ctviggen1

I agree with you about that. I really dislike the new motion sensors, relative to the old Insteon sensors. I got Z-wave because I found the Insteon ceiling fan controller not to be great. GE ones are better and use a paddle interface. I may also get z-wave motion sensors, but I don't think I have enough z-wave in my house for a strong enough network. I only have one door lock and three fan controllers. The rest is all Insteon.

Those are good ideas. How do you search programs? I see that, since I'm having an issue with z-wave not finding one controller, those programs (containing a reference to a missing device) are highlighted in yellow. But I guess if you keep them in the system, there might be an issue with a program working, but with no purpose.

That's good to know. In my case, a vertical mounting really helps, as I can then use that shelf space.

Thank you! That works perfectly. As for removing these from the Admin Console, sometimes I disable them if I think I'm going to use them for the same purpose. For instance, an outdoor Insteon plug in module used for Christmas lights. Since I know I'll be using that again, I just disable that. But some of these, I take out and do not know if I'll be using them again for the same purpose. For instance, a plug in module to control a fish tank light, where the fish died and the 10 year old was devastated. Will I use that again? I might not. So, I removed it totally from the system. As another example, a plug in module I used to use to control a heater at my computer system in the basement, where I'm typing this. Since we installed 2 inches of rigid foam insulation to the basement walls, I don't need the heater any more. I've taken that out and removed it from Admin Console, since if I install it again, it'll be for a different purpose.

When I installed the new Z-wave board in my ISY 994i, I also changed the mounting from horizontal (sitting on a shelf) to vertical (mounted on drywall at the same location, but taking no shelf space). I'm having a harder time with Z-wave (can't find one Z-wave controller), and am wondering whether mounting makes any difference.

Found it...after searching multiple times (I have a lot of lights and plug in modules). Is there an easier way to do this, though, rather than manually searching through a list of entities?

I re-added an Insteon on/off module that I've used before. I used link management, start linking. When it added, there was a message saying it had been previously used before and giving the address (e.g., xx.xx.xx), and what type of module it was. HOWEVER, it did not list my name; that is, the name I gave it at one time. So, I cannot find it in my list of entities (the list that appears under Main in the Admin Console). I have searched the ones I thought it might be, and cannot find it (judging by the address xx.xx.xx). Is there a way to search for an address? Or some other way to find this?

By the way, if that Jasco/GE fan controller failed, that would make 2 of 4 that have failed. One failed completely (would no longer react to anything or do anything). This one works via the switch (you can turn on and off the fan from the switch), but does not appear to work using z-wave. Seems like a high failure rate.

So, I moved the ISY to the first floor. I found one of the two missing fan controllers. For the second missing fan controller, I've done everything. I reset it to factory defaults, tired to remove it before and after resetting it to factory defaults, tried to add it before and after resetting to factory defaults. Nothing works. Perhaps the controller went bad? This "missing" fan controller is a door's width away from the controller that was found. There's no reason it shouldn't be found (not to mention it was found and worked fine for quite a while with the old z-wave board). I moved the ISY back into the basement.

Thanks. I never thought about moving them to a "phantom" folder. In the past, I have just ignored them, since everything works as desired without touching them. As long as there's nothing I "should" be doing with these nodes, I probably will just ignore them.

Right now, the ISY is in the basement (where it has been for the last multiple years, in the same spot). The fans are on the second floor. I could move the ISY to the first floor, but I have no Ethernet connections on the second floor. I might be able to move the ISY (temporarily) to where my (other) computer is on the first floor and try from there. If I do that, I'll report back.

I'm going to have to open a trouble ticket, too. I was able to add 50% of my 4 z-wave devices: one of three fan controllers and a door lock. After using "Z-wave, synchronize nodes, all", none of these were ostensibly in the admin console. However, I could not add them. I had to first remove them (Z-wave, then remove a Z-wave device), then add them back in. For 2 of the fans, however, I cannot get them to add back in. For 1 of the fans, when I chose "remove a z-wave device", I got that popup to disappear, meaning I think the device was removed. For the other fan, however, this popup never disappeared, which I think means the fan was already removed at some point. For both fans, I cannot add them. That is, selecting Z-wave, then add a z-wave device, then going to the device and pressing the button to add the device to the z-wave network, this does nothing. The "add a z-wave device" popup stays there. All three fans used to work using the old board, and the fan that was added is about the same distance from the ISY 994i as the other two are.

I had to reinstall my Z-wave devices after getting a new Z-wave board. I have three Jasco/GE z-wave in-wall smart fan controllers. When you add these, you get a "multilevel switch" with three "switches": What I have done is rename the top one and left the other two with that prefix, e.g., "Master bedroom fan...". I then link this via Amazon echo so you can say "Alexa, turn on the master bedroom fan at 50% power" or the like. (With these, there's a low speed, 33% power, and high speed, 100%, for Alexa...but no medium speed. That is, you can ask for low or high speed...but not for medium speed. But, if you ask for 50% power, you'll get 67% power.) Anyway, why are there three "switches"? And why does only the top-level switch have this: The other two "switches" have nothing on this menu. Why? And does anyone know what these values mean? This was originally set so that "on" was 0%, so when I turned this "on", nothing happened. I set to 100%, turned it "on", and the fan came on at high speed.

