KHouse

@MrBill - thank you very much. I wont have time to get to this tomorrow, but will work on it over the weekend. Thanks again for the instructions and step by step.

@MrBill Thanks for your input. I understand the first part (turn scene off instead of device). Will look up setting up a scene and doing that. Regarding the second part (NIGHT button), I'm a little confused still. What would you recommend is the trigger for "if NIGHT button is switched off"? That is, it's turn pressed/turn on when going to bed. It'll turn on the backlight when pressed, and stay illuminated Otherwise the next day/night you go to press it again when going to bed, and it's still illuminated.

I'm back, looking to see if someone could help me with a program or the logic behind what I'm looking to do. I'm lost. I've got an Insteon 6-button keybad at the top of my basement stairs. The ON controls the basement ceiling lights. The 4 smaller buttons control other lights in the basement (laundry room, gym, hall, and NIGHT). I'd like to do 2 things. First, I'd like the OFF button to turn off all of the basement lights. I have this done with a program. However, all of the LED's that backlight the small buttons remain lit up even though those lights are off. How do I get the small button back lights to turn off also when the OFF button is pressed and those lights get turned off via the program I have for that? Second, the small button I have labeled as NIGHT needs to still be programmed. Thought process is the same as everyone I think. When you press the NIGHT button, all of the lights in the house that are supposed to turn off are turned off, and the lights that should be on all night get turn on (if they aren't already). I think that's easy enough with a program...but then this button back light will be lit up all of the time (all day and all night), as there's nothing to turn the backlight off at any time. Is this supposed to be done with a scene? I have no experience with scenes as I've never used them before, so not sure what I need to do to get both of these things done on the keypad. I appreciate any help that anyone could provide!

I'm running an ISY-994i and Insteon. We've got a TV in the basement that the kids watch, however, they like to leave it on when they come upstairs. Rather, when my wife comes upstairs she forgets to turn the TV for them as they're too young. To solve this problem, I tried to plug the TV into an Insteon On/Off plug module, and have that "OFF" command connected to a program and a 6-button keypad at the top of the stairs. The program is such that when you press OFF on the keypad, the basement lights turn off AND the on/off module that the TV is plugged into turns off, it waits 5 seconds, and turns power back on to the module. I expected this to turn the TV off and when the module "turns on" again the TV would still be off until you turned it on again with the remote (similar to when the power goes out...cut the power, and the TV goes off, then you need to turn the TV on again with the remote as it wont automatically come on when the power comes back on). However, when the module "turns on" again after 5 seconds...the TV is coming back on again. Thoughts on if I need a different program to make this work? Or just extend the time delay before it turns back on again? I'm thinking maybe there's a capacitor in the TV holding power for a bit and that's why it comes back on? Appreciate any help.

Gotcha, understood. Thanks folks!

What do you mean by this? The main basement lights are connected to the ON/OFF buttons on the 6 button switch, so if you press ON, the main basement lights are on and the ON button is backlit. If you press off (now that my programming is done)...all/any of the basement lights that are on will turn off...so it's an ALL OFF essentially. I guess the question is, how to make the ON button light turn on (backlit) when any of the lights are on?

The logic makes sense. How do you program that so that the 6 button switch ON button lights up (if any of the lights are on). First time with a 6 button so not sure how to make the backlight come on in. Thanks again!

Good question...... ? I'll have to play around with this...thanks!

It does support it. In my setup, when the smoke alarm goes off, all of the lights in the house turn on (in theory to help you see and get out of the house at night in the event of a fire). The lights also turn on a couple of seconds before the alarm sounds, so it's an indicator to everyone around that my wife's cooking is getting out of hand and the alarm is about to go off.

Thanks for taking the time to post this. Simple mistake on my part. It was set to "status" and not "control". Correcting the fixed it, everything works as expected now. Thanks. I was going to post it now but realized from the above comment that it was a status/control issue. Thanks everyone!

Thanks everyone. I'll post up once I get home tonight.

