larryllix

Decent Zwave is very new yet. Time will tell. I have considered some Zwave migration but I have never had a problem with an Insteon device that connects to AC yet. Battery devices? A few but most were DOA. Wait! Not completely true I have an iRLinc that had it's iR wired backwards and has never worked with ISY. Would have cost me more to return to SH than it's worth. At least ISY has diversified to support those two and more. My Ethernet devices are starting to take over anyway. I bought another 10 bulbs to add to my 14 previous units. You can't beat the $10-$14 CAD price. The MiLights and Philips Hue garbage may go out due to Hubs required.

I think you will find I didn't post any of those gross exaggerations to support your arguments. We don't know what people have done with their PLMs inside closed closets and unvented cabinets.

My PLM is four years old now and never been a problem yet either. On a sale, i nervously bought another PLM which I put into service for almost a year now but after figuring some GDO might have been my new PLM acting defectively, I switched it back a few months ago. Noise electrical environments can weaken PS filter components. Weak PS components are reported to be/were a common problem. A noisy electrical environment can accelerate any PLM failure as will extreme temperatures, liquid immersion, or physical shock.

I use Insteon MSes and lights in many rooms. To help resolve your issue (middle of the night) ISY has a solution to be able to dimm the lamp levels in the scene. I use these twice per day so that lights don;t blind you at nights when you trigger them and yet still produce 100W equiv. during the day when you want the brilliance.

Its OK when you miss something, just not when Alexa does Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

No. ISY Portal runs Then or Else depending on On/Off or Close/Open. Running an If can be done by one vocal reception program running a second program's If section, just like you posted above.

I would go mostly Insteon again. Note: I have no Zwave at all. Battery operated devices I am still 60/40% for installing Insteon Zwave. Insteon because I haven't broken the Zwave hump yet, but Zwave because Insteon battery devices work poorly and are poorer quality. I have no Zwave experience except what I have read mostly here. OTOH: I am hearing Zwave MS to Insteon Lighting is not quite fast enough. Nothing beats Insteon direct connections (Scenes) for MS to Light response speeds. For my parents I would install a few Alexa or Google Home boxes and each week when I visited I would train them in a new technique. Show them how you can stop in the middle of a movie and ask Alexa how old Clint Eastwood is...or who played the lead role in Batman 1989? Everybody loves it. f you intend to do any colour LED strips (I would), the vocals are invaluable instead of trying to create switches with 8-10 different colours. For a small subscription fee (ISY Portal) you can integrate vocal devices with the HA. No other third party boxes or anything. So easy. I changed all my RGBWW lighting over to direct WiFi, eliminating most Hubs. All except Hue and MiLights, already having the bulbs and hubs. Avoid that complexity. I would repeat my same MS to lighting. Mind you this could be done with plain old in wall occupancy switches too. That is the best HA in it's simplest form. Confused even more?

Scenes are presets inside your Insteon devices, that ISY r other Insteon devices can send an easy code to tell devices to go to that preset setting. Yes you can play with the scene preset settings, but Insteon scenes are either on or off, like pushbuttons on a car radio....you can't half push them and 'sort of' tune that radio station. However, you can reprogram your preset pushbuttons to get something else, before using the pushbutton.

Do you know what port you accidentally changed your ISY to? You can change the port on the ISY Launcher to match. Plus what SLD posted above.

...plus two Ethernet ports and your choice of red, blue, or yellow case to blend in with your room decor. Most high-tech companies will not "tip their hand" with new features. If they did, they can expect a stand-off audience, arguing that some other company released the same features before UDI did. Patents have been found to not function properly in the tech world. Reagan was wrong.

I confess, I do use the folder switch for my security programs. In that case there really isn't any residue that can happen from killing any program in the middle of a program sequence. Lighting may be a different situation. Mechanical device control could create an even worse situation but the old lesson still stands...don't create dangerous situations by controlling the wrong devices. The rest don't really matter. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

Well I was but I'm not going to admit that now. There is a point though people should be aware of...that things can be left in a state not wanted by using folder conditions. I have used a few but mostly aborted the practice due to being a problem with clean up on aisle 2. It is easier and less dangerous to just not use folder conditions and write complete programs with all conditions in plain view, maybe using a properly named variable for common functions. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

@kclenden Full agreement with your logic there. The lack of indicatio is the only real problem. It seemed like your response was a misunderstading of my point. I still don't understand the relevence yet.