Thanks. I used what you recommended above, then ran just the "then" part (I think by right-clicking the program and choosing "run then" or something like that). This seemed to work for the 15+ lights I had on there (though not all of them were bright after the power outage). I'll have to think about turning the LEDs up and down, and for which ones I'd do this. For the bedroom, bathroom, and hallway areas, to me, if it's night, you want them low. If it's day, you can tell whether the switch is on or off because the corresponding light would be on or off. There are a bunch of these switches in the kitchen and living areas. Maybe dimming those at night would be good? I'll have to test that.

That did work. It's Z-wave, synchronize nodes, all (or at least I used "all"; there's also "new & deleted", which I did not use). Even though I only have 4 nodes, I forgot what a pain this is. Three nodes are fan controllers, which I find strange (they have three entries). And then I have to remap everything to the programs and to Alexa.

I might have to open a trouble ticket. I took the ISY apart to ensure the new z-wave board is installed correctly. As far as I can tell, it is. Then, I went to the menu I show above (z-wave, remove a z-wave device), but the system begins to search for z-wave devices to remove...which it doesn't find, even if I perform the actions on the devices necessary for them to link to the ISY. I could right click on the devices themselves and choose z-wave, remove failed node, but then I get a warning saying "z-wave devices are normally removed from the z-wave network by excluding them". But I see no option in the Admin console to "exclude" z-wave devices. I'm running in circles.

What I did was ran "remove a z-wave device", then went and performed linking operations for these. Nothing happened.

Sorry, I'm finally getting back to this. Here's my menu: Should I just remove all my Z-wave devices and then re-add them? I only have 4 (three ceiling fan controls, one door.

Interesting. I have a variety of switches. Most / all lose their LED settings. Just had the power go out last night (60+ mph winds), and most of the ones I care about come back with the LED on full blast. The switches I care about are in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and hallway between these. Now how old these are, I don't know. I went to buy more from Smart Home this past Black Friday, and everything was sold out. But I guess even if I did that, I wouldn't be able to test, since those are for other rooms. The only rooms I've not done with insteon are the "dining room" (an office for us) and the "playroom" (now also an office). For those, I wouldn't care about the LED brightness. Francis0, that is a really good idea. How many light switches did you add? Could you add them all with no delays? For instance, I have 15 switches just for the bathrooms, hallway, and bedrooms. Since the power went out, I'm revisiting this. I will set it up as per Mr. Bill (thank you for that), to run when the system starts. Is there any way to run whenever you want? There are no conditions, so maybe control it via Alexa (which I think enters at the "then" part).

Following the instructions in the manual for my three ceiling fan controllers, then zwave, add a device, then pressing the paddles on the controllers... nothing happens. There's a dialog box that says it's searching for zwave devices, but they aren't found. I don't see a way to exclude devices, at least under the z-wave drop down menu. If I right-click on the z-wave device that no longer works, I can remove it. But if I try to do that, it says I should exclude it...but I can't find the exclude menu. Can you tell me where the exclude menu is?

I did move from a 300 series board to a 500 series board. Shoot, I did not see the Z-wave/tools/backup, or the restore. I tried the restore, but there is no file. Why doesn't a backup of the ISY also store the z-wave configuration? Should I be backing up the z-wave configuration in addition to the normal ISY backup? I only have 4 things on Z-wave. I assume I can just rebuild the z-wave network? I can't remember how to do that, though. Is it like Insteon, where you have to hit a button on each device?

I had to upgrade my Z-wave board from a relatively recent board. I believe I did the installation correctly. I upgraded from 5.0.16c (I think?) to this new version. Questions: 1) Since I already had a z-wave board and module, do I have to pay the $1 for module? 2) If I do have to pay $1 for the module, can anyone point me to where this is? Every time I link from the admin console to the UD store, it takes me to a page that does not offer the module, and I cannot find an option to pay for the module anywhere. 3) My Z-wave no longer works. How can I debug?

I had no idea.... Thank you! I thought that since "backlight" said zero when the light obviously was not zero meant it did not work. Or possibly I tried it by adjusting the level and then not completing the action. What I did was adjust the level of the backlight and then click the button "write changes". I'll use the "backlight" button. My next question. If we lose power, there are about 10 switches where I manually go to each switch and set the LED light level as low as it will go. Is there any way to run a program on start up that would do that for me?

Supposedly, it's possible to dim the LEDs on Insteon switches by using the Insteon hub. I have a hub but have never used it. Is it possible to dim the LEDs on Insteon switches using the ISY? I don't see an option for this in the admin console. For instance, this is what I get for an Insteon light, but "backlight" appears not to do anything:

Thanks, Mr. Bill. I think that's going to take me a while to analyze. ? And I won't have time to do so until next weekend (going back to work from "vacation", where I installed Insteon light switches). It's weird, because I can have a scene "Watching movies", and select one of two switches for a circuit (and scene) in the kitchen, and that turns off the lights in that circuit. Does exactly what I want it to do. However, the LEDs are messed up on one of the two switches in the circuit/scene. I have temporarily tried to use a program where I select one of the two switches in the scene (of two switches), and this does not work at all. Consider a circuit/scene with two dimming Insteon switches, called "Kitchen overhead lights". In program ode: If no conditions then In "Kitchen overhead lights" set "Switch 1" to Off Else In "Kitchen overhead lights" set "Switch 1" to On This does not work at all. Not sure why.