larryllix

...and Philips Hue crapped on me. I have about $300 worth of bulbs and they cannot do green because they thought they could do green using violet and yellow...looks like an old green fluorescent tube when people hated them in the 1970s. Later Hue changed their hub and it isn't compatible anymore. I have 25 $10 Chinese (they all are...even Hues) bulbs that do white and RGB better than most other bulbs I have seen. On top of that I can turn them all on or off at once with a very slight perceptible delay and even do multicoloured animations with them. The Hues all sit in a junk box, useless now. I didn't even install thousands of Christmas lights last year and spend a whole day finding the bad LED connections, because I have 15 RGBWW bulbs around the outside of my house. One Alexa command turns on Christmas colours. Another turns on Easter colours, Canada Day, or Independence Day light colours.

IIRC they are called "potlights" in Canada. I have heard them called many other names by Americans. Can lights? When you look at the fixture from the side it has a square box and a rim around the bottom like a tophat, like a magician, or a circus ringleader, might wear.

Any bulb with an external voltate control will flicker and go out around the 8% to 15% level from my experiences. LED strips are typically controlled by a PWM (pulse width modulated) controller and can dim right down to 0.5%. Look for threads in these forums regarding MagicHome, and LEDenet, RGBW strips some of the more popular controllers. You should find aat least one thread with photos and parts lists to assemble them. I have about 20 units in my home. I love the brilliance and appearance (CRI?) of the warm white light and the colours are intense, rich, even and all available. White and RGB LEDs can be mixed in most brands, contrary to most bulbs that really suck. I have done animations with these RGBWW strip on a wedding tent ceiling in a pinwheel fashion using a RPi for software controlled via a cell phone app keyboard, via ISY Portal, through ISY, into a RPi running custom software. I love them and have them above all my kitchen cabinets, bathroom floor behind appliances, and headboard of my bed. I use the IP67 style with a completely encased in a rectangular silicone tubing, so they can be washed down when dirty or dusty. They cost a few dollar more oer 5m strip. There is a NS to control MagicHome/LEDenet strips/bulbs or use NRs directly or I use a custom software driven by NR commands to get a fast response from my 29? WiFi bulbs and strips. None of this is cloud dependent but it is router dependent.

I got turned off by certain posters having so much garbage in their "signatures", I have had it disabled for years now. When a signature takes up my whole monitor page or is full of "Deep thoughts" or spam it is time to go. Unfortunately individual signature blocking is not an option. It makes it hard to follow continuity of a thread. @Michel KohanimThe forum could really use a limitation of lines on signature length. It is thread disruptive and so many users blocking it destroys a nice feature where posters can expose their equipment, firmware and interests to others. A limitation of X inches of space below any post would be a nice limitation if it could be implemented.

WoL does not use a device's IP address. When you suggest an IP address, ISY uses it to generate the highest address on the subnet and use that which is assumed to be the WoL IP address. Then the MAC address is sent a WoL packet using that address. If you use two subnets allowing 511 addresses it will be hard to make work properly and address in the lower subnet will not be woken up using this WoL tachnique. eg: WoL 192.168.0.67. = ISY uses 192.168.0.255 and the MAC address for that device. All devices hear this on the LAN but only the specific MAC device uses it and wakes up it's device.

Don't be sorry about it! We are all mostly more mature in this crowd except a few users, like..... whats-his-name? j/k I consider devices that are not dual band as old or needing replacement if they are ever upgraded. My Insteon noise makers are as people warned me for years but never thought it should be a problem. Chamberlain garage door openers. I have two vintages. One older AC motor with just electronic wall control, and one newer unit with DC motor, battery backup etc... I always wondered where the interference came from until I added the newer unit and it crippled my Insteon system abut 75%. Made it much easier to find. Then I unplugged both GDOs and it was like a new system again. Now two FilterLincs have resolved those problems. They are easy as any plug-in wallwart and I now have an extra for testing for future suspicions and testing.

Trouble is a "white paper" is only a proposal and not necessarily how the protocol was implemented. Many companies do this to throw competitors off the trail. It is done with patents frequently, where some detail is changed to slow down copying. This was discovered by our friend failing to prove Insteon protocol was easily hacked. He didn't understand what a white paper was either.

