paulbates

I have 2 "service levels" at my house. One for things that are managed by the ISY. I keep those together and on the ISY in ISY scenes.... For safety related reasons Linked lights in virtual circuits operated by switches all go on and off instantly and at the same time. No delays or "popcorn" lights. No cloud / network dependence on key locally managed light switch functionality. Its ok for alexa to control it, but a switch will always work No ISY or PLM dependencies.. scene controlled light switches will always work even if a PLM goes flaky (which has not been often for me) The second service level is for things everyone else creates on their own... create if it you want, but that doesn't mean I own it or automate it further... if I do decide to, I create the scene I need on the ISY for the above reasons. This starts at the beginning.. when alexa was introduced in our house a few years ago, and as its evolved... there's a discussion on what it means and what it doesn't. To keep the 2 methods (alexa and insteon) synced, you'll unfortunately need a google sheet or something where everyone says what they've done. I know it kind of defeats the convenience of alexa, but I travel every week and I'm not going to look regularly in multiple accounts to see what someone did with their phone and expected to be the help desk for that. There has to be some agreement on how things work. I've used this type of model for years starting with PCs to keep bad expectations from creating an unrealistic IT support job for me. For the last scenario, All lights on and off, it might be a little easier to do that with Alexa, as you can't aggregate Insteon scenes.. they are discrete. You have to have a scene for hall lights, and an "all lights off" scene ... and add the devices in the hall lights to both. Paul

I have switches and modules older than that, going on 12 years. I lost a couple inlinelincs installed in 2007, but they were powering low voltage lighting transformers that approaching the switches limits, taking double ganging, etc into account. As there was mixed messaging at the time about triac dimmers and electronic transformers, I anticipated that those would be problematic. Other inlinelincs installed at the same time for normal loads are still working. The couple I replaced have been fine for quite a few years. I also did keypad installs in 2011-12 time frame. A few of those went out, but it was a known manufacturing defect and SH replaced them and no problems with the replacements.. outside of the occasional "restore device", maybe every couple of years. I did install a whole house surge protector in my panel in my X10 days. I think that's a key insurance policy for any electronics in the house and why I've not had a lot of problems with insteon devices. I've replaced 2 PLMs, my first one within weeks and SH replaced. I like insteon for house lighting because its not wifi dependent or controller dependent; and the design has direct links between switches and lighting control. The PLM and even ISY could die, and house lighting will continue to function. Also, its had scene and switch status from the beginning.. no polling or other controller dependent programming requirements for house lighting. Its very low maintenance and no support when I'm traveling.. outside of a restore device every year or 2, there's nothing to do. Paul

I don't think that there is an absolute answer, and there are several questions: I don't know why that would be as a sweeping statement for all LEDs. I've had LED bulbs of different types on varying ages of Insteon dimmer switches for ~8 years... switchlincs, togllincs, inlinelincs, keypadlincs and lamplics. Some of the lamplincs and inlinelincs are original first generation. No switch failures related to LEDs that I'm aware of I'm not an electrician. Can he provide a technical reason and links to stories, research that prove this out? Insteon switches can have problems and go bad, but nothing tied to LED bulbs in general. LEDs have different designs. Some work better than others. I've been lucky in that of the ~20 that I've had, they work. There are stories of different brands/models flickering, not dimming evenly etc. While I think less of that has been happening as the LED bulb design has matured, probably some still have problems. If you're planning to buy a large number at one time, I would suggest first buying one or two of the brands you're targeting and try them our first, rather than finding out the hard way and having to deal with "spouse approval factor problems" from problems with lights and dealing with returns. Paul

