oberkc

Never looked at mine, either. I checked them and found the same. Starting to see a trend?

I recall that mine came in a simple cardboard box, less than a foot on each side and around 4 inches tall.

It sounds to me that the success you have had with Alexa is based, in part, on your willingness to memorize the correct verbiage for each action you desire to implement. I reject that I should have to do this, and certainly would not convince others living in the house the value in doing so. Certainly, one can get consistent results with this approach, but I would rather press a light switch than having to memorize exact syntax of commands, many of which I might only use a few times a year. Until I can cease to worry about whether I say "shut" versus "close", or "turn on the lights" versus "turn the lights on", or "turn up the volume" versus "tell harmony to turn up the volume" I will continue to view alexa as little more than an interesting hobby. In my alexa, I cannot even say "alexa, turn the lights on" without getting an error response...or telling alexa to "turn on the office lights" and having the TV come on. This is despite the fact that the alexa is assigned to a room (or group) and certain devices (called lights) are assigned to that same group and that the TV is not a light in that group. Don't even get me started on the fact that I can only have a single harmony hub assigned to the alexa and that telling alexa to turn on the TV in one room will often result in the TV of another room turning on. Yes, you might be able to get it to work with enough effort, workarounds, crazy naming sequences, and patience, but I suspect you are a small minority that find the effort worth the reward. Hopefully, it will get better over time.

I am certainly no expert here, but if you have the skills to identify the network command issued by your app associated with the “play” command, perhaps a network resource could be used to trigger a program in the ISY. A harmony hub, along with the harmony nodeserver, would certainly work to trigger an ISY program based upon the harmony movie activity. I recall that there are apps (simple remote, formerly roomie is one that I recall) on tablets/phones that can communicate with AV gear and the ISY. Perhaps something like that could be programmed to trigger lighting along with a movie. There also used to be a device called IRLinc that was pretty handy for this, but it would not be much good if you are using the network to control your AV devices.

Well, you could certainly trigger lights based upon motion. Given the relative static nature of watching movies, I doubt that you would want a short time-out period. I would also be hard to determine when the movie was over or when everyone had left the room. In my mind, it would be difficult to do much interesting if all you have is a motion sensor (or two). Also, if turning on the "av gear" and screen was so onerous as to discourage its use, I think I would be first looking to simplify this process. Do you not have this function automated via a single remote or control system? Like some of the others, I am a fan of the harmony hubs, but I am sure there are other options. Furthermore, if you were to do this in a way that would integrate with you home automation system, this could solve your lighting task. While not "automation", I still find uses for light switches and don't find them offensive to use from time-to-time. Keypad buttons for different lighting scenes are not something that should be quickly dismissed. While complete automation might be nice, there are practical limitations. (Even in Star Trek they had to ask the computer to adjust the lights on occasion.) It sounds as if your theater is in the basement, right? One of my most-used switches is one at the top of the basement stairs that, in addition to turning on/off stair lights, is programmed to turn off all lights in the basement. That could include the theater room, gym, workshop, whatever. Maybe a nice compromise for your theater room would be something like this?

This may take more than a single program. And there are always multiple ways of doing things. A simple approach could be something like: First program: if control "another MS" is on then wait two minutes run this program (else path) Second program: if control "one MS" is on and "first program" is true then do what you want when one MS was on within the previous two minutes of another MS else nothing

That is my recollection, as well. If the program was added to alexa, and then asked to be turned on, I would assume the THEN path would run but, apparently, it is not. Perhaps alexa misunderstands and tries to turn on the switch, rather than the program. Or, follow lilyoyo1 suggestion and change the condition to "status" rather than "control".

??? I see that your program DOES have a control condition. My initial concern is that turning on the switch via alexa would not trigger such a program. But you stated that you added the program directly to alexa, so I cannot say why this would not work.

It is bery possible that such a program would not be triggered when initiated by alexa or the ISY. Does it have a control condition or status condion? nevermind. I see your response at the same time as my post.