Search the threads for Magic Home and other strip lighting. You would likely want the fully sealed IP-67? or higher with the sealed silicone tubing around it for later cleaning. I use it on the tops of all my kitchen and dining room cabinets. I love the effect and colours when requested during occasions. If you change lighting while people are walking up/down the steps it will change their concentration and likely cause a fall on the steps. If the lighting can be seen directly by the person it makes it hard to see and causes conscious focus on the person's stepping and can cause confusion, resulting in falling also. Walking up/down steps becomes a subconscious effort in humans and changing it to a conscious effort while in process can result in falls or foot pattern confusion. You may want to provide some general background ambient lighting in addition, in case it fails or blinks during human travel. I like the under railing effect but does it interfere with the hand-railing garb technique? The thicker handrailing have a grab trough on each side but a strip on the bottom may interfere with children's grip on it. In Mexico, one theater we attended daily had strips in the top of each step just inside the nosing trim. I had to assist many people attempting to walk down them. Wrong thing to do when you can see the strip. The nosing edge became hard to see and although you could walk down the stairs blindfolded changing the focus to humans was a nasty effect. A second row of trim just above the edging trim on the staircase to provide shielded lighting of the steps from both sides may work very nicely to.

CAO Wireless Tags. They are cheap, easy to implement with ISY and generate cloud charting, have wet probes available, use cheap CR2032 batteries,which last 8-12 months, and very accurate without drifting sensors.

Typically ...yes! Insteon devices will try up to three times if an ACK is not received back from the destination device. Less can reduce reliability. More can clog up protocol channels with excessive clutter that likely should be fixed. Scene signals do not support this technique as there is no ACK from destination devices, similar to the old X10 protocol. ISY guesses at results. Hops are a different beast, and often confused with retries. When a device attempts to communicate with another, every device that hears the package resends the package in synchronicity with the other devices. This is called a HOP. Typically they are set to 3 HOPS by the initiating device. Each device subtracts one from the count and sends it again. The communication between the initiating device and the target device is not counted as a HOP. This is why good Insteon comms are important. Think of this. 1 device talks to 8 devices and repeat it. Then another 25 devices repeat it again to the rest of the 100 devices. Now add in the three retries on top of that when it doesn't work. Now the fast Insteon protocol is bogged down with junk packets. Hope this helps.

I think that power consumption is way overstated but to support that you will need to radial feed every strip or use #8 wire. Good luck with your branch splices connecting #8 AWG to say #16-#18 tap-offs A combination of techniques may work better. Use four main runs of #14 (15A each) to feed each set of 3 steps. Soldered and shrink wrapped tap-offs may work better with those wire sizes. To use the system in the thread you found above, you would need a controller box every step. If you have the space, it would cost a lot more, about $12-$15 per controller/step. I have python3 software that could drive those in sequences easily, and I receive ISY NRs to control the sequences/colours etc. If you know python3 you should be able to adapt it to your needs. I currently run it on my polisy box but came from a RPi where I did animations for a wedding tent once. I used 12 x 5m strings in a ceiling spokewheel configuration. It was fun. The controllers and PSU all sat on a common central hub wooden platform attached to the main tent pole by the ceiling.

These Insteon stats only report in once a change of about 2-3F has occurred. I have two of them (2441ZTH wireless) . The older one is controllable, and the newer one confirms all ISYs commands but doesn't actually execute them. I was using it as a probe only but likely the worse probe I have ever seen. If you want a decent stat, get an ecobee and use a NS. If you want sensor probes, get some CAO Tags, and use a NS or the kumoapp code to inject your state variables.

After about a year of this nonsense from google, I started a new account and it started to work again. I had to abandon my original google account for the purpose of ISY Portal. It never worked again, despite months of deleting and re-installing. Now I have a bunch of google accounts, but I have since abandoned my GH units, anyway. I got tired of their security games. Google support only ever told me to contact the code writer, Benoit and all looked proper at that end.

What would you address them with? ISY isn't capable of doing animation. ISY's fastest timer is Wait 1 second. It could be done with an Ardiuno or RPi as in the link, I guess. Sending a signal to the LEDs would take a lot less controllers than one for each step strip. BTW: I run my 5m long RGBW strips with a 12v 3 ampere PSU (36W) full brightness, no problem. The 5v 60A power supply (300W) in the article is ridiculous overkill. Even the wiring shown in the project link wouldn't handle that current.