I thought so as well, and that's why I wrote that little test program to test it. I just tested it again. Only the laundry light is turned on. When you hit the OFF button on the 6 button switch, the little green light flashes, but nothing happens. As if it didn't send a signal to turn off all of the lights. If I hit ON and then OFF...the laundry room light does turn off. The program is exactly as described above. Could someone direct me how to program the double tap as a multi-link for all of the switches in the basement? Maybe that will work programming it that way vs. doing it through the ISY??

Just tested something, and trying to think through the logic. I've got: if six button switch is switched off then turn off Basement Laundry Room Lights If the basement lights are off, and I go down there and turn on the laundry lights, they will stay on. If I come upstairs and hit the OFF button on the 6 button switch, they stay ON (they do not turn off). However, if I press ON and then OFF on the 6 button switch, then the basement lights come on then turn off, and just as well the laundry room lights turn off also (as they should). So I'm trying to figure out how to get that exact scenario to work, with the exception of having to press ON and then OFF on the 6 button switch to turn all OFF. Hope that makes sense!

Quick follow-up question to this though... If your program states "if - six button switch is OFF", "then- turn off new scene"...you'd never be able to turn on any of the lights individually unless those 2 basements lights were ON (thus the 6 button switch was on). Basically what I'm looking to do is have the OFF button be a catch all to turn all of the lights off when the OFF button is pressed. But...if I want to turn the laundry room light on (while the rest of the basement is OFF), then that wouldn't be possible because it would register the 6 button switch as OFF and just turn the laundry room back off right away? Would that be correct or am I thinking about that wrong?

Thank you. That's how I figured it might work / hoped it would work since it seemed there wasn't a way to link them to just the OFF button at the switches themselves.

Thanks for all the recent help folks getting my first 6 button switch connected (in that mess of a 3-way wiring I had to figure out). In any case, now hopefully someone will be able to help with the programming/scene. Searching only pulls up some possibly good responses on the Smarthome forum, but those links are dead so hoping someone here with knowledge can help. I've got my 6 button Insteon switch ON button connected to (2) lights in the basement. However, I would like the OFF button on that 6 button switch to control more than just those (2) lights that is linked to the ON button. That is, in our laundry room and hallway down there, I've got Insteon switches too. I don't want the ON function to operate them from the 6 button switch, but do want the OFF button from the 6 button switch to turn all basement lights off (if they're on). Is there a way to program or control the 6 button switch OFF button to control the off function of all of the lights, but have the ON function control just 2 of them? Again appreciate very much any help.

I am using the Mobilinc Connect portal to talk to Alexa (not the ISY portal to Alexa). Sort of a resolution though. I deleted all devices in the Alexa app, disabled the skill, and re-started the ISY. No luck. But, in honor of "sales guy vs. IT guy" Youtube video from 10 years ago where the IT guy jokes/tricks the sales guy into restarting his computer 3 times to fix a technical issue...I did just that. Repeated the disable and re-connect/discover 3 times, and on the 3rd time it found all devices and everything works as it should again.

I’ve got a bit of an issue and was hoping someone could help me troubleshoot. I’ve got and ISY994i running Insteon devices, tied to MobiLinc and Alexa (MobiLinc portal in the ISY). My voice control through the Alexa was getting a bit spotty. Some voice controls worked, some didn’t, and some that didn’t work one day would work again an hour later without problems. For example, “Alexa, turn on the kitchen hall light”. This would work fine one day, not work the next, or not work but an hour later I’d try and it would work fine. Finally decided to troubleshoot this today for good as many of the lights weren’t working (but some still were). In the Amazon account, I could see that ½ of my lights weren’t showing as discovered devices (that’s why they wouldn’t work). How/why they would come back on their own, I have no idea. Some of the devices showing were devices that didn’t work yesterday. So they are sometimes recognized and sometimes not. I tried to discover all. Found no new devices. Confirmed Mobilinc portal shows good in the ISY (under configuration>portal). Refreshed anyway. Removed all devices from Alexa. Disabled the Mobilinc skill. Re-enabled the Mobilinc skill and tried to discover devices, but it only discovers the other Amazon devices and a printer I have, but none of the Insteon light switches (through ISY). Any idea what I can try to have Alexa recognize these devices through Mobilinc/ISY? *To add a weird bit to it. Under the discovered devices I did not have “Kitchen Hall Light”. But if I scroll down in the Alexa app, that light did show under a different icon (more devices listed there). I could turn it on/off through the Alexa app (which I didn’t know was a thing as I never looked there or used that app to turn lights on/off as I just use Mobilinc). So the Alexa app see's the device, and can control it, but doesn't recognize it as a voice control device?

