larryllix

Will Blue Iris run on a Rpi? I would rather a lower power and more reliable RPi run 24 x 7 than a full, energy hungry, large size, and costly Win 10 system.

I have an IOLinc connected to my doorbell via a relay and I get text messages advising of a doorbell button press. It appears you have already done that. I also have 5 Wyze cameras and one points out the widow and can see the walkway going up to the front door. I can then review who walked up my sidewalk at that point in time. Not ideal yet but once somebody gets the API, and/or write a NS for Wyze cams this could become exactly what you requested. WYZE CAMS Note:Amazon sells these Wyse cam cube for about $35 CAD, or $25 USD each. 1080p, multiple stream output, with local SD continuous or event storage, and remote event storage. They had an amazing human movement detection system but it seems the provider for this feature and Wyze had a dispute and the feature was discontinued. Wyse states they will be installing their own firmware, spring of 2020, containing in-cam human motion detection again. These cams have already been firmware upgraded about 5-6 times in the last year of ownership so I trust this will happen. I painted three black so they can disappear among black A/V components. Bi-directional sound also. They make my $250 PTZ Dahua cam look cheap.

I have discovered there are not many "reserved" words. I do think there are "special" words though that Alexa focuses on. However I find the phrase order matters. Instead of "TV downstairs", try "downstairs TV". I think the last word parsed is expected to be an objective noun and, although they try other parsing orders, they cause more confusion. I use "Library" without problems. However I always use a well known objective noun word. What does your library do when it get's turned on? Try this. "Turn On library lamp" or "turn ON library fan", or "Turn On library lights" Be careful, Google started it and now Alexa is very sensitive to plurals. "Lights" make them assume more than one. I get refused if I don't ask for the right device(s). If I ask to "turn off bedroom light" it will deny me access because it sees more than one. Placement of the mic is important also. Right against a wall, or especially in a corner, makes the ambient noise system fail badly. This is why I have diabled my ecobee4 Alexa. It constantly answered TV noise and even standing two feet in front of it, was deaf and dumb.

...to add to this....don't use Alexa turn XXXX on/off. Always use "turn on xxxx". It is much more dependable.

Yes thy definitely have their niche usage. We only do basic things with A/V like turn the TV on and the A?V receiver to that input. There is no cloud service involved for that connection to ISY, only the vocals. Some of the device names are hard to remember but devices that get used almost every day get easy the same as operating the remote for the TV. Naming your devices is an art and makes a huge difference. ISY Portal allows multiple device names and I use that feature a lot to alleviate the name memory thing. For example my kitchen counter bar lights can be controlled with "kitchen lights", "kitchen bar lights", "bar lights", "counter lights", "kitchen counter lights". We always and only use "turn on" and "turn off". It definitely has a learning curve but my wife does most of it by listening to what I said. Of course there are things she doesn't use like "Turn on deck rotation" which animates my coloured deck lights in a rotational pattern, with whatever colours they happen to be on with at the time.

Yeah, I guess I did hear some of those but have none and I avoided 16b. Actually I downgraded to .15 after having problems with polyglot I couldn't resolve.

You must enunciate very clearly to use devices with a matching word, at the end. I have TV lights (Insteon and WiFi lights) and just TV (turn on the A/V receiver and monitor) that get confused often. GH was worse formerly. I don't know about GH anymore.

I felt lots of "negs" here about .16a and .16b here, but I think v5.0.16c should be pretty clean. OTOH, I have no Zwave and not much with Insteon has been happening since the ISY engine changed about v5.0.3-4.

I don't think this non-alternate action can be done via a scene. IIRC scenes can only have one operator. It would be simple with a program or two using @kclendens button options, or I would just program all buttons to "always On' and detect both buttons in that style.

Rather odd. Without any options how would all the settings be available? Here is mine with ISY v5.0.16C ...and with every button a further page containing options

I follow that concept too. I found all the yelling wasn't helping the outcome. Trouble is, she doesn't like when I push her buttons or try to program her.

Once they get the feel of commanding something it is going to spread to other things. Who's fault is that bringing HA slaves into the home? We let them vote, now move into the 21 century.

Network Resources don't require another hardware box, although they are one direction only....no feedback or status. Routers are getting extremely complex in function and are not anywhere near as reliable as they were in the good 'ole days and also the router was the only low powered network lump to pass through. Now we have switches, routers, gates, and many more nodes to contribute problems, and heat breaking things down. However once ISY ports into the same box (polyisy) this argument/point should no longer exist as much.

@TekenThis is the shot I thought would be of most interest to you. It shows the built-in fan cycler at work on the 5 minutes per hour setting. Note the time settings do not equate to actual minutes but rather to cycle ratios based on 5 minute clicks. IIRC this setting gives 15 minutes off and 5 minutes on. The scale can be mouse scrolled to expand to display about a minute per 1/4" of screen.

The black round looks odd at first and the black shows the fingerprints easily. However, now I find white thermostats looks like cheap plastic. Mounting one for a sister-in-law I screwed up and had to use the supplied white rings to cover the sins. I hate the look of them but it is not as obnoxious as a thermostat screen with bright colour photographs behind large number displays that cannot bee recognised due to numeric cover.

Yes. There is a tonne (2200#) of other stuff but it is mostly crap abut better or worse than your neighbours with similar houses.

I assume you have seen some of the ecobee screenshots in old posts? I cannot find the posts anymore but found these in my reserves.

