larryllix

I have two SwitchLincs that control outside lights. One is at the front of the house and controls it's porch lights at that end. The other SwitchLinc is at the back of the house and controls the side deck lights that traverse from that end to the front. Each switch controls it's hardwaired bank of lights but in addition a double tap up or double tap donw control both banks of lights from either switch. This does come in handy quite often. Not ideal, but I can turn on both banks of lights from one switch wih a double tap On and then turn off only the near bank of light with a single tap Off, effectively leaving the opposite end lights on, only, and from the opposite switch.

Are these thermostats connected to a central zone control panel? Do the slave stats communicate with the master zone?

Create a program that set the variable to true or false. Remote control apps can modify variable values also. Another method is to define an dummy x10 device. Since x10 is one way ISY has no idea whether anything is out there or not.

A scene is like a group of devices with a bunch of presets. You were playing with the p resetting, not the devices. An Insteon scene is like a a button on your car radio but with a volume preset too. In ISY you just push that button and the station and the volume happens, all set up before. These were created before ISY was even hatched and can work between devices without smarts.

You have written programs to change brightness. Now write programs to turn a device on and off.

The Venstar T7800-7900 series have heat pump modes to provide switch over contacts. They can be interfaced via RPi using NodeLink .

We will need more details of what you have, and what you want as we are all guessing. Sent from my CT9223W97 using Tapatalk

With ISY, you can name the SwitchLinc dimmers anything you want and control anything you want. However, the paddles on each, will only control their own dimmer circuits.

The new "cleaner" energy resources cost more to capture the energy and we have to pay for it. Ontario just started bragging about shutting down all the coal conversion plants. This was the cheapest fuel for electrical energy production but the dirtiest. Now we can blame our lung cancer bills on Ohio when we buy their energy for $100 per kWh. With all the electrical energy industry attention, real costs are becoming more obvious for placement, as the industry analyses this and analyses that. The shift in costs placement is away from the actual energy resource and more towards the delivery, using the system, and maintenance of said systems. The system costs are the same, and if the energy consumption goes down, the unit costs become higher. Since the so-called "cleaner" energy resources are so unreliable, like wind energy, and solar PV energy, we have to have two and three complete systems for generation in place, including the original and dependable one. Oh my aching wallet! I remember, in the 70s, how they tooted "all electric heated homes" with the R2000 certified home brag. Quiet, clean, but we don't see that anymore. They hide it like it like a pregnant preteen daughter. But now it is "cool" and "faddish" to have an electric car despite being horrible waste of energy, porting it to batteries and back. Once the electrical energy rates are competitive with other forms we will probably see the same walk of shame for electric vehicles, except in crowded city areas where the pollution should be swept away by ocean breezes into neighbouring states. Hydrogen was a complete farce before the so-called "scientists" got their bluff called by real facts. Interestingly enough, there is more hydrogen molecules, in a litre of gasoline, than there is in a litre of pure liquid hydrogen. The **exergy of hydrogen is about 3%, at it's best. The cost of converting electricity to hydrogen is outrageous! Then there is the compression and the storage in containers. Hydrogen is the smallest molecule so that it cannot be stored in any material known to man without leaking through the walls. ** "exergy" is the net efficiency, converting an energy from one form to another, and back. Hydrogen fuel cells are examples of this. Right now electrical energy is the best "fad" energy, and we can work with it using things we already know, like ISY994 to make it more efficient.

If you look at the rates of trade for electrical energy between provinces and big utilities they occasionally pay over $100 per kWh when in trouble, in Canada. The utilities attempt to predict how much power is going to be needed every hour of the day so that nuclear, the cheapest and cleanest, energy can be set to produce that much. Actually since it is so dangerous to match the peak, they set them for the base load and use other, more flexible generation to generate the peak as needed. Now, at time they generate too much and sell if for down to 0.00 cents per kWh. ...but when they miscalculate, in Ontario, and get caught short for energy, they quickly go to market for those last few kWh from Manitoba or Quebec, New York, Michigan or Ohio, "So you are in trouble and stuck? Well......", suddenly Ohio charges $100 per kWh 'cause they can. Ontario figures it's only for an hour or so and averages out. I assume Ontario does the same thing when they can. Dog eat dog. Customers on spot rate prices pay that for the time it costs that much. They just suck up on the averages also. Four hours later the price is back to $0.02 per kWh and things resume like nothing happened. These energy scalpers are offering prices closer to the real price at the time = spot pricing.

I am wondering how much information you get from the utility. This sounds like the "current rate" and a "Rate change" flag or maybe that one is just ISY generated? What other information is available and/or will ISY display it all?

Thanks for the report and information! This seems to be proof that Santa Michel slides down the chimney Ethernet cable into our ISY boxes each night at 3:00am (I hope it isn't aliens causing time gaps).. I see a nickname developing here.

