larryllix

I remember we found if you unlinked the app for too long, and Alexa caught you, all the routines using the pseudodevices, may become disabled due to devices MIA. Short deletes and rebuilds seemed to be OK for device control mostly.

I had the same thing happening a few times, lasted for a few months and then started working again. However if you deleted your account connections or you deleted all devices in ISY Portal the routines all get disabled, after Amazon discovers the devices don't exist.

Status and controls are different Insteon channels/connections. Try doing a Restore on each device, one at a time. Sometimes one connection can be lost or scrambled in your PLM or devices. Restore usually repairs that by putting what ISY thinks should be back into your PLM. Right click on a bad actor device name and select Restore from the falldown menu.

Not lately but some items that may be factors. App likes to disable the routines on updates. Changing status of pseudoDevices too fast. I found operating a device would sometimes lock itself or another pseudoDevice out for 30 seconds as stated by Amazon, initially. Each time I complained to Amazon they reported looking into it, and then it would start functioning again, but they never reported back with any bugs or findings to me.

You need to delete the IoX Launcher from the permanent files in Java under a different tab in the Java setup. Not in front of my computer so I don't know the name. I did post screenshots of this a few weeks ago. This has recently changed and the temporary files deletion does not do it any more. Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

#2. Both names have three out of four words the same. I don't think the Alexa parser can arbitrate those properly 100% of the time. Although I always like to end with the device type eg: "Lamp" I would try shortening the vocal identifiers like maybe.... John's closet Dog's closet When you are done, find the device list in IIRC ISY portal and delete names that are redundant. There was never a clean-up phase and clutter may confuse Alexa vocals. There used to be a delete all, option whereas after, you can use the "discover", Alexa command to get a clean slate.

You are using "switched On". This can never work. The program If section is using two trigger events that will each call attention to the program for evaluation, but never simultaneously, so the other line will always be false. It takes all lines to be True to make an AND logic resultant True.

Basically you don't. I avoid most Insteon scenes for several reasons. Programs give so much more control and most of my lights are WiFi bulbs. I don;t use ramping as the bulbs only contain one fast ramp...about 1.5 seconds. Lights do not need to verified if they are on. When you turn the bulb on, it doesn;t matter what state it was in before. With my software I load up to ten variables with values of the bulbs, that just happen to to be the last octet of their IP addresses, the level parameters for colour, RGB Level, WW level, and CW level, and then run one NR to send the commands to my software inside my polisy. That software sets the list of bulbs up to the levels and then turns them all on at in rapid sequence so it appears they are completely synchronised to the human eye. ISY control whatver goup/scene it wants dynamically with no preset configurations.

yes. One of my older ecobee 4s had a switch on it to disable the speaker or the microphone. Alexa microphones don't work well against a wall. Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

The thermostat can do all that without ISY programs. You could create 12 different climates and assign them to 12 different parts of the day, switching which sensors are averaged into the temperature sensed for every climate programmed. Fan control cycling is also controllable separately for each climate programmed. I am not sure about changing the sensor selection via the node server and I am away from my polisy now. A other feature is 'follow me where the sensors switch ti whatever room you are in. They contain motion sensors also. Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

I use variables to automatically adjust lighting in our apartment also. I have one command preset Alexa... turn on TV lights that starts with most lights on 100% cold white and some lamps, visible to our eyes, while watching TV about 50% of that brightness level. At select times, ISY dims these 10 lamps and slowly changes the colours to warm white until about 11:00 PM. We have found with the slow dimming and colour changing of the lights, we tend to go to bed much earlier than before the auto-dimming, and typically feel better in the morning. If at any time somebody wants to do crafts or read where more intensive light is required, we have another vocal command Alexa.... turn on craft lamps! that turns on two much taller lamps with spot lighting shining down from behind our chairs and also brightens two other lamps that sit on the sides of the same chairs in question. When the crafts lamps off command is spoken, the lighting is resumed where it was found before. It is easy to remember one variable value and restore it when done borrowing the lighting. I don't use variables quite the same as @Bumbershoot does but rather as presets for programs that create scenes. Since most of my lighting is WiFi controlled these are not Insteon scenes but rather combinations of protocols to achieve these lighting scenes. My vocals control programs that change variables and banks of programs watch those variables to set levels of many lamps, RGBWW strips and bulbs. ISY is your friend. I use it for it's advanced logic.