Huh? I don't understand the relevance of your point at all! It sounds like you are talking about detection of a failed program??? Do you not think we should be able to test run a program manually, inside a False folder? For programs, being disabled means no triggers will activate it. For a folder, the logic means the programs inside will not run and cannot be tested. Either way, some kind of flag should indicate that the program doesn't run instead of appearing to run, leaving the debugging person wondering what happened.

Wait doesn't cause program to be reevaluated. Wait allows the ISY O/S a chance to run other tasks. Another task may be something changed that can cause your If lines to be re-evaluated. When you disable a program it will stop at the next time delay (wait or Repeat) . When a folder is disabled you cannot manually run a Then or Else in a program residing inside the folder. That seems like a bug to me. I have never tested the folder disable to know where it would stop. An easy test could be to design a program with alternating waits and increment a variable and then disable the folder when that variable is >= 3, and see the result.

I was using the folder logic but when it turns false it can leave programs inside stopped dead, with lights on in the middle of a "fake occupied" sequence. The "vacation is False" condition in the programs will never be evaluated and run once the folder is disabled. At best you could have a race and randomly execute some lines.

At some point I must have had a change of heart and used the "init to" for the variables. Here is another system I use to run my HRV from different triggers. It uses an extra technique, writing a time in minutes to a variable that will "request" the HRV ventilation system to run for that many minutes. Initiating a request It is initiated in this example trigger program. Note that two STATE variables are used in this system to trigger automatic program running. HRV.purge.bedtime - [ID 0173][Parent 011E] If Time is 11:00:05PM Then $sHRV.run.minsRequest = 15 <----ask to run HRV ventilator for 15 minutes Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Handling the Request The time request is considered, and if a longer time than what is currently left running, uses the new time requested instead. The requested time variable is cleared after, due to similar requests would not trigger the request handler program. A change must be detected. Variables are saved into permanent memory for self-continuation after a power disruption HRV.cycle.requestHandler - [ID 0111][Parent 011E] If $sHRV.run.minsRequest > 0 And $sHRV.run.minsRequest > $sHRV.run.minsLeft Then $sHRV.run.minsLeft = $sHRV.run.minsRequest $sHRV.run.minsLeft Init To $sHRV.run.minsLeft $sHRV.run.minsRequest = 0 Else $sHRV.run.minsRequest = 0 Self retriggering timer. The Timer Note this is a self retriggering timer program and enabled to Run at Startup for continuation after a power failure. This program turns the actual HRV fan device on and off HRV.cycle.timer - [ID 0110][Parent 011E][Run At Startup] If $sHRV.run.minsLeft > 0 Then Set 'HVAC / HRV Fan.control' On Wait 1 minute $sHRV.run.minsLeft -= 1 $sHRV.run.minsLeft Init To $sHRV.run.minsLeft Else Set 'HVAC / HRV Fan.control' Off Self retriggering timer.

Welcome to the UDI forums! Here is one I use. Note the usage of Fast On/Off to attaract the eyes of watching neighbours. this is not normally wanted lighting ramps. Fake TV and Bed - [ID 0033][Parent 0031] If Time is Sunset + 30 minutes And $sHouse.armed is $cTRUE Then Set 'Gathering Room / PotLights over Chairs' Fast On Wait 2 seconds Set 'Gathering Room / PotLights over Chairs' On 30% Wait 1 hour Wait 2 hours (Random) Set 'Gathering Room / PotLights over Chairs' Fast Off Wait 10 seconds Set 'Master Bedroom / MBR Wall Lamp' Fast On Wait 10 minutes Wait 10 minutes (Random) Set 'Master Bedroom / MBR Wall Lamp' Fast Off Run Program 'Fake TV and Bed' (Else Path) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') I have a very long sequence of getting out of bed, walking through the house and looking in each bedroom, seveal porches going outside, and returning to bed, but we'll start with something little easier. Ask away!

@mikesommer Welcome to the UDI forums! In addition to the advise given above.... Install a Wait 1 second after each of your X10 commands. The PLM can confuse signals between X10 and Insteon causing one to clobber the other. This should not happen but trial and error has shown differently.

It is not ISY in particlar. I know eprom manufacturers have worked to avoid this problem and technology has advanced. I still hear conflicting reports about this over the years. I try to avoid it when unnecessary.

Been awhile, but I figured I wouldn't need them to be 'init to'ed. I had those lines installed for one but figured out I wouldn't need it and would avoid wear and tear o the eprom memory. However, just looking at it again, despite startup running the program, the counter would be 0, and Occupied would be set False until some event happened again. A function of this importance may warrant the 'wear and tear'. I need to re-exam this. Thanks for the nudge.

