larryllix
-
Posts
14922 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by larryllix
-
-
STATE is a type of variable found under the Tab STATE at the top of the IoX screen.
STATE variables can trigger programs to run while INTEGER variables do not.
Most users signify the usage of STATE variables by putting a lowercase "s" at the beginning of the name to avoid confusion in programs later.
eg: $sVariableName-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, paulbates said:
I get it... we spend a lot of our time camping around the Great Lakes, in fact we're out now 😉
Which Great lake were you in?
-
On 5/4/2025 at 8:30 PM, Jimbo.Automates said:
That's very odd, nothing has changed with this plugin in a long time. I'll try to look into it this week.
After my polls SSD crashed and my polisy was rebuilt from the ground up, the F vs C nomenclature still remains on the remote sensors only. The master stat reading shows as C.
All values are fine, just the unit scales are incorrect on the Remote sensors in IoX. -
Another method. This is based on no direct (Insteon) connection between MS and light control switch. If there is there is more complex way of accomplishing this by disabling the ISY Insteon scene.
If
switcLinc is switched FAST OFF
AND
switchLinc is NOT switched FAST ON
Then
Variable $sDisable.MS = 1
Wait 5 minutes <---- if desired to auto cancel disable. If not, make it hours long
Variable $sDisable.MS = 0
Else
Variable $sDisable.MS = 0
If
MS is switch On
AND
$sDisable.MS = 0
Then
turn on your lights etc.
Else
----- -
Website reports server down since about 3:00 PM today and multiple resolutions promised but still down at 19:25
Not your NS or ISY!!
https://status.ecobee.com/# -
10 hours ago, dbwarner5 said:
When mine went down last night around 630 pm eastern time, I eventually had to reboot my router to get it back online at about 830pm as it didnt reconnect naturally. After reboot it was connected as usual.
No Alexa and on the portal showed offline as well las in UDM.
I recently changed my router ISP / factory set IP address lease time, from 3 days down to 12 hours. Perhaps that resolved mine earlier, on it's own.
-
1
-
-
47 minutes ago, bmercier said:
That's what I meant by offline. If it's not connected to portal, it's "offline", and therefore Alexa integration will not work.
I understand but it was between Alexa and ISY Portal which I had no control over.
-
46 minutes ago, Geddy said:
@msingold if this has mostly been in the last 24 hours there have been a couple of portal down time that seem to have recovered. If this has been going on a long time you might be best helped by opening a support ticket to see if there are underlying issues.
https://www.universal-devices.com/my-tickets
The eisy does sometimes run warm, but it is designed that way. If you keep it in an enclosed area this could make it run warmer due to low air circulation.
I had routers that ran too warm. Vertical mounting resolved all those heat problems. They had vent holes though. Polisy does not. Never seen an eISY.
-
2 hours ago, bmercier said:
Try again. If your unit was offline, that's what you would see.
Thanks. Nothing was offline. ISY Portal showed my ISY as offline but any locale ISY operations, including NR worked 100%. Alexa app showed ISY Skill accounts connected but every device was shown disconnected.
It all fixed itself later without any further action from me.
Amazon just didn't like us?
-
Back up again also, polisy Pro.
-
16 minutes ago, Pacman said:
Yikes @StangManD, I'm experiencing a virtually identical scenario. I appreciate you doing some of the heavy lifting on this.
Sorry, nothing else to contribute other than "misery enjoys company."
My SSD on both polISYs crashed a few eeks ago. My main polisy Pro was imaged with an mSATA to USB adapter and came back up fully with a few hours of work, no problem. However my back-up polisy would never come back up despite re-imaging successfully about 6 times UD support predicted it was the SSD and suggested to buy a new one, which was right on the money and the backup polisy is working fine again,
Michel made a comment to me that rings in my brain that. cheaper SSD tend to not last long. By cheaper I believe he meant smaller SSD drives as they have a lot less memory area to swap memory into and basically wear out too soon.