Glad to hear Wes. Just as a side thought, do you have plans to continue offering MobiLinc Pro? I prefer the layout in Pro (specifically the Dashboard) to X, so never changed over to X.

Thanks Mr.Bill. Makes sense. To add a little bit more info though...it's not just that one voice command that won't work when it doesn't work. When it doesn't work, none of them work. I've got probably 15 different commands to controls lights/fans, but when it "goes down", none of them will work.

Hoping someone could help (not sure if this is the right forum/sub-forum but seemed like the best place for this). Running an ISY994i, Elk, MobiLinc, Alexa's. Using the voice control, I could say "Alexa, turn off the couch lights " (for example). This command has worked, always / sort of. I've been running into some communication issues where my ISY didn't work / voice commands didn't work. I would power cycle the ISY, and they would work again for a while. This however started occurring more frequently. As of recently though, the power cycle doesn't work. Voice controls sometimes work, and sometimes they don't. (I get the error from Alexa that says "Couch lights does not support this". And then an hour later the voice controls work. Again, where a power cycle of the ISY used to fix this, it now does not fix it. Only time "fixes" it, and randomly works/doesn't work. On a similar note I've been getting issues where programs wont run (like my outdoor lights coming on at sunset). Just a few days ago before the Insteon mess I submitted a ticket regarding the programs not running, however with everything going on with Insteon right now I want to leave Michel alone so that he can work on that more important matter. (He always provides great tech support when needed but I know he's super busy right now so want to let him deal with that stuff and I can wait). Appreciate any guidance on where to look.

I've been off the board for a while...and noticed on this sub-forum for MobiLinc there hasn't been any new topics/posts in 2 years. Any idea why? Did I miss something? (I use MobiLinc and works fine so they must still be in business!)

Just to follow-up with this. I've successfully incorporated the Amazon Echo into our home automation. I'm very surprised how much we use it to turn on the kitchen or family room lights. It seems almost easier to just tell her to do it, then it is to touch the light switch. So far I'm just using the Echo to control Insteon lights via MobiLinc / ISY.

Yes, thank you...and sorry about that. I'm using iOS. I had yesterday off, so spent a good bit of the day on this. Purchased the Elk module in the ISY, purchased the ELK plugin for MobiLinc, set those two up, and ordered an Echo Dot to get started with that. Looking forward to finally integrating my home security (door sensors and what not) with the ISY and Automation part of my home control, not to mention adding in the Echo as well. My PLM has gone bad, and I had been delaying replacing it (with my HA working like crap now after running for years with no issues). That is what caused me start looking at my HA and Security again, and decided that while replacing the PLM, I might as well integrate everything better, and add an Echo while I'm at it. So next weekend should be fun. eKeypad on the iPad/iPod plays nicely with the alarm being handled by MobiLinc on my phone, as I had assumed it would, but wasn't sure. Of course I think the Elk sends the data out and ISY, MobiLinc, eKeypad all pick up the same "data", so if you set the alarm on MobiLinc, the iPad at the front door running eKeypad acknowledges the armed status. I really wanted to be sure that would all work together, assumed it would, but am happy that it does without any problems.

After further research, I guess it looks like I could go either way: ISY Portal or MobiLinc Connect. With either I'd be able to accomplish what I'd like to accomplish, but since I already have MobiLinc connect, maybe it's just best to purchase the Elk Module for my ISY (since I've been controlling the Elk separately via eKeypad), and then purchase the Elk module in MobiLinc app, and I'll just have one place on my phone for automation/security, and then all of that can also be controlled via MobiLinc/Echo. Can anyone please confirm if that seems appropriate and the right decision?