paulbates

I get notifications several times a day that include HVAC activity and temps. I use pushover notifications and the pushover app to get notifications on my phone of key events. Pushover doesn't let me see what the temperature is at any one moment, but I do get notified that key ISY programs are taking action and associated values (indoor temp, outdoor temp, humidity, etc) and alerts when key events or if key thresholds are crossed.. if HVAC is on and indoor temp>74 or indoor temp<60. I can review those messages any time I want. And If I didn't get the messages several times a day I would know that something happened to the ISY or its internet connected. If you are trying to catch temperatures out of range, this is a good "event driven" way to do it, vs checking all of the time. Paul

What is the load being controlled? Based on what you listed, the path heads that way. If you remove or unhook the load, or use some other load, what happens? Paul

It’s a limited interface. To fill in a little more, the communication is effectively one way from the linked first alert to the bridge. Also good to know is that the battery alert works only for the unit linked to, not the others... and it’s not possible to know which smoke/co detector triggered, just that one did. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can certainly unplug them and see. I still get use out of one in my garage to extend to 2 iolincs I have out there. It works ok without it, it works perfect with it based on level three diagnostics. Paul

The ISY is extremely powerful for integration with the programs tab. The next closest is probably homeseer. But after 10 years and 3 versions of HS, the ISY is better/easier for me in that regard. My preference is to have published integration points (Nodeservers= Nodelink, polyglot) and not custom coding to maintain for my house. Having moved to V5, I've gotten away with exactly that on the ISY. I do have a pi, but all I did was set it up out of the box, install mono & nodelink and configure... I don't think about it and upgrade it once a year (or every major vulnerability). Both of my kids have graduated and I'm closer to thinking of selling, and keeping the integration at that higher-level will let me sell the integrated active automation (HVAC, Sprinklers, Lighting controls, Attic fan, etc) as a feature that can be turned over to either a techie buyer, or find a support contact for them. Removing coding off of the tech support responsibilities list will make that plausible (eg.. not having to know specifically .net, python, etc..). Things related AV will most likely come with me, and are in their own integration bubble.. eg Harmony-alexa.. a new owner will have their own. Paul

I've had Simplisafe for 2 years. It gets an 8 from me as an integrated alarm system and a 3 for iot integration. The good Easy to install System - works Monitoring - works App - works (pin authentication) Integrated smoke/co Has cameras, I don't use them The bad Bespoke Simplisafe monitoring (COPS).. No Alarm.com, etc Very low level iot. They have tons of requests and long threads asking for iot (IFTTT, Stringify, etc) integration, and 3 years of "we'll ask the team"... I gave up I have a Rube Goldberg machine in gmail to parse their email and IFTTT using maker. I can have my ISY know the state of the system, but can not control it from the ISY. Paul

If your primary requirement is the support of that diversity of devices and you aren't willing to use V5 in alpha and don't want to wait (all understandable) it sounds like smarthings is the way to go. If you can integrate the ISY as at some level it would probably make sense to keep your investment in $ and learning curve and consider other duties for it in the future. Paul

If you can make that circuit an outlet hung on the appropriate fixture on your panel, that works the best in my experience. It gets it the closest to all of the houses circuits.s

The smoke bridge is specifically for First Alert smoke detectors labeled "Onelink". It doesn't work with anything else. Its also "one way" messages only from the First Alert to the Smokebridge: First Alert Onelink -> Insteon -> ISY. The Smokebridge does not transmit user messages to the Onelink (only internal setup & acknowledgement messages), it cannot set them off Onelinks are not wifi or TCP/IP based, so network resources would not help. Paul

Ben Sometimes its an "additive" problem. Meaning the stereo receiver created some noise, but the signal got through. Now, something else has been plugged in on the circuit and the and combination is enough to kill it, and removing the receiver lowers it back down enough to work Paul

Right click on the switch and pick restore device. If that doesn’t do it, do a factory reset followed by restore device. If neither one of those does it, it’s most likely dead. Paul Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Konrad, and welcome to the UDI forums. The advantage of the ISY is integrating both Insteon and zwave. The keypad with labeled buttons is a big thing for us & wife approval factor. We use them daily and I've yet to see any equivalent in a zwave product. There are plenty of people using Insteon here. Neither technology is "wart free". There is the danger of falling into the Mac vs Windows, Ford truck vs Chevy truck type of thing. Paul

