raid 5 space on those bad boys! I then bought two used U3 rack mounted servers with 12 hard drive bays each. I installed Ubuntu at that time and that's where I learned Linux (for as good as I am, not great mind you). Those each had 6TB of Raid 5 in them...but were huge power hogs and way overkill for what a file server at your house 10 years ago (1000 watts 24/7). I then bought a Synology and then another one and never looked back...they are fantastic pieces of hardware....with a total of 57 TB of available space, I am good for a while. However, I did not like running apps on them because of many of the reasons you mention and I didn't like all the media players in the house hitting one of them, some transcoding going on, etc. So I setup the stand alone Ubuntu server and use that for my needs. I don't run docker as I said, all of my apps are running native on the server. Sounds like I want to start to experiment with it though based on your successes. I tend to like pretty graphs and such too...I also like the idea of nginx reverse proxy, I currently don't allow anything in (but would like to be able to some of it in the future maybe). Thanks.

Thanks Larry...I think I will pass on that one. The outside wired probe doesn't concern me to much, but the touch screen issues would be a downfall.

Thanks...I will give it a whirl. Thanks, I will have a look. I never used Docker...I have thought about it learning and getting it going a few times, but just haven't done it. I assume since you built the image, you use Docker often...in your opinion, should I consider looking into it? If so, why? I use my Linux server for a media server mostly, but do run a few other web based apps on it and just recently added Polyglot as I said. Thanks.

Good option as well. The screen has gone out on it (froze during the move last time, didnt help it I am sure) or I would just stick with what I have. I figured with getting a new one, I would try to get something a little more accurate, has humidity sensing built in, etc.. I found that my old one was never terribly accurate. I have thought about going with the simply Insteon stat and then adding temp and humidity sensors seperately, but that Venstar color screen is just so darned cool looking! ?

Never been on that site before, they have some good prices and lots of stuff I use quite often...thanks for pointing it out! The Venstar is quite a bit cheaper there then Amazon for sure!

I am in the U.S. but I work for Canadian company if that helps! ? If he has one, I think I have some Canadian cash from my last trip north I could send him!

I know you got it from @larryllix, I was hoping he might jump in and be the "link" with another one...he mentioned in another thread a while back that he had two and I saw he sold you one.

You don't happen to have a link to another used one do you?

I see the Rpi support and I was wondering if someone could point me in the proper direction to get Nodelink installed on my Linux server (Ubuntu 18.04.3). Thanks for the help.

Thanks. I have a Linux server that runs on my network (just installed Polyglot on it yesterday). I assume that would suffice to run NodeLink there and then it can communicate to ISY and the Venstar?

How does the Venstar Colortouch t7900 talk to ISY? Is it direct Insteon or some other method? Thanks.

Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it. I will do some reading on the ones mentioned and see how it goes. Local control does sound like a good benefit. I dont have Zwave capability with my ISY, I just have the 994i/IR-Rro model (though I don't use IR for anything). I am not opposed to replacing it with a Zwave capable one if folks think that is a good way to go.

Looks like my old Venstar with the Insteon adapter is finally reaching its last leg...the screen pretty hard to read anymore (still works, but but would be nice to read it instead of asking Alexa what the setpoint and temperature is all the time). I was set to buy a Nest for the past couple years...just kind of waiting for this to either die, or me to get the gumption to make it happen....but now that I am ready, I see that Google has either removed or is removing the Nest API connects, or whatever...that allowed it to work through Polyglot and ISY. So...what is my next thermostat to be? Any recommendations? Basically, I have heat and cool is all...no zones or anything like that. I do all the scheduling, set points, etc. through ISY, so integration with ISY is a must. I would like to have Humidity sensor built in, but not a deal breaker. Thanks for any help you can offer!

I was looking at that last night...I am a mediocre very basic programmer on my best day with Python...and I have never looked at Polyglot...but might be worth a poke around and see what fun I can have with it. Thanks.

I don't know that it's public... https://developer.arlo.co/

My exact experience as well. I have a mix of devices going back to 2008 or before (dont recall exactly, I bought several boxes of Insteon stuff in 2008 from a shop that was getting out of the business...some used and some new) and I still haven't quite figured out all the different versions and revisions. Confusing to say the least. What I do know if that once I started messing with backlights, I had them all frigged up one to the next. Now I pretty much leave them at default (which I agree is way to bright) and if I do adjust them, I hope the ones close to eachother can come out about the same brightness...or I abort. Fun stuff...

I did this too and went a step further in the Notes Section, I added: Circuit: 12 Phase: B This means that this device is powered from Circuit breaker 12 and is on the B phase. I did this because it makes it really easy to find the breaker if I need to shut something off and the phase is useful when I have issues from one phase or another. Not critical, but helpful...you could say "well odd breakers are one phase and even are the other" but not so if you have piggy back breakers (which I don't, but might if things fill up). On another note, I agree with @lilyoyo1 on the initial build. If you ever try to sell that house, you may wish you had hardwired it such that things work without ISY and Insteon. That will be a deal breaker for a lot of people (even me, I would not mind it while I owned it...but I wouldn't buy it because of the ability to resell it). Now, trust me...you will have a very easy time setting up your system compared to me...I had to replace everything in my entire house with Insteon enabled devices and it wasn't fun in some cases. 3 and 4 gang boxes may seem like they have a ton of room, but start tying together 4 or 5 incoming and outgoing cables, capping off the ones you don't need, and stuffing dimmers and keypads in there and it gets pretty cramped. However, I "can" go back if I want to sell and the buyer doesn't want it...I kept drawings of every single box I opened. I also factory reset and test each device, and add it to ISY before I install it. I built a little simply test pigtail that works like a charm. Clip it on and away you go (be safe about it, don't forget it can be very "shocking" if not done safely!). Thanks.

Glad I found this thread...finally understand the benefit of using groups in Alexa App. The part I was missing was that Alexa only understands "light" and can not differentiate between different lights in the room...BUT I can simply have spokens setup for them and those work too. Question: Is there anything else that Alexa would understand other than light? (not sure what would be useful, but I am just asking to see). Thanks.