larryllix

Thanks for the briefing! Q1: I take it there is no way to get data from these devices directly into the ISY ie. without cloud services? Q2: Are most of these weather sensor devices capable of porting the information elsewhere? I find this very obscure in all the advertising.

I have many motion sensors reporting to my ISY. About 9 - X10 units and two Insteon units, so far. Originally when I required a MS trigger to accomplish multiple tasks I would jump around programs in different folders but the code got very hard to keep track of who was calling what when editing a downstream program used as a subroutine. Later I began to use the triggers multiple times in various folders for different styles of applications but now I am noticing that some of the applications don't seem to run even with multiple manual stimulations of MS units. This may be only the X10 units doing this. I am not sure if this happens on the Insteon units. I have typically used an entrance "Wait 1-2 seconds" on programs with MS triggers that do not require a quick lamp on response etc.. in order to theoretically avoid some CPU cycle hogging of the event processing engine. I am not sure whether that is a valid logic or not but I find some events triggered by shared MS signals just don't ever get processed or get processed what seems like 2-5 seconds later. Is there some consideration of just bogging the ISY CPU down? Since the ISY Pro version can handle 1000 programs and I only have about 50-70 programs so far I didn't think I would be bogging down the real time engine yet.

I can't seem to find much information on this. It sounds like a cute tools that could be useful and I see talk about support for it in v4.2.4. Could somebody with some knowledge post information on this? This may be a good spot for some discussion that newbies can reference. What does ISY have to have (modules?) to access it? Where does the data come from? What data is available? Are there lists of locations available? Screen captures would be nice and worth 1000 bytes. Hardware to create your own, if possible. Thanks!

Another interesting factor, just to complicate things, is that most of those Grundfos pumps can be dimmed down and reduce speeds of the impellers. I was told by a few that the frequency was varied from the controllers but my fancy (read expensive) Tekmar pump controller just reduces the voltage to the pump via a triac circuit. The pumps do not have a big range before it may just stall. My pumps are three speed units using internal series capacitors to drop voltage and consequently speed plus the Tekmar outdoor reset control panel triac circuit to vary the injection pump voltage. A slow speed recirc may be a fun factor in your design using a LampLinc module instead of turning the pump on and off. If this pump is the same design as my hydronic heat circulating pumps there isn't much you can do to hurt those things. There is no starting circuit or switches and they can run stalled without any damage (although they do get fairly hot without circulating coolant) , being water lubricated and cooled. Those tiny recirc pumps could be a slightly different design. The only algorithm I could think of at this time would be - on detecting life in a room, give the pump a 100% shot for 2-3 minutes. After that drop pump speed to minimal speed. Shut off with no life, away mode on, etc.. The hot water tank could be turned off on extended away times, but unless you installed another recirc pump feeding back before the tankless, you would pay the whole electric bill to reheat the water each time, and that may take awhile depending on how large and the power rating of recirc heater tank. Ok... gallonage and wattage. Then the Legionella bacteria problem can come into play under lukewarm water conditions in electric DHW tanks, depending on construction and water source.

If we knew what these sensing devices throw out once habitation of those areas has ceased we could design a stop programme to arrest a cyclic pump pipe heating loop. I think I like your 2 program idea but prefer it using a variable to state "I am already in a cycle". The small recirculating Grundfos pump comes with programmable timer to eliminate wasted heat in off times but it has no smarts for Not_home or I'm_up_in_the_middle_of_the_night etc... It's starting to look like a holding tank so we don't wear out the switching on the tankless. Unfortunately, this thread has got me enthused to do this in my own home. I thought I was smart and installed manifolds on both cold and hot but the hot one was a mistake. My kitchen is the farthest away and with the stupid water saver taps we have been known to wait... sometimes we think the water heater has failed. Seems about 60-90 seconds. The dishwasher seems to pull up the hot water very quickly so we know it's the water saver faucets. My idea (when I get time) is to put my air handler loop at the end of the long run to the kitchen so in the winter the hot, or some level of warm, water should be there immediately. Volumes and pressure drop will be learned by trial and error. recovery will be a small PEX crimp back the way it was. The recirc pump gives me more ideas! Love PEX! - The cliplead of plumbing!