I bought a 64GB SSD to replace the factory unit but thinking again I would get a much larger SSD because of the previous paragraph I posted. The suggested imager program would not work with the larger drive and I had to download another free imager that worked fine.-
1
-
-
@bmercier My polISY cannot be found by Alexa. I have disabled and renabled the accounts successfully as well as using "discover" in Alexa and it find no new devices. However all devices are shown with flags as disconnected now.
-
5 hours ago, RonnieB said:
No. Just finished. No response at plain x10 module. Tried same circuit and plug as PLM.
I'm lost
The receptacle wasn't a split receptacle like on your kitchen counter or other cooking surface, was it?
Bad signal noise creators are small PSU like USB chargers, and Garage door openers have been found to be very bad sometimes.
Start un plugging things, especially cheap and old things. -
18 hours ago, Geddy said:
@larryllix I tried the CAO Wireless tags, and still have several in place, but the battery life was worse than 8-10 months in some places and that's with very minimal updates. I think my freezer tag needed to be replaced every 3 months...at least recently it seemed that way. There are some quirks with those tags and every now and then the whole system goes haywire.
I've just found the range and reliability of the YoLink worked out better for me. Also, the YoLink sensors have a display. If I am just grabbing something out of the freezer I can glance at the temp. I've had the YoLink in the freezer almost 18 months on the original batteries. Sure, it's 2 x AAA size (35 cents per battery), but to get that life is better than 5-6 (with my experience at 50-60 cents per CR2032 battery) the cost works out better with the YoLink. Just from my own use experience.
Both have good options and fit for most.
There is some frequency, signal strength and bandwidth adjustments that need to be made on the tags, especially at subzero temperatures. I only interrogate my tags every 30 minutes for general temperature and humidity probing. Also, I do not use the NR, I use a custom written kumoapp to push the readings into polISY State variables.
-
2
-
-
10 hours ago, dbwarner5 said:
I had looked into them, but decided to go with Yolink as I need the range to get the lake temperature back to the house.
I found the CAO Tags to have a very long range. I detected the one in my car about half a mile away when my wife was driving home, once. It reconnected and gave me the connected flag.
However, I also found that the angle of the tag was critical as my mailbox at the end of the driveway, about 40 feet from the house, and through layers of brick to the far end of the house had to be turned the correct angle. I used one for my garage door position sensing and found when bolted to a metal surface it didn't have a good range either.
-
1
-
-
9 hours ago, Geddy said:
Isn't this possible with the Alexa skill for YoLink? I can ask Alexa what the temp is in my freezer and I get the reply. It's from YoLink. Even though I have the Yolink plugin and can see the temp on UD Mobile I don't have it exposed to the UD portal to Alexa so it's only coming through the YoLink skill (I think). Either way...all my YoLink temps can be given via Alexa when asked. She can't do the humidity of those devices though (I've tried/asked). But that's not as important. It's mostly when
I use the CAO Wireless tags and Alexa can interrogate and say their temperatures to 0.001C degrees. The Tags require a new CR2032 battery about every 8-10 months but they can transmit through the metal freezer case to the master receiver in the house easily and reliably.
-
1
-
-
Will this web server run on PolISY also?
UPDATE: Announcement post says no.
@bmercierWill polISY run this in the future? -
Simplest way is to create STATE variables with meaningful names.
Then use ISY Portal to emulate MS devices from each one with 1 value = On , 0 value = Off.
Now use Alexa app to create Alaxa Routines using those pseudoMS elements as triggers to do whatever you want Alexa to do.
After I defined a group of dedicated STATE variable I created an ISY program that is triggered by any STATE variable becoming a non-zero value and WAIT 10 seconds and then set the whole group of STATE variable back to 0 again. This saves many programs, one for each STATE variable by just writing one program for all.