Alexa cannot control Insteon devices directly or many other devices directly. Controlling a program gives much more control. Some of my lights are set at 50% of the value while some are set at 100%. Some are set using more Cold White LEDs and later changed to Warm White LEDs. This cannot be done using Alexa alone. What happens when the Alexa server is down? I can still control my lights with Insteon keypads, switchLincs and Insteon remotes. With an ISY program I can also change the time my lights go out depending on day of the week, when I go to bed, get up, or the weather outside. Alexa has no intelligence, only timers and basic factors.

He uses 1000 because he knows the value will never hit that number. However, everytime the variable changes the If section will call attention to the executive of the IoX operating system to evaluate the expression again. If the value evaluated is less than 1000, his program will run. It's a cheap way of saying " Watch this variable and if anything changes...."

Since I am getting partially blamed for something I may as well see if I can partially help too. Reading the thread, it sounds like there may be a combination of problems. I may be way out in Fred's left field here but... It sounds like GH may be using it's AI to make a bad guess on a device name or connection name but when it attempts to control that device ISY Portal reports back a failure but GH's error reporting is incorrectly worded and reports a "Can't Reach...", confusing the user, making him/her to think the connection is bad instead of the device is not found. This is based on other devices/programs working, and consistently not working with a particular program only. Just a theory. I would try renaming the psuedo device in ISY Portal to something completely unique, deleting it for the device list, and then re-discovering it again. I have a few GHs MIA in a box somewhere as they overstepped their bounds many times until I switched to only Alexa speakers, which didn't make such bold assumptions, calling it "AI". As an example, I found when I controlled a device with "red" in it's name GH would attempt to turn on 8 different devices that also had "red" in their names. It got real annoying finding lighting devices all over the house lit up red. Other times another device, like "blue bed lights" would get misconstrued and it would only hear "bed lights" attempting to turn on 8 different colour of bed lights at the same time. My software NRbridge would log eight different commands coming in for red, blue, yellow, orange, green, lime, purple, violet, mauve, etc. in rapid sequence, because they all contained the phrase "bed lights"

I tried some ASUS mesh routers and my system worked much better without any mesh nonsense. I found it just a way to reduce the signal levels so more units could exist in a crowded neighborhood. My working well single unit reduced it's signal levels down to barely reach across a 20 feet wide room to my wife's iPad, once it was told it was a node in a mesh system. Mesh systems not using hard connections between units are just repeaters that typically use a third frequency for a back channel. If not a more recent and top-end router they made just repeat the received WiFi packet on the same band, slowing down responses and confusing many devices with their switching nonsense. Most devices do not tolerate switching routers well when placed in a "could go either way" zone. With years of router troubles many forums claim that the Eero Mesh system was one of the worst. Just opinions and things change frequently these days. My son has a big home and installed one of these several $K systems only to find constant disconnects, some bands not available on certain floors and my laptop on 5GHz working great on the top floor, totally locked itself out on the main floor, until I power cycled his middle floor mesh router. I found my old Netgear dumb router outperformed every mesh system I have experienced. You cannot beat a single high powered router with a well placed antenna position. Keep it high and out of hard corners. Another thing I found with some was, pushing two high powered signals out of one antenna can saturate the capabilty of that/those antennae systems. Try turning your signal levels down on one band, the other band, and then both and see if it makes a difference.