Stepping back and thinking about the whole logic... Why consider the armed away status at all? Are we afraid we will prewarm hot water taps for burglars? Simplify by triggering the pump from by occupancy detectors already in place. Turn off in 2-5 minutes. If the pump timers get retriggered repeatedly...so what? As long as we are in the bathroom we want the water hot and ready anyway. It still will a lot cheaper than running 6 am - 10 pm and will trigger in the middle of the night if visiting the bathroom for a hand wash. If status bath is on or status kitchen is on or status motion sensor is on then turn pump on wait 3 minutes turn pump off else -

After installing two tankless water heaters in my house I am not impressed with them for operation. I am surprised to see somebody attempting a circ pump with a tankless heater. I believe the holding tank is a necessity. I have seen domestic schemes to do this but the tankless has a separate loop and logic built-in for it to work properly. After the hot water makes the loop the tankless will shut off as the BTU demand will be lower than it's lowest capability burner (assuming NG or LPG). You will still get a cold water sandwich during initial usage when the cold incoming water first gets drawn through the heater. This typically happens just after getting my eyes full of shampoo when I can't see how far I can jump to the side of the shower to avoid the cold water.

The locked on condition is always a problem contingency with disabling programs. Also, if I am using a motion sensor to turn on lights I like to put a delay in the non-priority program in an attempt to keep the priority lights response program faster. I am not sure how valid this is but it makes sense to me. Adding the Elk status into the conditions shouldn't be needed as the short pump cycle could just time off or the else could be used for cleanup from any condition to terminate the in progress cycle immediately. This would also prevent your burglars from getting any preheated water convenience. IF ( status guest bath light is on or master bath motion is turned on or status kitchen light is on ) And Elk armed away is false Then wait 2 seconds repeat 4 times . turn pump on . wait 2 minutes . turn pump off . wait 15 minutes Else turn pump off

I don't see the difference. Do you see the difference? There goes the neighbourhood!

I use many different brands of LED bulbs and have experienced no problems with them so far. I do find most of them will not illuminate below about 12-18% and their brightness curve is quite different. Between about 40% and 100% the brightness does not change that much as an incandescent would. Most of the dimming curve is at the bottom of the curve. I prefer the LED colour when dimed as it doesn't yellow. I try to avoid the 2700K colour. Who ever wanted a bulb that yellow anyway? 3000k-4100K is a much better colour for general soft usage. I use them on LampLinc plug-ins and SwitchLinc dimmers without any problems I have found. However, I have some bedroom lamps with a half brightness switch using a half wave rectifier in the base, and the LEDs flicker some in them and even worse when dimmed on Insteon Plug-in dimmers. I just avoid the built in half brightness setting on the lamp switch. I have experienced slight problems controlling them when my when my co-gen inverter is running and they are behind arc-fault detector breakers in the panel. I depend on the X10 MS units to turn it off occasionally as it is inside the same electrical circuit behind the Arc Fault breakers.

As I understand it Insteon devices/responders must respond with an "Ack" message to the controller in order for the retry logic to work. That being said, with scenes with multiple devices involved it would next to impossible to sustain the logic to invoke a retry communication technique. Each and every device would have to respond with an "Ack", arbitrate who would send their "Ack" or "Nack" first, second, third...umpteenth. This could bog down Insteon communications for quite some time, especially with retries and possibly retries on detected collisions for the "Ack/Nack" process. I think I can now understand why scenes would not support retries.

Something to try would be to disconnect the garage door mechanism and see if the signals are reliable to the Insteon unit only. Noise be coming from the motor or contactors. Using CFL lamps in it?

I have several scenes in my Gathering Room based on the SwitchLinc press style for one set of lights. These scenes control five SwitchLinc dimmers controlling seven potlights. I set the basic ramp speed of each device from ISY to 4.5-8.5 seconds. My scenes using about the same or slower ramp speeds all appear to override the ramp speed set in the devices. The scenes are all controlled by one wall switch When I press the button "On" I get that scene with no initial full on or flash. Pressing "On" again the scene toggles between "TV Watching" and "Reading" scenes. If the switch is already On or Off and I press the toggle down and hold it for a second or longer (Dim) I set my Movie Watching scene with no initial bright cycle. If I initiate "Fast On" I initiate all lights on full and of course local effects of it's own load are again not apparent to the user. In short I think a solution may be to just inject a ramp delay into your devices that gets "beaten" or "taken over" by your scene levels. Rereading your second post: Turning you bathroom lights off. If your hall lights are on dim then wait 45 seconds and turn them off. Turning your hall lights on. If not wee hours use scene with fast on that overrides basic on dim setting in device. Note: I use this method for bedroom lamps with MS in each room. During the day a Fast Off beats the ramp on time and users never see any light but the Fast Off has to be in the entrance program to beat the timing consistently. If Control 'Evening Bedroom / Motion.Evening BR' is switched On And From Sunset - 30 minutes To Sunrise + 30 minutes (next day) Then Run Program 'EveBR Lamp Nightime' (If) Else Set 'Evening Bedroom / EveBR Table Lamp' Fast Off

All variables have default power up values controllable by the programmer. Any states that need to continue, as they were, are easy to set up.

