Scott Korvek

I currently have zero Z-wave devices at this location so could live with that. Too many scenes with each devices a member of multiple scenes to accommodate on insteon PLM. Attached article not too helpful- one network manager per network- but I'm looking at making multiple independent networks - or at least that would be fine as I see no need to make both see each other. It does mention "start network and join/leave network" so presumably each controller should set up their own independent network - otherwise how would interference between neighbors be prevented? Found this: https://www.rfwireless-world.com/Tutorials/Zigbee_tutorial.html which mentions each controller starts its own personal area network- so I can see on my eISY this in X-ray of the network: Integer DATA controller.data.defaultPanId = 27238 (0x00006a66) I would assume that if I bought another ZMatter dongle it would create a different network ID- either randomly or upon detecting a collision with an existing network but that is a something one of the UD developers would have to confirm.

As an aside- just received my first actual Philips Hue bulbs and tried one out. Amazing that I can set commands directly with scenes included alongside Insteon switches- so I can use the regular wallswitch button to turn the light on AND reset the temp back to a "normal" bulb rather than the last on. Well done native implementation! Kudos!

I don't have a large zigbee network, I have a large Insteon network. The Zigbee devices will be in locations covered by each of the IoX controllers (max nodes/scenes/devices per PLM) and cannot be reconfigured to condense the Zigbee network to one IoX controller.

I have a corner-case question here regarding Zigbee (and possibly ZWave). I have an eisy and a polisy both running in the same home as my Insteon network is too large for one to contain all nodes. The polisy handles exterior and basement, the eisy handles floors 1-3 in the main home and the entire HVAC system. Polisy handles polyglot and external intgrations and the eisy references polisy for polyglot. I'm now adding Zigbee to my home- currently for Hue-style lighting using the GLEDOPTO 5 in 1 LED drivers and their exterior wall wash and garden lighting (integrated Zigbee 3.0). Problem is I'll have some inside the home, where it will be important for them to integrate with the interior scenes and programs on eisy, and also the garden/wall wash exterior ones which should be integrated with the exterior scenes- on polisy. Since z-matter works without a hub I don't have one so I don't need or want to use polyglot/nodeservers. That would make this easier as both could "see" the nodes (like I do with Elk). I have no problem getting a second ZMatter dongle for the Polisy. But then I have two controllers. Can they be on the same network? Should I just change the frequency of one of them (no idea how to change the frequency of the listening devices or if they even support that)? I don't have any way I can reconfigure which IoX controls what given the HVAC is all on eisy and I've previously run out of Insteon nodes/scenes and my final insteon network plan has gotten substantially bigger since then. Thoughts?

On the device dashboard for a variable the top 3 pickers are under the properties header- value precision and startup value. Value is where is get that error- tried with variable dashboards of status commmand and default types. Below that under a command header is a blue button for value which will accept an arbitrary value. Since the property picker is first (and there and accepts a value) it’s what I always click on.

Sorry if this is double post, but I can't find it with search so I'll ask the question here. I have a few minor issues with the mobile app on iOS: When I go to manually input a variable value in a entity's dashboard, I cannot enter a value greater than 100. Obviously in the admin control panel I can enter any value I wish. Obviously if you were looking at status of a light entity a hard limit of 0-100% would make sense but I'm talking about a integer or state variable which should be able to hold any value. The value can clearly be something other than 0-100 because I can view variables set via my programs with arbitrary values. Similarly I cannot set the value from the variables list directly outside of an entity/device dashboard. If I create an entity/device of type command with dashboard, the ability to edit the commands at the bottom of the pane disappears. I can add new steps but cannot edit existing steps. The little right arrow/Chevron that would open up the command to edit literally isn't there. If I change the entity to type command then the Chevron appears, and I can edit a previously entered command step. A question on trying to create a button that when pressed would increment a value. Due to how I've laid out the pane in question, I don't want to use the increment button type. I'm not trying to manually adjust the value directly to an arbitrary value- It's really that I want to press the button and have it add 30 or 60 (minutes) to the existing state value being used to feed a timer program. The command entity cannot add to an existing value (+=), only assign the value directly (=). Am I approaching this wrong or is this a limitation of the app? I could write an increment program in the admin console and have that button run the then step of the program I guess but that seems like a workaround. Overall, kudos with the app. It's really grown and has become indispensable to running my home (as much as I've automated everything to require minimal interaction.)