YW. We have long periods in the spring and summer where temps and humidity are mild. The house came with dampers into the attic and a gable fan. I replaced the flimsy dampers with Tamco 9000s (silicone seals - every edge, foam core blades) and a Belimo actuator when we re-insulated the house. Keypad keys can turn that on and off... dampers open and fan goes on. We use that a lot, and all of the humidity and fan cycling automation "goes to sleep" if key doors are open, the dampers are open and the fan is on. Keeps it comfortable with lower costs. Paul

Its really a factor of how you can/want to manage it. Why would you want to control humidity? Comfort and health for people and animals. Ideally it should be near the middle... 40% to 50%. It proven to me in the last 3 winters... we are healthier when keeping the humidity up above 34% when possible. Sounds simple? There are complications for maintaining that level, based on what type of building construction, windows and insulation/sealing- Heating: =>40% can mean the humidifier will run around the clock (based on construction). That can use electricity and in my case hot water.. my pads are plumbed to hot. Humidity can collect in places like the attic, so actively venting it may be necessary Window frosting. Again, depending on construction, windows will heavily frost when the temps drop... the windows can be damaged especially if they are wood. I have anderson wood framed windows sliding on plastic tracks. Newer window technology X pane, fiberglass, etc allow the level to be higher with less frosting. Humidity needs to be lowered as outdoor temps drop. Cooling Our climate can be humid in the summer. Even if the temp is a setpoint, it "feels" uncomfortable > 60%. There is an "overcooling" concept that will cause cooling to be called up to X degrees below setpoint to lower the humidity and make it "feel" comfortable. Dehumidifiers can be installed in the HVAC unit and called to lower humidity. Fan cycling needs to be controlled... After a Cool cycle completes, the fan needs to not run for 10-15 minutes so the condenser drains. Otherwise, the fan will blow that moisture right back in the living spaces making it uncomfortable and starting the cycle all over again. I watched this happen on my systems Options Control with the thermostat. I have the Venstar Colorrtouch T7900. The 9 digit (versus 8 ) means it has a humidistat and control features for configuring the status humidity behavior (both humidify and dehumidify) A 24vac wire from the humidifier is pulled to the thermostat location exposes to the API that humidity mode is running and what the humidity is exposes set point fields via api for setting what you want the humidity to be Just like the desired setpoint for heat may be different than for cool; the setpoint for dehumidify level may want to be different than humidify The ISY (via nodelink) can establish humidify % / dehumidify % I have a simple series of ISY programs that step humidity down based on outdoor temp to prevent frosting My humidfy highest set point is 38%, but everybody including pets stops complaining / scratching=> 34% I use the Venstar T7900's overcool feature to take the edge off in the summer. More cycles, less total runtime, better comfort. "Occupants" less frequently lower the temp on their own. The advantage of this method is that, if the stat supports it, most of the control and contacting, etc, is handled by the stat. Use your own humidistat and "roll your own" version of the above Use zwave and/or tag humidistats. Place them around and average, etc Use an iolinc to contact the humidifier and/or dehumidifier. (I think you need a relay that can read iolinc contact closure on one side and close 24vac on the other) Also have your program turn on the HVAC fan at the same time if its a humidifier on your hvac system so that moist air is distributed into the living spaces The advantage of this method is potentially better measurement as the stat may not catch all areas... again in my experience heat and humidity live different lives Hybrid / additional Support either of the above methods with local humidifiers / dehumidifiers. Have ISY programs turn on on/off modules in individual spaces by following when its being called for elsewhere My goal was to make this 100% automated, and it is. There is no user control of humidity. I get pushover messages as the programs make changes so I can tweak... (eg its too dry doing it this way, or the windows are frosting if I do it that way). I do get comments when its really cold out and the humidity was lowered to <25%... but nothing to be done about that and I don't want the family manually turning it up. Ease of use / what to do? To be candid, the Venstar colortouches are pretty technical looking. There is a "simple thermostat" mode but it supersedes the scheduling feature. So no. My wife has been using the Venstar app for the last few years for temp adjustments, or taps the up or down button on the stat and that does. Again, no manual humidity adjustments, all automated You could keep the nest and use option 2 above for ultimate fine grained control. If you did, I would configure the nest to not control humidity and control all on your own so you know what's what. There's the upper model ecobee which is popular and controls humidity on its own... but that's as much as I know. Larry or io_guy could chime in on it vs Venstar. I know this was a lot, but after chipping away at it for a few years, its all related and what you choose to install needs to cover all of the areas Paul