To use:
Set $sAlexa.do.whatever to 1Reset sSay variables - [ID 006F][Parent 0002][Run At Startup] If // [Run at Startup] enabled $sSay.motionOutsideDoor is not 0 Or $sSay.occupancyTimerExpiring is not 0 Or $sSay.securityViolated is not 0 Or $sSay.welcomeHome is not 0 Or $sSay.systemArming is not 0 Or $sSay.systemDisarmed is not 0 Or $sSay.goodBye is not 0 Or $sSay.turnOnLights is not 0 Or $sSay.systemArmed is not 0 Or $sz_40 is not 0 Or $sSay.blindLowBatt is not 0 Or $sSay.blindJammed is not 0 Or $sz_43 is not 0 Or $sz_44 is not 0 Or $sz_45 is not 0 Or $sz_46 is not 0 Or $sz_47 is not 0 Or $sz_48 is not 0 Then Wait 10 seconds $sSay.motionOutsideDoor = 0 $sSay.occupancyTimerExpiring = 0 $sSay.securityViolated = 0 $sSay.welcomeHome = 0 $sSay.systemArming = 0 $sSay.systemDisarmed = 0 $sSay.goodBye = 0 $sSay.turnOnLights = 0 $sSay.systemArmed = 0 $sz_40 = 0 $sSay.blindLowBatt = 0 $sSay.blindJammed = 0 $sz_43 = 0 $sz_44 = 0 $sz_45 = 0 $sz_46 = 0 $sz_47 = 0 $sz_48 = 0 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') -
On my ecobee thermostats (I have owned three now) there are internal records of thermostat sensors every 15 minutes. These spreadsheets records can be downloaded from the thermostat and show the actual sensor reading in 0.1c degrees, whereas the display and the api sending values are only 0.5c degree resolution. The thermostat face displays the compensated / anticipator resultant temperature the thermostat is regulating the HVAC equipment to. ecobee stats offer a settable on/off differential of down to 0.3c degrees. ecobee stats also insulate the sensor for the electonics heat extremely well with distance, air diversion channels, insulation, and heat reflectors
I have had several Honeywell programmable stats and they do the same thing, displaying the compensated temperature and not the sensor actual temperature. The evidence there was to turn the stat to lower heat setpoint and watch the displayed reading drop by 2-3c degrees. Once you consider the 0.5c "looseness" before the stat contacts will close the temperature swings may exceed 4c degrees or about 7-8F degrees in real applications.
I have owned a few other top tech stats (in their era) and they did the same thing with readings that didn't reflect the actual sensor temperatures. Venstar T78/900? was another that did the same thing.
Nest stats have the same problem. I find homes with Nest stats have waves of heat and periods of cold at times that I cannot tolerate comfortably.
The 2441TH Insteon stats do not have this anticipation / prediction so the lowest on/off differential you can get is about 3c degrees plus the time delay for the warm air to enter the casing and change the sensor reading. The resultant temperature swings are way too large for many (myself included) to tolerate. However, IRC, the readings you get via protocol, are the readings you also see on the stat front. -
After using many different brands of thermostats over the years I have found they alldisplay a different temperature than the actual.
What I have found was that instead of using a different register (memory location) for the calculated /compensated temperature they use the register that is being displayed on the screen.
For a thermostat to have some predictive capability and not undershoot and overshoot, in the mechanical day they would have a small heating element in series with the furnace solenoid, to predict and compensate the time delay in sensing the air temperature that SHOULD be the result of the furnace run. If the thermostat waited until the bimetal element was actually warmed up to the air temperature the furnace would run way too long and overshoot the setting by several degrees. The small heating element tried to "predict" what was coming, in order to prevent the wave of heat that would result without it.
In modern / electronic thermostat days, they attempt to accomplish this "predictive" task arithmetically, by adding a few degrees to the actual sensed temperature and you see it on the face of the thermostat. You may find this difference goes away when it is not calling for heat or cool. You may also find this difference may lessen if you adjust the on/off differential to allow a larger temperature swing setting.
BTW: Thermostats with WiFi or other signal transmitters produce a lot of heat and they manufacturers attempt to compensate this by fudging the calibration of the sensing. This makes a wildly regulating thermostat that becomes very dependent on room air currents. Many are not designed well enough to be good thermostat temperature regulators.-
1
-
-
It takes a password/keyword but when you enter a second keyword it removes the first one.