No. It’s an API call to a REST URL with parameters. GET/POST command with the inbuilt network module will suffice. I use IOX variables to hold state variables for status and integrity variables for the desired setting prior to the call.

I have noticed that occasionally some nodeservers stop working on my eISY's IoX admin console. What I've traced it to is the nodserver profile address on the IoX service. Polyglot is working fine- the nodeservers are fine, but IoX changes the URL/IP of the nodserver to 127.0.0.1. I run both polisy and iox due to running out of Insteon nodes a while back so I split the install. The polisy is older and is already running polyglot so I kept it there. I do not use the eISY's polyglot install. Instead i've added both ISY mac addresses to the polyglot server on the Polisy and run the required nodeservers there in one or both profiles as required. That cuts down on licensing and keeps everything in one place, simplifies updating, etc. It works fine and seems analogous to when polyglot first came out and I'd run it on a RPi with an ISY/99. But if there's a network hiccup, or I update a nodeserver (so it goes offline) the eISY will often revert to a local address, breaking the connection. Oddly the nodeserver is still listed as online in its node but control breaks. (Like the Elk module will pick up events - violations, arming, etc. but I cannot send any commands from IoX). Go to the profile and put in the correct IP address and everything is fine again. This is longstanding behavior- as long as I've split out to two systems. Note I haven't figured out how to completely turn off the eISY's polyglot service. I don't see an option to do so. I could write a script to disable the service but I'm sure a future update will revert that or break a version update or something so I'd rather not go hacking around in a command line. But the eISY polyglot isn't running anything- no nodeservers, etc. Previously I'd be able to log into the eISY polyglot -not that I need it for anything thought- but I just tried while writing this post so that I could again confirm it's idle. I couldn't log in via the website/port 3000. So I logged in via the console and checked the logs: Jan 18 17:05:04 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:04 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: call_udx: Making request to socket with url /rest/pg3.auth.ns Jan 18 17:05:05 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:05 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: call_udx: Making request to socket with url /rest/pg3.auth.ns Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: Verifying node servers are installed on IoX correctly Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: IoX Request: [Try: 1] [00:21:b9:02:64:d7] :: - http://127.0.0.1:8080/rest/profiles/ns/0/connection Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: IoX Response: [Try: 1] [00:21:b9:02:64:d7] :: [200] :: 3.1233ms - http://127.0.0.1:8080/rest/profiles/ns/0/connection Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_1] Unmanaged NodeServer 'UnifiPresence' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_3] Unmanaged NodeServer 'WirelessTag' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_2] Unmanaged NodeServer 'ELK' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_4] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Timedata' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_5] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Holidays' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_6] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Sun' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_7] Unmanaged NodeServer 'OpenWeatherMap' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_8] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Virtual' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_9] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Roku' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_10] Unmanaged NodeServer 'Plex-WebHook' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_11] Unmanaged NodeServer 'VenstarCT' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:06 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:06 [pg3] ^[[32minfo^[[39m: [00:21:b9:02:64:d7_12] Unmanaged NodeServer 'NOAA' found. Adding to DB. Jan 18 17:05:08 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:08 [pg3] ^[[31merror^[[39m: UDX authentication failure for admin with cause udxTimeout: Error: udx /rest/pg3.auth.ns - ECONNABORTED: UDX timeout after 4000ms Jan 18 17:05:09 eisy daemon[2932]: 1/18/2024, 17:05:09 [pg3] ^[[31merror^[[39m: UDX authentication failure for admin with cause udxTimeout: Error: udx /rest/pg3.auth.ns - ECONNABORTED: UDX timeout after 4000ms Never seen that before- every 5 minutes it's polling IoX and adding nodes to the internal database. Never saw that before. Last night I upgraded packages on both polisy and eISY to get to IoX 5.8.1. Thoughts?

One more thought if this is relevant to your decision: Venstar API is local. I am free from and service/cloud dependency. I'm not opposed to using one, but we all know services shut down or change their business models, nodeservers get abandoned, etc. Skyport is there if I wanted some cloud-baed vendor-supported tool, but separate from the API access which is on-device. Isn't ecobee reliant on a cloud connection to their servers? I've never used them so I could be mistaken, but when I was looking at them I recall that was an option- they have a cloud service which they are pushing people into to get some "security" functions out of the sensors (motion, window monitoring, etc). That required a subscription to enable and I didn't find that appealing. Also if you do go ecobee- look at your utility provider- many have discounts for purchasing a "smart" device through them and lots partner with ecobee or nest. Pay up front, pay later, or pay with your data.