To back up Kissfan's recommendation, if you want direct connection to the ISY and feature rich Thermostat, z-wave is the place to look. The honeywell recommendation is great, also, RCS has a 20 year history of making thermostats that integrate with home automation and have z-wave options as well. Amazon or smarthome will have them too. They are not the slickest in terms of looks or screen presentation, but they have solid, reliable HVAC designs and work well as thermostats. Its controlling one of the most expensive and important things in your house. To me that means getting a brand that has a history of building solid HVAC devices. Honeywell and RCS are on that list. Another thing to look at is not just the Home Automation capabilities, but how feature rich they are on the HVAC side. A lot has changed in the last 5 - 10 years and thermostats can do a lot more things on their own, in addition to remote control and enhancement by a controller like the ISY Paul

Amazon has a new Security Panel API. It will be the ISY's ability to integrate with that. @bmercier - Benoit, is this something being considered? Paul

I think that’s it. Nice job. I had 2 RCS X10 Thermostats and did something similar to get a 2 degree F deadband and cover for the spotty X10 communications. My suggestion is to put a temporary notification statement in the compare program to track how often it misses Paul

Unfortunately the HVAC features of the 2441TH are limited. There is not an adjustable deadband and its factory set at 1 degree (f) The programming approach is: If lower temperature is reached Then change setpoint to high end of your deadband If higher temperature is reached then change setpoint to the low end of your deadband (keeping in mind the 2441TH factory 1 degree deadband... this should be 1 degree higher than your target) However, having tried the the 2441TH a number of years ago, I would advise against trying to program your way around it and buy a more sophisticated tstat that has advanced features including adjustable deadband. Also, the 2441TH does not always consistently report activity. Paul

I believe you can do either. But I've only used them for direct control in the fixture, and a keypad key initiated the on / off. FWIW I used a togglinc for my front porch light; inside as it was easier, matched the other switch, fit in the 1950's jbox and I didn't have to deal with the outdoor fixture. Paul

maybe the Insteon Micromodule dimmer or on/off could be fit in the work box. I use it to control a couple different fixtures. They're fairly small .. 1.8" x 1.8" x 0.7" Paul

Another thing to consider is "pollution" of the master copy of Insteon network information in the ISY itself, as the original PLM slowly fell apart. Do you have a good back up of your ISY from before the PLM started to fail? If yes Unplug ISY and PLM Factory reset and plug in the plm, then plugin the ISY Restore that backup Retry Restore PLM Some devices may have to be factory reset to get them working, or the "01010" to go away if there was a lot of insteon management activity in this state. Paul

If you haven't tried already, you'll want to factory reset the keypad, followed by a restore device. Many times that will bring them back to life and they don't need to be replaced Changing between 6 and 8 buttons Paul

Hi, and welcome to the UDI Forums! Unfortunately, no. The Insteon network management functions of the ISY can only be operated through the admin console. Paul

If your goal is the fastest and simplest integration between Alexa and Insteon, and all you want is verbal commands and using your smartphone to turn lights on and off, the hub is probably easiest... if you are starting from no ISY or no Hub. If you have the ISY and all of your insteon devices are managed by the ISY, adding the hub is complicated to setup, and maintain. If your goal is using the ISY's programs and other features, and you want to add alexa verbal commands on top of it, the ISY portal probably makes the most sense... especially if you are starting with all of your insteon devices managed by the ISY. I believe the portal would make the most sense in your case. Paul

The terminal program you need is Telnet. On windows, l believe Telnet is not enabled by default, go to windows features and enable it.. I think it’s under network. You may have made a program change that created a tight loop in a program (..or programs) Paul Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi and welcome to the UDI Forums! I think you're on the right track. The plugin (which is great) aside, media device modes and states can be very specific to the equipment. Experimenting will help get you to the right place. For recursion: The ISY is a very simple and fast state machine. It runs one instance of a program. You can call a program from itself, and it will restart. You need to be careful in that the ISY is very unforgiving about "tight loops". If your program calls itself there is the opportunity it will use all of its processor as the program re runs itself over and over again. You'll want to put a wait 10 seconds statement when you first write the program because its tough to stop tight looped programs (right click on the program and pick Stop). Start simple. Also, for status, the program will run when the state changes. So Watch TV will only run when a change in state from true to false happens Paul