Govee app writers have come up a lot of amazing stuff now. I bought a programmable fan. Amazing features. -
On 5/26/2025 at 1:30 PM, Guy Lavoie said:
I've never created or edited programs from UD Mobile, but I know there are some things you can't do, that are only available from the admin console.
Every time I use UD Mobile I see more additions to it. It has become a powerhouse of features and if variable additions are not there, my guess is they soon will be.
@junkycosmosSuggest pinging the author/code writer with your concern
-
On 5/25/2025 at 2:07 PM, Guy Lavoie said:
I was able to extract the link ok, thanks!
So how does this work? UDI sends you a file that is a proper image of what a Polisy should be like, and you use this to write it to the SSD drive? Is a special software utility required to do this? Thanks.
Yes. The image writers is called Rufus and an image.img file is involved. UDI support supplied links (image was time limited for security) and you download the two.
-After removing the SSD from the polisy, you insert the SSD into the adapter, and screw it down (micro screwdriver supplied with adapter) to hold the contacts tight.
-Insert the USB combination into a USB slot,
-run Rufus, which automatically finds the drive and tells you about partitions etc.
-SELECT the polisy???.img file, and click START.
-You will then see a lot of warnings about destroying old data and partitions, you will ignore.
-Now you should see a sliding progress indicator, about 20 seconds
-Now you should see the CLOSE box appear.
-I used Windows eject USB feature
-Reinstall the SSD drive. Don't forget the overlayed small PCB onto the dual header pins.
-Close up polisy case
-Power up polisy
-Reset credentials and font size, and location time zone etc.
-Reboot, and load in saved IoX image file.
-in PG3 need to re-install every NS using the "want to reuse the same slot" menu option. Despite looking like it will recharge our wallet, there is a method to bypass. Then after a few moments when reported installed, every NS required a restart to comm with polisy, then install any keys or passwords. IoX data resumed updating for every NS.
Ecobee found the old one, after deleting and installing new key provided by ecobee NS install. Watch for it in PG3x.
Govee had to request a new "api_key" from the mobile app to see the set
of lights it handles. Install in PG3 Govee config api_key = xxyxyxyxyxy
Twinky did it's own thing. but no devices attached right now.
-Alexa looked after itself completely.
-SSH need to be setup, maybe but password in polisy needs to be changed from the default admin/admin to desired.
-my NRbridge software had to be re-installed in Polisy, used Fileziila but directories had to be created first using SSH. The crontab was hard to figure out because I am not real good with freeBSD yet.
-default freeBSD editor needs to be changed to nano, if desired. Research online. Can't remember the"export ?????" syntax. Need a permanent assignment yet.
@Geddy @Guy Lavoie
Addendum: At UDI support's recommendation I purchased a new SSD for my spare polisy, wrote the image to the SSD and rebuilt it from ground up. Since I was now freshly familiar with some of the freeBSD details I uppated the spare with my NRbridge software, and ran some tests on groups of WiFi bulbs.
However, I found Rufus would not locate my 64GB SSD and I had to download ImageWriter to accomplish the image write. It seems Rufus is only capable of the 32GB imaging.
@Michel KohanimSpecial thanks to Michel at UDI for his superior sleuthing knowledge and support in this matter. (no pun intended LOL)
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, Guy Lavoie said:
What is this SSD imager you're mentioning? A hardware device?
Support has already started from Michel.
I already have this mSATA to USB adapter from rebuilding my polisys from some incompatible original polisy image.
I don't know why this link jumps me back to the forum. I have reinserted it four times with the same results now.
Possibly switching from my ISY994i to eisy.
in eisy
Posted · Edited by larryllix
If your PLM is working well so far, I wouldn't replace it. There were too many with weak power supplies inside in between times. However if your link count is high and you plan to expand you may want to get a more modern USB type PLM.
You may want to expand more devices that are not Insteon and then the link capabilty would be sufficient to keep. Getting a new USB type may be a good backup plan also. It sounds like you have a very quiet grid supply but with moving or electrical noisy neighbours moving close to you, you may want to accelerate your backup plans.