oberkc

That does not bother me so much. Many of us complain about features or lack thereof on a variety of products. We complain about iPads or Android. We complain about certain cars. We complain about grocery stores. We complain about restaurants. I doubt that there is a business or product that meets all of everyones needs and desires. I don't expect complainer to fix the problem. I also suspect that most who have commented are doing so with the intentions of being helpful. Our recourse is not to redesign the product of another, but to spend our money wisely and patronize those businesses that best meet our needs for the best price.

The only interface that could interest me would be something I could run on a small android tablet mounted to a wall in a couple of key places. It would replace some keypads I have already mounted in those key places. I don't need access to the entire system or every device, but would not mind a touch screen control panel that I can easily configure that would provide control for eight or ten key devices or scenes. Until then, I will continue to use the keypads.

I think I have been careful enough that the only thing my next-of-kin need to know is simply to unplug all those silly little boxes and the house reverts back to a dumb house where lights only come on via switch. Yes, I have a couple of gadgets that cannot be turned on via switch, but those are easy to fix: get rid of them (they are more mood and access stuff in which my wife places very little value.) But, as soon as I wrote this, I realize that I may have crossed to the dark side when I brought some z-wave into the house.

In the back of my mind, I was wondering. Unfortunately, all I know about it is from reading the web page. I am definitely intrigued by using HA as an interface, but I just don't have enough of a use case to justify the effort in my mind. Still, to suggest that, since there is home assistant, everyone else should quit trying to develop better interfaces seems almost un-American. Speaking of interfaces, it seems we also forget that Google Home and Alexa can act as an interface, should one have the necessary devices. While I currently am mostly satisfied with Mobilinc Pro, I understand it may not remain compatible with Android as newer versions keep coming out and Mobilinc Pro remains static. Given this, I am beginning to go through different options and may just live with a combination of the portal and Alexa.

Neither do I want to offend you, but I suspect most of the folks here are happy with their ISY-994 and are not really interested in throwing that investment of time and money away, moving to Home Assistant. Besides, there is no user interface that would satisfy everyone and I have no doubt some would complain about the interface of Home Assistant.

One thing that is catching my attention is that I don't see any way to extend the 30 minute time. Is this your intention? What do you mean, in statement above, "if no one presses anything"? Do you intent to have something to press in order to keep the lights on?

I understood that Z-wave devices support scenes. Having said that, I am not sure whether the ISY-994 supports z-wave scenes. I use Z-wave devices in scenes, but these scene also include insteon devices. Given this, it seems pretty intuitive that the Z-wave scene functionality goes through the controller, since z-wave and insteon cannot talk to each other. I suspect that this is true even for scenes that contain z-wave devices exclusively.

Yes, I was focusing mostly on program 1. You may be correct regarding program 2. Perhaps adding a command at the beginning of program 1 to halt program 2 would solve that problem?

Neither do I understand why you have a "'Inside / Hallway / Hallway Bathroom Light' is switched Off" in the first program. Regardless, simply pressing the switch ON again would cancel the wait condition and restart the program 30 minute count. Did you say that this was a keypad button? (I was not certain.) If so, is it a six-button or eight? Is the button triggering the program the primary (load controlling) button or one of the secondary buttons?

I just try to avoid insulation, good windows and doors, and house wrap. My air exchange happens the old fashioned way.

I don't know that the wait "fails", but you should consider the possibility that the time change retriggered you program during the wait period, at which point the program was halted. I don't know what your program looks like at this point so I can only speculate.

That is what I do. I have perceived no additional benefit with using insteon for this function, since all that I want is a simple timer, manually activated. If I wanted more sophisticated automation for the fan, I might reach a different conclusion.

Ah. I was unaware of that code. Thanks.

Code violation!? There are many, many houses with constant power to the fixture. Most of those use a switch loop to control the light, but some have a simple pull chain. There are codes requiring switches at certain locations, but these codes seem more concerned with being able to see at night rather than the inherent safety of the electrical system . I would definitley be interested in knowing what code violation this would be.

Keypad buttons have a couple of options: toggle, non-toggle (on), and non-toggle (off). The non-toggle (on) mode will cause the keypad button to always turn on when pressed. I use this mode on a couple of buttons, but I have never used it on a primary button A. Understand, too, that these "non-toggle" buttons could still be turned off by the ISY or by being a responder to a scene. I am not sure what benefit this has to simply providing unswitched power to the ceiling fixture.

Keep in mind that if you disable the folder (disarm elk) during the night, the ELSE will not trigger at sunrise+1. This may not be a problem for you, but 8 wanted to point that out.

OK. Then I guess the program must have run again to make they ISY think that it was off? The point of this, in my mind, is that this could be problems communication between the switches and PLM. It is for that I would be looking.

OK. Then, how were they turned on when the ISY said they were "all off"? This is the first I recall hearing of a sensor. Did the sensor turn them on? Is the sensor part of the scene? Sounds like there is more going on here than I understood.

One thing that looks a little inconsistent is that the folder conditions (sunset to sunrise) and program conditions (sunset-1 to sunrise+1) would result in the program folder being false when the program would normally trigger. Why not get rid of the folder condition relative to sunrise/sunset? What does that condition do for you?

Does this happen when you manually turn on the lights? If so, I am more suspecting communication errors. - how old is your PLM? - is the PLM on an outlet or circuit that includes lots of other electronic gadgets? - are you able to associate the misbehavior with something else being on?

I have had the experience that insteon devices can get a little obstinate. If there is a consistent bad actor, swapping it out can sometimes solve the problem. I have no particular advise troubleshooting comms issues other that trial-and-error. Unplug devices that could cause interference and see if that helps. Filter those that cause problems.

Yes, strange. If the earlier behavior (which switch came on, which one did not) was consistent, then, it makes me wonder if one of your link records became corrupted. I must admit that I do not understand why running the program manually would work, but triggering the program naturally would not work. Well done.

If 'breezeway light' is a scene, and turning on that scene activates only some of the devices in the scene, I would look and try a couple of things. - manually run (then path) the program. Does the problem persist? - manually turn on the scene. Does the problem persist? - check the ON levels for the devices in the scene. Are any set to zero? - consider the possibility of communication problems. I don't see a programmatic problem here if, in fact, "breezeway light" is a scene.

yes, which really limits the usefulness of these devices for me and those that live with me. I am not really interested in having to memorize and pronounce a bunch of exact phrases (turn on TV? Watch TV? Tell harmony to turn on TV? Watch Roku? Watch family room TV? ) and even less so are the others in the house. It is simply easier to push the remote button or to toggle a switch. Besides, they are cloud based, so I view them as secondary.

good luck with this. I have had mixed luck with Alexa recognizing devices. I suspect that there are reserved names and phrases that can cause ambiguity with alexa. Additionally, I have come to suspect confusion by alexa when I have devices with similar names or names having common words (living room TV versus Family room TV, for example). If you discover anything interesting, let me know.