Another one I remember was in an American Walmart, I asked where the "USB Memory Keys" were and about 3 separate sales persons told me they do not have such a thing. Once I found them on my own and showed them (3 behind the counter) what I was holding, they told me those were "Flashdrives" not "memory keys"

Not here. A previous forum regarding some memory key or USB device. Dongle was just becoming a common place word but the moderator did not like whatever the things was, called a dongle. Strangley enough the forum website closed up about a week later. LOL Definitions change and word meanings change with them, unfortunately. eg: "You're so badass"

I remember years back a forum admin threatened to throw me out of the forum if I used the term "dongle" again, for some plug-in device being discuss(t)ed. Sometimes, "walk away" is not the right action. "Run away" is the better action.

It seems the Encode URL option would be in order here if you want it encrypted with Basic Authorisation. I haven't been involved in this stuff for a while now but I would give it a try.

@GDavis01 I forgot to mentions that NRs have never received and displayed the response packets correctly, so the responses you are seeing from (assuming) manually sending test NR packets are likely the best you will ever get to see.

You got me on that one. I always used a port forward technique in the router for ISY-2 but that is ill advised these days so you should likely use the DDNS capability of the ISY Portal. I have no clue how you would accomplish that though. The Portal has grown way past my needs over the last few years and I have had no need to explore it further, yet. As a weird workaround I might set up two port, forwarded and send a second confirmation into the second variable that gets checked against the first. Another thought would be to send a pseudo device through to Alexa and have a routine to set the variable in ISY-2. Trouble is too many mechanisms and dependencies there and too many cloud servers in the mix. They always work until you need it someday. Then we get into checkbacks and creating a semi-blown protocol between them.

"Control" monitors signals that operate a device. "Status" monitor the change of status inside a device. If some devices sends ON...ON...ON... "Control" programs will trigger three times. "Status" programs will only trigger once if the device changes to ON. This is classically used for Switchlinc switches. The light may already be on when somebody taps the up toggle switch. Status cannot detect that. Control could detect it and scroll the brightness level through 3 to 100 brightness levels on each tap.

I formerly had this setup with some bidirectional variable traffic. Each ISY must have NR support and changes in variable are send to the passive ISY's variable using the GET protocol. Note: GET does not mean to "get it" from the other ISY but is just a protocol name to "push" it into the other ISY's variable. Bot directions use a GET protocol. The only problem is writing an ISY program to detect a value change, send it into the other ISY's variable but not doing the reciprocal, as it would create an endless loop of IP packet traffic. IIRC I used only a few programs that detected a change in multiple variable values and sent all those in multiple NR GETs from the same program. My system runs mostly on state variable values so controlling lights and devices only required a program or two at the dying ISY end. The active end (polisy and PLM controller) ) didn't care where the variable value came from, internal or external. I could never detect any increased delay in timing of anything. The CPUs split up the processing somewhat anyway. I also never use HTTPS. You may need to generate a custom security package and I could never see the point of passing an encryption password online to be used for security. My system doesn't require that kind of complexity and it only keeps out the internet ignorant hackers.

ecobee stats have a nice fan cycler that can be switched on or off for any schedule cycle. You can set the timer for 0-60 minutes with 5 minute "clicks". However the times are not exact and only approximate, but it works well. When you HVAC calls for energy it only kicks in after x minutes and then cycles until the next cycle run-time, like a good fan cycler should. When I got the ecobee stats I wiped out about 100 ISY program that were not needed anymore. I was controlling the vacation setting on the ecobee from logic in the ISY but eventually realise the ecobee was easier to set vacation schedules, years ahead (multiple from-to periods) , and more reliable, so I reversed the master slave relationship. Multiple ecobee stats can also sync up for many optional enabled features, like schedules, time clock, vacation schedules, etc.. and easy to set up on a Windows machine or android phone. I have never used an iPhone. ecobee also provides cloud monitoring for schedule graphics, temperature charts and cycle chartiing. Another great feature is ecobee support runs a Whatsapp support account. When I have a question I can usually get help within a few minutes.