I vaguely remember a scheduled reboot feature in the old ISY. I cannot find it on IoX now. I wanted to try a scheduled weekly reboot because I'm having stability issues lately. eISY will hum a long for weeks then all of a sudden everything goes wonky- variables and program status seems off and things stop responding properly with no changes in the setup. I have a lot of programs and variables including currently 223 state variables and 295 integer variables. I'd think eISY can handle it but perhaps there's a memory leak somewhere. In any case a reboot seems to set everything straight for a while. Is the option for a scheduled reboot still possible somewhere?

Also look into notifications via UDMobile. Much more reliable and there's a wiki post to help you configure the network resource.

Elk? Old school but very capable. On my 3rd home install with them. It gets expensive quickly though. The Elk Nodeserver is top-notch.

Feel compelled to chime in as I've used multiple brands of thermostats with ISY/Iox over the past almost 2 decades across multiple homes and business properties. Insteon- never tried - was scared off with the issues posted all over these forums Honeywell native Z-wave (the ugly green screen ones supplied by some utilities as they also handle ADR/load shedding) - work fine, no nodeserver required. Still use one at one of my rental properties. Annoying to deal with as it had a weak Zwave antenna and I was on the old ISY at the time- had to do an external antenna - Still had transient issues as the rest of the place was mostly Insteon so did not have a robust Zwave network (back in the 300 series days). Radio Thermostat CT series- also had multiple of these. They worked poorly. Do not need a nodeserver. Not sure if it was a poor quality Z-wave network (in these properties had multiple other Z-wave devices and repeaters, etc- tried everything - zwave 500 setup). Gave up on them and ripped them out. Programmable, has some options, but far behind in features compared to the following. Basic-looking in a home. Honeywell T6s- similar to the T9s below as far as equipment capability but without the app control. Inherited several in a commercial property and replaced them with the T9s. I really like their install and setup process. But I needed remote control for that application. Honeywell T9s- the cute ones now on Resideo (old Honeywell Home)- wasn't able to get the nodeserver setup done and relies on someone hosting a small free Amazon ECS instance. So never integrated them into IoX. App control is nice- I still use them at 2 commercial properties with their inbuilt schedules + app overrides. Had them at my home as well with remote sensors which averaged the temp across the home (use radiators, so that was a key). They have lots of features and can handle various multistage heating/cooling equipment setups. Ripped them out of my home in favor of Venstars- Wifi-enabled. The CT series is great as is the Explorer series. Have both app control (Skyport cloud- their servers) and nodeserver support. App is nice but I rarely need it as I have the IoX. Helped with configuration though. Nodeserver for CT series works fine, but is polling all the time which makes programming difficult. Isn't able to control the Explorer series. Ventar has an API which can do HTTP/HTTPS. Therefore I use the inbuilt network module to control (send commands via API calls) and the nodserver to read status. Also use their Explorer series which is slightly cheaper but in some ways more capable in 4 of the bedrooms. Have lots of features but many I honestly don't use as I prefer to manage centrally via the IoX as I'm running dual fuel with progressive radiant takeover based upon exterior temperature. Handles remote sensors (wired and wireless) with multiple control options including averaging or various onboard/wired/wireless sensing. Really a great set of thermostats. Ripped everything out of my home in favor of these and not looking back. Anyone need some used thermostats?

