paulbates

There is this remote sensor accessory for the ZTH, its range might be ok depending how cold your freezer is: -13° to 185°F (-25° to 85°C). I don't know if the ISY can see the temperature for it though, someone else here might be able to say for sure.

Michel That 'straight answer' is greatly appreciated (as always). The reality is that the interruptible service is under the power company's control, and I its more important to manage my house off the main meter via the ISY. I can look on line to the power company's site to read my interruptible AC costs. This helps me plan my implementation, thank you. Regards Paul

I'm discussing smart meter installation with my power company. I currently have interruptible power for my AC system and it has a separate meter. My power company says when I switch to smart meters, I will keep interruptible AC and have 2 smart meters, one for the house and one for interruptible AC. Can the ISY talk to multiple meters? In the installation pdf under My Electricity and Provision the Meter , it shows the opportunity to select from multiple PANs. Without configuring the meter, it’s tough to tell if I can talk to more than one. Any experience or thoughts on this?

I've used both. I got a measurable improvement when I added the insteon coupler.Fair to say that both work, but the insteon coupler works better for me. I have it and the insteon coupler plugged into the same box at the panel

Hi MIchel Ok, ticket submitted, thanks Paul

I am new ISY user coming from another HA package. I was able to get all my devices added to the ISY by adding devices with "add devices found in links and keep existing links". My network has a lot of lighting controlled from the switch controller to the lighting controller, deleting those links would disable existing functionality When I did this, I ended up with 48 scenes, numbered 4 through 136, with some duplicate scene numbers. The duplicate scenes have links to different devices in them. I need to both rename the scenes to make sense to my set up, and resolve duplicate scenes and delete them. I believe i can figure this out by walking through the devices rename scenes logically. The problem I have is where there are multiple scenes with the same number and different scene contents. I think this is what I should do to resolve this Write all the scene numbers down and note duplicates Go through my ISY list by device/controller. Look at the associated "is a controller for" Look at the associated "is a responder for" validate that the scene contents make sense and/or fix rename "is a controller for" scenes and cross each off the list as I resolve them assume I can delete the remaining duplicate scene numbers left over at the end verify the final links for devices that are affected by duplicate scene numbers Does this sound like the right approach, any recommendations? Paul

What is being plugged into the outletlinc, a noisy device like motor, fan etc? Or a transformer? The problem is most likely a noisy load that overwhelms the outletlinc and locks it up, requiring the restart.

You can also shim the first plate with foil, milk jug plastic, etc, depending the wall and the box positioning

It comes with a plastic plate that mounts were the normal leviton cover. The cover you see snaps to that. It's worth getting one and playing with it to see what you think.

Yes, it can be tough and take a lot time to get right. Especially with metal gang boxes in older (circa 1950) homes Here is what I did. Leviton makes a nice decora switchplate set that has cover that snaps over. It leaves some room for the switch. This is not the best picture, but it gives you an idea of how it will look. That kept me from "sawing and banging" on the switch. It does take longer than i'd like to get the faceplate depth exactly right, but I have been able to do it

That's true brian. In that case the XPNR would need to be used. I have a number of those on low voltage lighting and my furnances. Its harder to deal with these as they need to be connected on the device side, in the device itself or special box added for that purpose.

I recently replaced the x10 supersockets outside my home for a virtual yard light circuit recently with outletlincs. 2 of them immediately exhibited the symptoms you did and I had to cut power to them to reset them after a few hours after being on. The recreate is simple: If the devices stay turned off, no problems. If load is switched on to the outletlinc powering the yard light transformers, after about an hour, the switch becomes unresponsive. Even the button locally on the outletlnc stops responding. cutting power to the outletlinc revives it... until load is on for another hour. THERE IS A FIX: I got home last night am plugged an x10 noise filter into the outletlinc, and the transformer into the noise filter. I was not able to recreate the problem after leaving the yard light transformer on all day The other solution is an X10 wire in filter installed in the noisy device itself, not in the wiring to the outletlinc from the house.

Hi Teken Sounds like a tough spot and sorry to hear that. Some thoughts: Something could be wrong with the unit and perhaps not your code? Eliminate firmware release candidate problem. Did you go to a new release candidate around the time it started losing it? Reset the ISY to factory and reload your configurations and code. Being relatively new I don't know how hard that is to do. The base OS/Firmware could have gotten trashed should be eliminated as a possibility Finally and hopefully not, could the ISY have a hardware problem caused by a power spike or something else? Is it possible to run diagnostics on it in its current state? If those things don't pan out, I think Michele is on the right track, shut down all programs, see what happens, then turn them on group at a time until it breaks. Hopefully that pinpoints where the problem is occurring, and then turn programs on / off until you narrow it down. If its code it could be one program, or two programs that unintentionally interact and 'run away' with the ISY. Paul

Bottom line: ISY support is better and easier to program. Homeseer offers the free range of .NET programming, if that is a skill you have; VB or C#. The ISY is stable product with a predictable, managed upgrade path. HS is in the middle of a long, slow upgrade from HS2 to HS3. I would spend some time reading the HS3 forums to get a temperature check of how that's going. Specifically, look at the forum for "Insteon Plugin by Homeseer". It needs a lot of work. If you go Homeseer, go with Mark Sandlers 3rd party Insteon plugin. It is more than worth the money. or BPWWERs ISY plugin if you choose to go ISY and Homeseer FYIW, I use ISY on a PLM, and keep my insteon hub running to use the Insteon mobile app to control basic devices from my phone. I find the ISY to be easy to program for basic Home Automation functions.