AFAICT the limits are settable from 7 to 49C. I imagine the limits control the setpoint ranges anyway so I didn't try those again. The sliders you see are not absolute but rather a control to cause the main setting to "ramp" either way. The numbers are fictitious and only indicate "direction". It's a little awkward but you only adjust it at set up or when somebody decides the "smarts" are not warm/cold enough. My wife never touches it, and I might do that twice per year after having trouble with my HA that day.

Other than what I already posted, I don't know what you are asking. If you don't want the setpoints to go outside 15-26C then you set that locally as the limits. Now, nothing can set the setpoints outside of that. If you don't want anything to change the setpoint at all then lock it with a password.

I am not sure how low the stat can go because I have the range restricted to a range of about 15c (heat vacation temp) to 26c (cooling vacation temp). These can only be set on the stat face. In addition all setpoints can be passworded. Ecobee3 and 4 stats have absolutely no dependencies on the cloud except for firmware updates, if enabled. The ecobee4 has Alexa built in. Slightly crippled and doesn't hear well mounted against a wall. No 5GHz, and no routines to speak for ISY. I also don't vocal command my thermostats. I got automatic ones that can look after themselves properly and only touch them a few times per year with season changes. I don't use automatic changeover, auto-occupancy, or auto Follow me features as my home is too slow to respond and I am too sensitive to a temperature more than 0.5C off of setpoint. My basement ecobee3 sets the slab heat on and off about 8-12 hours ahead of needing the temperature setting sleep/day. ISY helps adjust those advanced climate type times by outside temperature based algorithms.

Ecobee uses a higher accuracy internally at 0.1C. Users can calibrate all aspects to 0.3C. WiFi and cloud access only, unfortunately. A bunch of silly cloud statistics against neighbours are available (of course it is cheaper to turn your heat down to 'Off') but the run time graphing of run/fan cycles is useful. Downloadable sensor input and averages etc. are available in spreadsheet format (to 0.1C) Fan cycler is very smart with short time cycling, and based on last run instead of just every hour. Setpoints have a local only setting for high and low allowances from any angle of control. A password lockout is also available for use to lockout local and remote setpoint access. I have not seen any firmware updates that control my stat yet. They are tooted to be fully disableable though. I don't know what you mean by "blocked". The stat has no dependence on cloud, only for monitoring and remote control. Programmable climates (I have about 8 now) with dual schedules for heating and cooling. Just switch the mode without reconfiguring times or temps. Sensor calibration wanders the least of any stat I have tried. (Venstar, Insteon, Honeywell) Sensing and setpoints on 0.5C clicks can net you about 1-1.5C off of your setpoint. Ecobee is 0.1C sensing. Sensor is very isolated from electronics and any wall draughts.

Comfort with them will come with beating down your anxieties with practice. Just experiment with them using little programs. You can always delete the whole thing when you are done. ISY is your playground. I think we have a success with the light blink program for you. It is very handy for troubleshooting questionable programs. Insert a program call to the flash program, move it up and down in your programs and delete the lune when done. Keep your programs small and limited to small tasks at a time. Here is a simple programmable timer using State variables. It counts down by minutes during waking hours only. 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. This is the resultant checker that monitors the variable and controls the Occupancy flag variable. That controls all the other functions Occupied.flagger - [ID 0168][Parent 000B] If $sHouse.occupied.timer > 0 Then $sHouse.occupied = $cTRUE 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 Here is a sample MS program that triggers the timer. I have about 12 MSes that activate the timer with different times. Motion.MBR - [ID 0009][Parent 000B] If 'Master Bedroom / MBR.MS' is switched On Then Wait 2 seconds $sHouse.occupied.timer = 180 <----- in 180 minutes the house will be considered "Unoccupied" Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

No. You just picked a complex variable application...LOL I think this should work but it will seem complicated, since ISY does not have a proper inline "If" construct. This is being typed freestyle. If MS1 is switched On OR MS2 is switched ON Then Repeat while $lamp.level1 < 0 <---- use variable also as a flag (-1) to indicate it is already in use $lamp.level1 = light status <------ not in use, save the current light level in it Repeat 1 time <----close out the inline "If" condition, back to our regularly scheduled program. Set Light On Wait 5 minutes Set Light $lamp.level1 % <---- restore the light to the found value, not Off $lamp.level1 = -1 <--- restore flag value = "not in use" for the next time Else ---- Go to the Integer variable page and set the value of $lamp.level1 to -1, and then set the "init to" value to -1, also. This will guarantee the variable will always boot up with a negative value.

You have the right idea but this will have problems! The first time an MS triggers it will go through the motions and work properly. As posted above @DrLumen the second last line should be eliminated otherwise flashes could occur with useless command sends. However, While the light is on and another motion is sensed, the Then will start again and, while it works for Wait timer to extend the time, it will overwrite the variable storing the lamp level and later restore the lamp to the latest overwritten value, which will be the one from the program, and the light will never return to the way it was found. This will likely take two programs where the second program disables the first program so it cannot get triggered repeatedly. That may not work either. There may be a way to put a conditional "If" line into your program to prevent all this. Let me think on that one....trouble maker!

Yes. It was the most useful, and simplest variable program I could think of to get you past your variaphobia. Try a few other and useful application that fit your purpose. As @@mwester noted above, until you have a use for them it is just dry homework. OTOH Until you understand some of the uses, you will have no uses for them. It's a double edged sword and a vicious cycle and a.... The first program example was an example of how variables can be triggers. The last one was how they can save things. For that application, think of variables as small boxes you can store things in, so you can het them out later, except they are like bottomless coffee, you take a copy out and it is still there. I'll be back later tonight. I have to take my sweetie out to keep her satisfied happy. Dang spell correct!