I am also having mixed luck with this. While I can tell Alexa to turn "on/off office lights" or "office light on/off", it does not limit itself to the lights. Such commands also turn off the TV that is in the office. Getting this Alexa thing to work for me has, and continues to be, tedious. I have trouble recommending Alexa to anyone who is looking for an easy-tp-set-up solution to lighting control. Still, on my alexa, the "office lights on/off" still responds. Perhaps my "office" lights are set up in Alexa differently than yours. My "office" represents an Alexa "group" rather than a scene.

No. My perceptions are that the OP wants the program to trigger from a motion sensor and ONLY a motion sensor. I did not think he wanted a program that was trigger by a motion sensor AND and other "different mechanisms". I do not perceive that there are other such mechanisms in play here. But...ISY newbie has not returned and only he can clarify.

I am quite familiar with the thread you linked to. I am obviously not being clear nor, I doubt, helpful to the OP. Nothing you have said or linked to is unfamiliar to me. I just do not think it addresses the stated desires of the OP. Signing off here.

Again, while all may be true, I thought this post was simply about triggering lighting via motion sensor. I was only responding to the request to switch on lights "when people first enter the area". Perhaps I misunderstood the original request, but it seemed to be limited to motion-triggered lighting. I quote the following snippets:

??? Not following this. While all may be true, I am not sure what this has to do with a motion sensor detecting people entering or leaving a room.

You might find a way to position the motion sensor to trigger when people are entering a room, but I am skeptical that a sensor so positioned could differentiate between entering and leaving.

Correct

Of course, linking and physical wiring are two different issues. The original question and subsequent responses were in relationship to the linking operation. The general idea for wiring is to provide all insteon devices with unswitched power and neutral. The load can be connected to any of the insteon devices, it does not matter which. Unfortunately, there is no single wiring diagram. Standard three-way wiring can vary, depending on which box power is supplied (is it at the fixture, or one of the switch boxes), whether the travelers pass through the fixture box, and whether there is neutral at all box locations. To provide you with a diagram for your application would require a description of your wiring, at the two switch boxes and at the fixture. This includes number of cables at each location, along with number and color of conductors within each cable.

The instructions that come with the various insteon devices have historically been based upon the assumption that there is no ISY (or, for that matter, no hub). I have not checked lately, but assume that this continues to be the case.

I find it a good general rule to perform all linking operations through the ISY. I see no compelling reason to violate that rule here. I find it easier to do with the ISY, value having the link records of the switches match that of the ISY, and value being able to control the scene via ISY. I see no benefit of doing the linking directly.

I certainly see nothing in the two programs that would cause the fan to shut off immediately (rather than waiting 10 minutes). Are you able to monitor current (as reported to ISY) in near real time to confirm that shutdown occurs immediately as current reaches lower threshold? The only thing that comes to mind is another program or scene somewhere that would cause this.

For v5.xx software, it is much easier than with 4.xx version. The general approach is to create a couple of variables, one for the month and one for the day. To the 3am query program, or some other daily cleanup program (hopefully run late night) set the two variables to the current month and current day. Create an action for each >> variable>>month>> = >> [choose appropriate system variable] From there, it is simple enough to create a condition such as: if day of month = 31 and month = 10 then do what you want (such as disable program, disable folder, don't run program, whatever)

It depends upon what version of software you run. If on version 4.xx, the ISY does not have a native method for doing this. If on v5.xx, the ISY includes some standard functions that would allow for this. On what version are you?

No, I think this is backwards. The WF2IR can be programmed to EMIT an IR signal based upon network commands FROM the ISY. I do not believe it can be programmed to receive IR signals and convert to network commands sent TO the ISY. I still have an old IRLinc which can receive IR commands from a harmony and convert them to insteon signals that can be read by the ISY, but I don't think they make those any more. To my knowledge, neither is there a direct network interface between the harmony and ISY. Alternatively, there are versions of the ISY which can directly receive IR commands. A strategically-placed ISY 994 could potentially be programmed to respond directly to those IR commands.

Too bad. All the more reason to use another app for camera viewing. It would bother me to have the hub powered up only to activate an app. Of course, this assumes that your camera is compatible with other apps (whether Blue Iris, IPCamviewer, or whatever).

Does the hub even need to be there for one to access the cameras? I would bet that you could use the insteon app without the hub being present if all you cared about was cameras.