But the ISY could use the data it already has to be used in a variable. ISY could also implement the functions already supplied in the pulldown menus for the 2441ZTH unit. More controls are in the menus but not functional for programs, only manual operation. Probably a overlooked spillover from when it would be wirelessly connected as a slave to a wired unit.

You have all that complex condition logic in an enabled programme. Every time the status of one/any of the parameters changes you will get a notification from the "Then" or the "Else Each and every time any parameter you are checking changes the whole logic statement will be tested for true or false and the appropriate Then or Else will run. Break the programme into two statements with the first triggering events and the second full of conditions that you do not want to trigger events AND DISABLED. For instance; It appears you would not want a notification every time the pond temperature or outside temperature changes one degree up or down. With the programme enabled these will be trigger events that will evaluate the whole complex logic test and execute True or False, based on that outcome. Turning your pump on when it is already on is never noticed but the notification will be.

Having owned a 2441ZTH unit for about a month now I would also like to see more support in the ISY for this thermostat/sensor. Many of the control features such as "SetPoint Up/Down 1" are available in the pulldown selection but do not function with this unit. If the ISY knows what the current temperature settings are and can set them when manually asked to then the programs should be capable of doing it also. Setpoint temperature (Heat/Cool) settings should also be settable and assignable from/to variable values as well as the current temperature should be available to save into variables for data manipulation or transmission to remote readouts etc. These are all features available to other devices inside ISY and should not be asking the supplied UPI to do anything more than what has already been implemented. The information is already inside the ISY. Currently there is no way to do any calculations from the current temperature making the 2441ZTH useless as a cheaper and commonly available sensor. Oh I can manually test for each and every temperature but it would take 100 repetitive programs and never be able to resolve the 0.5 degree resolution available in the communication events. More support for the information already communicated to/from the 2441ZTH to the ISY would be appreciated in the next release, if possible. This device seems to be not supported with a finished interface as other devices are.

Rogers still pulling that garbage? Another reason I dumped them. Try Virgin Mobile. They are all open usage AFAIK. xxxxxxxxxx@vmobile.ca or here is another list http://www.emailtextmessages.com/

Are you looking for email addresses to convert to SMS? http://martinfitzpatrick.name/list-of-email-to-sms-gateways/

Quick interjection question: Do program state changes cause triggers in conditions testing their state dynamically (like a state variable)?

I don't want to mess you up as I really don't do my programs that way and don't understand some of your style. I have to assume you do not have variables in your version. Anyway, I just see some recursive loops in you else statements calling themselves without any function I can see. Once you call the else part of the program it should test as false without needing to loop on it. A few tight recursive loops running like that should probably lock up the ISY CPU so that all other functions grind to a halt. I would just leave them blank and try it.

I haven't taken a lot of time to digest what your programs are doing yet but... You have several programs with recursive loops that could eat up your ISY CPU time and at first glance I don't see any other useful function. Here's one of them. Program 'A:Russound Off' ---------------------------- Else - Run Program 'A:Russound Off' (Else Path)

Ask the neighbour to plugin a couple of Insteon dual-band modules or Access Points somewhere on a duplex receptacle you install by his panel to repeat the signals to/from your out-building. Take him out to lunch once a year. I have seen Wi-Fi advertised up to about 20+ miles with the proper beaming antenna. Do AP units have a replacible antenna that could be made into a beaming arrangement? Two old Sat TV dishes with some weatherproofed APs mounted on them?

I have found it to hang and the only way out was the Task Manager, yesterday after the netbook (Win 7 x32) went into hibernation and shut down. It came back up and all the windows were there but completely hung with no response to anything. Task Manager was necessary to kill the app. Java 8 installed. I can't remember it doing this only after sleeping with Java 8 though.

Just as aside, I always try to avoid house code "A" and in particular code "A1". Almost all units, when new, were shipped with A1 as the default device code. Any neighbour buying some X10 devices online may be interfering with your "A1" addressed device.