If my quick research is correct that controller is a Bluetooth protocol. I don;t think much will interface with that. You would need a BT access point within 12-15 feet of every strip, and software to interface with it. After 15 years of owning a BT AP I tossed it in the bin. BT is basically only for operating devices on your body. Check out some of the old threads in the forums here. There is a lot of photos for LEDenet, and MagicHome, and MiLight, RGBWW/CW controllers using WiFi. ISY and polisy support a lot of Ethernet devices.

The thing I don't understand is this guarded API, that they all try to do. If some company would publish their API for their set of WiFi devices the developers could rush to support them on every platform. They would likely become the industry standard and corner most of the market. As it is, these companies are basically guaranteeing their own obsolescence due to so much competition in the market. Trying to give the printer away and gouge the ink price doesn't seem to work in this field, because the app is usually free. It makes no sense. Insteon is another one trying to do this. In other forums that is the retort to suggestions, most times. Insteon is an island and nobody wants to be captured there. Open up and become the industry standard workhorse. When I purchase $3000-$5000 worth of Insteon gadgets at $60 a device, what is left to sell with a closed API? Your free software? Your hub for $99? What moronic marketing! For the massive remote control market crowd, the $10 WiFi device, cloud service, and $25 Alexa speaker will win out, every time.

Did you try to load the link table from a device and then clicking the compare to see what ISY thinks should be in there? This is very odd that solely On would not work.

If these devices are Insteon, right click on each device, and select Restore in the admin console, device tree. Give it about 30 seconds to write the link table in the device. You may have lost links to each device.

My last router (ASUS RT-AC68u, AC1900) started crashing out connections about 52 devices. On power up they just couldn't get an IP address assignment. Sometimes it was my ISY994. Sometimes it was my polisy that didn't get an IP address. ISY using 0.0.0.0 for an IP address doesn't work too well.

ecobee all the way. I have tried many and ecobee is the best for stability, accuracy, and stability, and looks. WiFi to cloud as they all are. Awesome drop in NS that handles it well. Nodelink also supports it. Sent using Tapatalk

Check all your spam folders in every email you have ever had. There may be a permission email you missed to authorise a new connection, or a connection they want more information from you before it will allow it. Access the google mail webpage access and check there.

I don't totally avoid Insteon scenes. I use them with MSes for speed of ON response. I use them for multiple lights in my gathering room to allow them to be fairly synchronised, along with my WiFi lighting bulbs and strips. I use scenes for all lights functions like flashing the whole house for alarm purposes. Most of these are non-critical applications and if they fail it isn;t such a big problem. In my 3:00 AM routine to turn off everything I use programs with individual lines of code, so that the status is reported back, and Insteon will retry up to three times if no ACK is received from each device. If your 3-way scene is not working you may need to improve your comms or reduce your interference somehow. If it always fails use the admin console to examine and compare links. The direct linked scene is the way I would do it also, in that case. From programs you could operate the light directly. ISY doesn't know anything about secens anyway as they have no status. My ISY bulbs and strips are all RGBWW units. I have 31 units now. To control them I use NRs to send command like URLs, receive them in my own NRbridge software, running inside polisy, that determines what brand of bulb they are and sends the appropriate URL lines out to each bulb. By prepping every bul that will be operated first and then sending out the final levels in rapid sequence I can make them appear almost simultaneous (no popcorn effect). In that case the effective "scenes" are hard coded into the NRbridge software. ISY and polyglot NSs haven't been able to do things fast enough yet.

I have never controlled a scene directly from Alexa ----> ISY Portal. I use very few scenes and mostly control programs and/or Insteon devices. The majority of my lights are WiFi protocol so it takes an ISY program to co-ordinate them with Insteon devices/scenes. In ISY Portal I define most of my devices as Switches so they only get On/Off commands. Scenes have no checkback confirmation from the device, so no Insteon retries. If I want dimmer lights I use "Alexa...turn on dim decks lights" and a program does the rest. The delay is insignificant from a vocal command anyway.

@skierdude Use an Alexa device control instead of an announcement