Trouble with these plans is the utilities. The utility I worked for had to garbage 80,000 perfectly good meters and replace them with 80,000 electronic TOU meters in two years. The mechanical meters are not recyclable. the glass is hardened Pyrex glass, and the metals are all mixed inseparable metals. Landfill. Normally the mechanical meters were untouched for 12 years, 5% brought in for sampling and then another 4-6 years, another sampling of 5%, another 4-6 years, and so on until failure. This all took about three men. The electronic meters replacing them are good for 6 years, as nobody trusts them. Then they are garbaged and completely replaced. Most don't make it that long as the technology gets unusable with the new ideas that flow. Problems are massive. readings can have any digit jump forward or backward without notice, go blank, or whatever the computer world can think up. Mechanical meters were always accurate, slowed down from friction or stopped. Now to get a smooth labour cycle some of those new meters have to brought in early and garbaged every year or so over the first 6 years or you have to lay off and try to rehire labour at the 6 year mark that requires a 6 year apprenticeship to work freely. Before all this nonsense we paid about 4 cents per kWh and that included delivery and all the extras. Now that we are saving energy, we pay 9 cents per kWh plus delivery (off peak) , meter charge, etc. for a net of about 16-20 cents per kWh. less than ten years later. To top this all off, the industry has their choice of getting approvals for ZigBee, or many, many proprietary systems that were much cheaper. We picked some proprietary system that offered better front end stuff. Now we come along with "we want to hook into your meter system so you have to replace all your meters again" and the utility goes "What?!!!". "You want to cost us another 5-6 million dollars so you can help customers avoid buying our product?" "Why would we co-operate with your toys?", "Get out of our way!" Get ready for $10 per kWh rates so we can afford the next wave energy saving programs the government will force on the utilities. Better yet, lets deregulate the industry so that can compete against each other!. That will bring the rates down after we form huge government utilities to police the utilities rates, policies, safety practices, power quality! We are on our own... Make sure your share of the bill is as low as you can get.

Nice! You guys pay up to 95 cents per kWh in Mi! Ontario is only up to about 17 cents per kWh so far. I can't get TOU so I use as much as possible during peaks to keep on my PV mostly...it's cheaper for me. Watch California rates. They are about 30 years ahead of everybody else so whatever they do is coming to a meter near you. People don't understand what is happening. The utilities establish a higher and lower rate for peak / off peak.... and a shoulder rate to avoid "rush hour" energy consumption. If people don't listen they widen the rate difference, until they do. It's all about education of energy usage and if people don't get educated they are going to pay more, until they do. Then they will get penalised for not using enough. Once they get the general populace under control they will attempt to discontinue natural gas and other energy resources, as is being suggested in Ontario right now by our own Sarah Palin clone. This will bring the usage of electrical energy back into mass quantities so they can get the mass produced price down burning.....natural gas and other highly polluting fuels. HUHAS come to anybody's mind? Somebody is going to pay the bills. It's all about getting somebody else to pay the bills. hmmmm.... have you figured out the Insteon gas valves yet? Just remember to keep your gas lighting levels dimmed, and not melt your white wall insulation.

Have a look at this for three levels. Perhaps this will totally confuse you but it works well. Help will be here too as many use this secret technique. I would use a double tap On to get the 100% level. http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/17495-how-to-use-a-ms-with-lights/

I use MS signals for 3-4 programs each in some cases. Never a problem. Just make sure that you aren't attempting to respond with Insteon signals at the same time or you may experience some delay as Insteon can bog don fairly fast. For my MS programs, the turn light on ones get priority and the ones that record movement, and count, or keep track of Home/Away etc.. get entrance delay timers so no interference is caused. Where timing isn't critical I use something like this. If MS is switch On Then Wait 2 seconds $sMS.count += 1 Else --

Get v5.0.4. Piece of cake. For a sample look for the "Venstat sensor" http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/18921-v5-averaging-using-only-the-best-values/?hl=averaging

ISY self cycling clocks can stall for various reasons. Here is my kickstarter program to ensure it will start again. All my HVAC equipment, fan, HRV, and humidifier are synchronised to this clock. The program has been stripped for simplicity of viewing. HVAC.clock.kickstart - [iD 011F][Parent 00BD] If ( Time is 3:10:00AM Or Time is 9:10:00AM Or Time is 3:10:00PM Or Time is 9:10:00PM ) And From Last Run Time for 'HVAC.clock' + 1 hour and 15 minutes For 99 hours Then Run Program 'HVAC.clock' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here is my 1 hour clock program. HVAC.clock - [iD 0119][Parent 00BD][Run At Startup] If Then Wait 15 seconds Repeat Every 59 minutes $sHVAC.sync.clock = $cTRUE Wait 1 minute $sHVAC.sync.clock = $cFALSE Repeat 1 times Else --

V5.xx offers much more accurate methods of doing cyclic timers based directly on ISY's internal clocks..

Thanks. I got this figured out after Mwareman kicked my butt around a bit, in a post above.

Geeeezzzz. I though you were making a joke. Maybe I better revoke my gui complaint I made about that same thing. oooops! Here I thought they just went by Lat. and zone in v5 but left a dangling nomenclature bug. Thanks Michael. Turns out I was off a few degrees.

We have MS in Canada but we are working on a cure for those that suffer with it.

@Scott Thanks (GDP) V5.0.4 uses a different style of custom location. Note no longitude entry field. Only a few cities listed in Canada also. There many cities between Toronto and Ottawa. Some of them so big they are opening libraries and Google maps is starting to ask about them..

Have you tried an ISY power cycle? Maybe the DST sets up automatically on reset. I wonder what Paul uses. We throw stuff back and forth at each other across the Detroit Creek. EDIT: He reported above. I hear the ISY power cycle doesn't need much peddling either.

How am supposed to make a smart comeback when you use complicated acronyms? You sure know how to kill a conversation!