paulbates

I am eagerly awating shipment of my new ISY and have been going through the docs. I have some insteon devices burried in places I'd like not to revisit for the sake of pressing the set button to get them in the ISY. I see that I can add a device with controllers like keypadlincs and the ISY will lookup and add the devices associated with links in those controllers. I have some devices that are buried in the attic or under fixtures that are only controlled by automation or direct automation... no links except in the insteon hub I am currently using... no joy on picking them up. Is it possible to add devices by address only? Maybe I temporarily add links for these devices to the keypadlncs to get them added with that feature, and then remove the links after. (?) I really don't want to go up in my attic in July Regards Paul

I'm coming to ISY from another package that is windows / .net based. The appeal to me of ISY is: 1) The product works and is solid, because... 2) How ISY is run like a business. Evidence is that this board is active, helpful and the company owners are fully engaged. Requests are not only listened to, but responded to. Changes are not made that are beyond a solid grasp of delivering something that works and plans for supporting it. The value of this foundation can't be overstated, and compared to the competition, is done very well. 3) Getting out of the windows server management business. I'm going to the ISY and and a NAS. I see the interface aspects coming with time, but my experience is you need to build your HA solution on rock, and product management is the core of that.

One way i have done this is to use the hub to send me text messages when the iolinc on my garage opens and closes. I also have my insteon smoke bridge send its battery panic messages and alerts via the hub. These devices are also linked to a separate plm that has computer control of them. I have had this set up for several months with no problems. Insteon is controlled by links... its robust, but the plm is just another device with links in it... while it does manage scenes, the main difference is that the PLM that can be manipulated by a computer, and report insteon network traffic to the device connected to it. I don't think you want schedules on the hub and your programming on your isy to the same devices. That will be confusing to understand what is actually happening. I would pick a single lamp (or something) and choose to control it via the hub. Per comments above, I think you will be "underwhelmed" by the hub. It is very simplistic and has schedules, but none of the advanced programming features of the ISY. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

The hub is extremely lightweight functionality wise. While it works well, its no comparison to the ISY. it has schedules, does notifications and has simple smart phone apps to turn things on and off. Its essentially an Ethernet connected smartlinc. Its main advantages are that its wired network connected and its x10 signaling seems stronger. A homeseer developer modified his plugin to interface with it and it works very well, its is feasible that the ISY could be updated to interface to it via ET. The disadvantage is that it must be polled via a rest type interface to detect insteon network changes and that can add a slight delay. I did some tests and its not as bad as I would have thought, but measurable. The flip side is that its more reliable than the (non ISY) USB PLM i replaced with it. The way i use it is to control an outletlinc that my current server plugs into. I can remotely access that via on the insteon hub and reboot my server without losing control. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

It sounds like you are mixing X10 and Insteon messages in the same program? My experience is that the PLM is not that smart about managing that.I have experiences where (I believe) the PLM sends the X10, but the insteon traffic on the network stomps on it. X10, being X10, can not recover from that. An example is if you send an insteon message through the plm, your insteon network goes to work receiving and responding to those messages. Yet right behind the insteon scene message, the program requests an x10 message get sent. The PLM will go right ahead and send that x10 message, even as the other insteon devices are confirming their status. and you get no response from the x10 device A way to check test this theory is to put a longer wait, eg 10 seconds to that keypad message and put x10 last as Lee indicated. If that works, back your way into a shorter time.