Yes, I tried that as noted above (lots of detail, I know- thinking my way through it). Integer "heattemp=68&cooltemp=75" or floating point/decimal "heattemp=68.0&cooltemp=75.0" makes no difference- both are supported on both models of thermostats. Currently with the network resource approach I'm directly using an integer variable without any issue. Direct curl commands curl -X POST -d 'heattemp=71&cooltemp=78' http://10.10.60.104/control {"success": true}% curl http://10.10.60.104/query/info {"name":"OFFICE","mode":1,"state":1,"activestage":1,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":0,"away":0,"spacetemp":70.0,"heattemp":71.0,"cooltemp":78.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":72.0,"heattempmin":78.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"setpointdelta":2,"hum":36,"availablemodes":0}% curl -X POST -d 'heattemp=70.0&cooltemp=76.0' http://10.10.60.104/control {"success": true}% curl http://10.10.60.104/query/info {"name":"OFFICE","mode":1,"state":0,"activestage":0,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":0,"away":0,"spacetemp":70.0,"heattemp":70.0,"cooltemp":76.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":72.0,"heattempmin":78.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"setpointdelta":2,"hum":36,"availablemodes":0}% I'm still wondering if the POST format header matters. Without specifying a content-type directly, curl sends the data using the application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Type. I don't know what the default type is for the REST extension I was using in VS Code but omitting the header also worked, so I'm assuming it's the same. I'm explicitly using that header in the network resources. In your nodeserver, no headers are defined. Do you know what the default format is for the library you use? Although with testing I'm not sure as I get an error response with the POST to the Explorers using multipart form data content type which I would expect to see in the nodeserver logs, but I do not. On the other hand, the ColorTouch reports success with multipart form data - but does not change the setpoints. curl -X POST -F 'heattemp=62.0' -F 'cooltemp=76.0' http://10.10.60.104/control {"error":true, "reason": "'--------------------------2ee368cbd9439dfe Content-Disposition: form-data; name' Datapoint does not exist"}% curl http://10.10.60.104/query/info {"name":"OFFICE","mode":1,"state":0,"activestage":0,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":0,"away":0,"spacetemp":70.0,"heattemp":70.0,"cooltemp":76.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":72.0,"heattempmin":78.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"setpointdelta":2,"hum":36,"availablemodes":0}% curl -X POST -F 'heattemp=62.0' -F 'cooltemp=76.0' http://10.10.60.103/control {"success":true}% curl http://10.10.60.103/query/info {"name":"Master Bedroom","mode":1,"state":0,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":255,"away":0,"spacetemp":68.0,"heattemp":69.0,"cooltemp":75.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":99.0,"heattempmin":35.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"activestage":0,"hum_active":0,"hum":47,"hum_setpoint":0,"dehum_setpoint":80,"setpointdelta":2.0,"availablemodes":0}% 10.10.60.104 is an Explorer 10.10.60.103 is ColorTouch Similarly if I explicitly set the content type to JSON I get an error on the Explorer and nothing is changed but I get a success on the ColorTouch yet settings are not changed. curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"heattemp":63,"cooltemp":79}' http://10.10.60.104/control {"error":true, "reason":"Incorrectly formated request"}% curl http://10.10.60.104/query/info {"name":"OFFICE","mode":1,"state":1,"activestage":1,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":0,"away":0,"spacetemp":69.0,"heattemp":70.0,"cooltemp":76.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":72.0,"heattempmin":78.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"setpointdelta":2,"hum":36,"availablemodes":0}% curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"heattemp":63,"cooltemp":79}' http://10.10.60.103/control {"success":true}% curl http://10.10.60.103/query/info {"name":"Master Bedroom","mode":1,"state":0,"fan":0,"fanstate":0,"tempunits":0,"schedule":0,"schedulepart":255,"away":0,"spacetemp":69.0,"heattemp":69.0,"cooltemp":75.0,"cooltempmin":72.0,"cooltempmax":99.0,"heattempmin":35.0,"heattempmax":78.0,"activestage":0,"hum_active":0,"hum":46,"hum_setpoint":0,"dehum_setpoint":80,"setpointdelta":2.0,"availablemodes":0}%

In absence of working control of Explorers I've created some network resources and 4 additional variables per Tstat to essentially mimic the nodeserver. The nodeserver is still used for polling, but multiple programs exist (previously planned) to compare desired to actual state. If there is a difference, the new integer variables are set (mode,fan,heattemp,cooltemp) and then passed to a network resource for the tstat to set the desired parameters. There's a wait in there to allow another poll prior to setting/calling to prevent a race condition among programs. I use a separate resource for each thermostat instead of passing the (fixed) IP as a URL parameter as often multiple need to be set at the same event (away setback for example) and each zone can be in different states (heating vs idle or with different setpoints) so it seemed best not to re-use the variables across the home, but that means 40 variables and 10 network resources. For consistency and simplicity amongst programs and variables and overall approach I'm going to replace the direct settings of the colortouch thermostats with the same setup as well. That actually allows for easier control as all 4 can be specified in one API call rather than setting a heat setpoint, adding in a poll wait, then setting a cool setpoint which leads to logic loops. Alternative is separate programs for each of mode, fan, heat and cool setpoints for each TSTAT and each state (sleep, occupied, vacant, away, vacation)- a lot of additional programming.