An x10 coupler will do the same job Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

While its unusual, its pretty straightforward. You need buy a double pole breaker. What's important about that is that the signalinc needs to touch each of the 2 legs. When it does this, the insteon signal passes from one leg to the other, covering the entire electrical system. The double pole break insures that the signallinc gets a hot from each leg, by touching 2 adjacent bus bars on one side. The breaker also protects you when servicing the signalinc. It does not draw much power, that's not the point. http://cache.insteon.com/documentation/2406Hqs-en.pdf I added a 2 gang workbox that screwed in a panel punch out. I installed the signallinc on one side and an outlet on the other. I wired the signalinc as directed and wired the outlet to one of the hots of the double pole breaker along with the singalinc. I use the outlet for the PLM so its signal is right at the panel in the center of the electrical system Paul

Most likely. I've had a signalinc bridge on my electrical panel for a number of years and it made a big difference. You'll need to know how the power is set up for work, number of phases, how many panels, etc. If its a commercial location there are a number of possibilities. Scroll down to the section "Use Powerlinc Modem as a Phase Bridge" Paul

This sounds like insteon signalling problems. Have you been an long term inteon user, meaning you've confirmed bridging the power legs of your electrical system? The "moving around" problem is generally an indicator of the power legs not being bridged. The directions for insteon devices, like the plm, describe the "4 Tap" test for confirming the ability of Insteon devices to communicate with each other. I'd recommend that next. Paul

Welcome to the UDI Forums! Standard network cables should work, however the PLM is using RS-232 signaling, not ET. For the PLM cable, its more a matter of how long the cable is, not the standard RJ45 ET Pinout. There have been stories of 50', but I'd start with something shorter to validate it working, and then try longer lengths Paul

Hi Max In that situation I would factory reset and start again.. Associating the portal, resetting the password and adding modules back in won't take very long. That way, you'll start off your new house with a fresh ISY and V5 FW Paul

I think in the past I've seen threads on those lines but don't have the links. I was pretty sure about how to interpret the heap, but now not so sure. I have ~ 1/10th the number of programs you have and my results are fairly close about the same. Maybe @Michel Kohanim or @Chris Jahn could provide better insight here Paul

Its hard to nail that specifically. The 1000 was a general guideline, not a hard limit for the ISY Pro. Programs can be different sizes.. so its not a hard program # limit but rather when you exhaust memory. That's contributed to by anything you create/configure with the ISY.. programs, variables, network resources, web content, notifications, ISY Modules and Nodeservers (etc.) Another factor is the the number of events driving programs to run could overwhelm the ISY's processor's ability to perform as expected, even if memory is not exceeded. Symptoms would be long start times for the Admin Console, or ISY performance is not what's expected. Here is some info Query your ISY's memory use Use telnet (not SSH) to access your ISY locally. Type SM The first line will look like this, free heap space is what memory you have left: Static = 262144 used, Heap = 1114112 free, Total = 1376256 My sense of danger would kick in if that Heap number was less than 20,000, but maybe Michel or Chris can suggest another number https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i/ISY-26_INSTEON:Replacing/Formatting_an_SD_Card Paul

A common way to do it is Break the project into rooms or functional groups of devices Decide if any programs are still useful and delete the ones that are not (eg same logic but new devices to be added) Do the same for notifications, network resources, variables...eg don't keep "garbage" around As an alternative to the above three steps, factory reset the ISY... again.. if you don't want any of your old programs, etc Then, by room or functional group: Factory reset each device Add the device back in to the ISY Build the scenes necessary to support what you're doing Update programs if you kept any that apply Validate that things are working Move on to the next room / function Paul

Ed That is the only way. You can control scenes with programs but what I described is the only way to create them Any switch that needs to control the 3 way (or N way), has to be configured as a controller. So both switches need to be controllers. You can remove the primary switch by dragging it out of the scene (or single clicking it and pressing delete).. and add it back in and make it a controller. That will fix it. Paul