Agreed Teken We have talked about moving and it would be a mixed bag. I would want to leave it there for passive automated functions that would not have a different programming preference: 2 EZfloras and the iolinc temp sensor and hi speed low speed inline lincs for the attic fan. I could swap out the isy for a smaller version. There is one way to water the grass & one way to keep the upstairs cool by venting the attic. All the light switches, garage control, thermostats,.. everything else, would come out.

Jack, that is an interesting setup and you documented it well. Thanks for that thoughtful and complete response. I like having a rainsensor on a separate iolinc rather than the onboard on the EZflora; that seems to unconditionally shut the EZflora down which is not always the right thing when weather turns around and is hot again immediately. I think I see a Hydreon in my future Regards Paul

I have an intermatic I added about 12 years ago. I don't have any signal problems I attribute to it. It looks like the same case as this, though mine has 2 LEDs, one per phase. We have bad, noise power in my area and I attribute this device to no fried HA that I know of in 13 years. Its an Intermatic IG1240RC3 and mine is very similar to this

Thanks for that clarification Xathros. The 20' wire feet is powerline around the walls; how far my PLM would be from the panel on powerline if I put the PLM at the TV. The Cat 5 trip down through the crawlspace to the panel is more straight-line than that, so even less distance, to your point. Placing the PLM near my AV equipment doesn't sound ideal. I'll try it, add a few of my "problem child" Insteon devices, remote on my Insteon powerline and test their communications to see what happens. But I'm leaning more towards putting the PLM in the outlet on my panel that I've always used for powerline interfaces. And suck up a trip through the crawlspace Paul

I appreciate this thread and remain disappointed in SH at the same time. I added a 2441TH to my HA system at about the same time that this thread started. I had random mode changes, or shifting to full on Heat with not stop. WAF went through the floor. I had similar calls with SmartHome trying to "fix" my HVAC system, which continues to have (2) 12 year old RCS X10 stats that work fairly reliably. So this thread is telling to my story. SH needs to better beta market test their products. I bought a Hub 2 years ago, and it had to be replaced with one with new firmware after months. After that it’s been fine. However it looks like that did not happen for the 2441TH. I really appreciate the field engineering and effort in this post, but SM hasn’t resolved the root cause. I don't want to spend this much for 2 stats to have to proceed to 'McGyver" them to get what I already have in my RCS stats plus some new features. Sounds like it’s still not time to buy.

Your note says just one line / breaker. I had a case where I thought that but it was actually 2 lines for 2 breakers had been tied together, one old and one new from new construction. The behavior I got was a little different, it caused a keypad linc to get noisy and then quit working and need to be reset. If the other suggestions don't solve it, you may want to try unbundling the switches and measuring all lines in that box with a voltmeter to see if more than one is hot.

Hi, thanks Michel and Oberkc. I wanted to use the IR capability out of the box if possible. I'm now leaning towards mounting the ISY in the tv case and plugging the PLM into the outlet nearst there which is maybe 20 wire feet from the panel. I'll measure Insteon performance and see what suffers since I have a good communications baseline through my existing system. If I run into comm issues, i'll fish a cat 5 wire through the crawl space to the panel for the PLM. Regards. Paul

Purdue Guy.. I read the pdf manual and didn't catch it that way, Thank you. I have a number of Insteon devices that are virtual electrical circuits for low voltage and other lighting from wall switches. They work device to device and can function if my current HA setup, even the hub/plm die. It doesn't happen often, but I have a travel job now and the few times its happened has been bad WAF. Its how it was designed. I like to monitor and have the convience of "all off", but to rebuild all those links in keypads will be a bear. My thought is to go back through with my existing HA package after I convert and pull the links to the hub out as the final step. Thank you again Paul

Probably an obvious answer, but wanted to see what others have done. I'm getting an ISY with IR. It looks like the IR receiver is built in to the chasis of the ISY, which implies placing the ISY in my TV cabinent to user that functionality. I have a harmony remote that will come in very handy. The flipside is I want my PLM in the outlet i have at the panel right next to the insteon phase coupler. The trip between is across a crawl space. Its a reasonable length for a serial Cat 5 cable. Wondered what others have done to deal with this? It doesn't look like that the IR receiver can be extended via plugin IR on a cable? Thanks! Paul

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.