For this example I will use my occupancy timer system. Initiator methods Starting the timer process can be done from any program by simply saving the number of minutes you want the timer to timeout into a single state variable. Each device involved sets my occupancy timer to an appropriate time based on the location and probability another MS will reset the timer variable again before the timer time out. I have at least 12 MS devices as well as other devices that initiate this. Motion.Libr - [ID 0019][Parent 000B] If 'Library / Motion.Libr' is switched On <---- MS trigger Then $sMS.Motion.room = $cROOM.LIBRARY <--------------- all rooms are defined by preset constant numbers (not relavent here) Wait 2 seconds <-------- this is so the admin console shows the colour change for debugging (not relavent here) $sHouse.occupied.timer = 120 <-------------------------- initiates programable timer Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') This is an example using my security system. Note 1 minute is used so the programs will trigger properly to set the occupancy flag to False. Occupied Cancel by arming - [ID 0018][Parent 000B] If $sHouse.armed is $cTRUE Then $sHouse.occupied.timer = 1 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Timer Program This program is Enabled at Startup so that it continues after a power cycle. I have allowed for sleeping times when no motion may be detected but we are still home. Timer countdown continues in the morning. This program is automatically triggered by the program examples above. Occupied.countdowner - [ID 0167][Parent 000B][Run At Startup] If $sHouse.occupied.timer > 0 And From 7:00:00AM To 11:00:00PM (same day) Then Wait 1 minute $sHouse.occupied.timer -= 1 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Self retriggering timer. Enabled to run at startup! -If startup occurs ouside wake timeframe, will self start at beginning of timeframe. -If timeframe commences while .timer is 0, first new occupied.timer value will start again. Using the Timer Counter In my case I set and reset a variable to True or False, as other programs throughout my system expect these values. Others may want to turn on lights, or other indicators system, run programs or lighting scenes directly from this program, instead. Occupied.flagger - [ID 0168][Parent 000B] If $sHouse.occupied.timer > 0 Then $sHouse.occupied = $cTRUE <---- preset constant (integer) variables for convenience and clarity Else $sHouse.occupied = $cFALSE Power up assumes home unoccupied! Shouldn't be long to correct that. Program cannot be combined into "Occupied countdowner" program as it's timeframe end would zero occupied.timer

Yes. Each time I changed the style of ISY element is was reported discovered again. However when I only changed the Portal type definition, it did not. My first failure attempt at routines, and seeing the ISY element reported right through to the Alexa app status, tells me this is not a Portal problem but rather something inside the Alexa app server that is not always set up correctly. When I can create a vocal to vocal routine that works just fine and then create another one, a other night that will not work at all, something is flakey with the process or Alexa server. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

I have now tried this as a state variable (combining the two doors) defined as a contact (tried MS also) with the same result. The Alexa app device status shows Closed/Open correctly, but it does not trigger the Alexa Routine to vocalise the words. Manual invocation of each routine in the app vocalises both OK.

I don't get this. What am I doing wrong. I have quite a few cases now that vary in triggers as well as vocal outputs using Routines. Without ISY Portal A month ago neighbours came over and I tried to impress the tech-snipers with a simple routine. - Trigger by vocal "Who are our neighbours" - Response "XXXX and YYYY are your next door neighbours" I could never get that routine to work despite trying variations of the wording and triggering it from the Alexa app manually successfully every time. Several days later after testing failed again I deleted it. I had installed another Routine with similar funny neighbour named response, getting the same results. Maybe Alexa didn't like some key word???? All other routines worked first time. With ISY Portal Today I set up another two routines to report my garage door was open/closed. I started simple with an IOLinc sensing the garage door was closed = closed contact. Tried changing wording and a few other sleuthing techniques to no avail. - Trigger from Insteon IOLinc sensing input. - ISY portal defined this as a "contact" device, with vocal name "garage door" - Alexa "Discover" was used and reported one new device by name from the speaker. - Operating garage door shows Open/Close status on Alexa app device page "garage door" - Manually triggering either of the two routines (open/closed) operates the speaker of choice, with appropriate wording, as defined by me in the routine response. - A few hours were allowed and tested again, repeatedly. These two routines will not function. I Haven't tried changing the device to a MS or tried an ISY state variable yet (I want to combine two garage door positions into vocal reports, later) What am I doing wrong here? Why does one routine work fine and the next one refuses to function with very similar triggers and responses?