Our LED Christmas tree lights do this. Plug in an old unused phone charger along with the lights. It takes 3 - 5 seconds, but the bulbs will stop glowing after turned off. You might have to try a couple to find one that works right. I also use one with detachable cable so there is no cable to deal with. Paul

If you don't want to go V5, there is a V4 version of the program Bumbershoot referenced too. It puts the information into ISY variables under V4. You can then use the variables in your programs... its the same information you see in the screen shots, but in variables instead of nodes. Month 1 - 12, Day 1 - 31. The even/odd fields are great for things like sprinkler programs where you need to manage to a certain day More info and screen shots here Paul

Is the server not on the same lan as the ISY; you can’t use a local nat address (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x)? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you post a picture of NR, or list all of the fields, settings use? Paul

Can you post an image of your Network Resource, covering up key data (keys, account, password) Paul

Hi Joe, Welcome to the UDI forums! Are your devices and scenes in folders? Those need to be moved to the "root" folder of main, then they can be deleted Paul

Hi and welcome to the UDI forums! What you're describing is a known problem with the io_linc and I've personally run into it I used x10 powerflash modules for years to sense my furnace runtime. I had power sensing doughnut sensors attached to the powerflash's leads. I attempted to use my first iolincs to replace the powerflash modules. No go. The iolinc's led would glow, but never contact. After a lot of help on another forum trying different sensors I gave up (I do this through my thermostat now) Hopefully you can find a way to convince the powerflash to register it I don't think you need the variable, BTW. Once the "switched on" is sensed by the program, you should be good. Paul

Hi Wayne Here is what I do Put all of the switches and the bathroom MS in a scene. If you want the switches to also turn all of the lights off make them controllers Or, if you want them only to respond to the motion/timer program only, leave them as responders You'll have to get the motion sensor, open the battery door and press the set button till it blinks to put it in linking mode first In the admin console, find the master bath MS, click options and check the box for "send on commands only"Do this while you have the MS down and in Set mode from above, it will stay in set mode for 5 minutes or so, its LED will be flashing Change your program so it looks for master bath MS "switched on" instead of "switched off"That way, every motion sense will send an "On", and restart the program and its 10 minute timer Change the program to "Set <scene you created> off", instead of turning each light off individually I do this for my driveway motion sensor and stair hallway sensors. You can also have the program dim the lights first for a few minutes first as a warning before turning off, in the case their motion is not caught. Paul

Jack One thing to keep in mind is that the ISY can record some of the corrupted data from the failed PLM, and that gets backed up..., and restored to the new PLM. If you have problems with the scene tomorrow, I would remove the affected items from the scene(s) and re-add it Paul

Phil I outlook.com as my personal email and remember going though this at one time and never got it to work. I tried allowing POP, alternate port 25, etc. You might get this to work: under account.live.com/activity is recent activity / session.. you can tell it accept your failed login location as acceptable to talk to. Simple to try. However, if that works, I could imagine that it will break if your ISP internet IP changes and definitely if your ISP changed; ....you'll have to remember that. I did use my outlook.com account as the destination for ISY notifications for a while, but sent them from my ISY through a gmail account I set up to handle any house/HA functions that are email based. Gmail works great as a relay, and its filter/rules engine is helpful splicing up, filing and relaying email messages from other systems (my router's IPS/virus alerts, alarm system's email alerts, idrive cloud backup status, ... ect).. gmail gave me a good stair step in integrating all of that, and I think is more helpful if you think you'd eventually go to a notification service like pushover. Paul

The insteon protocol is not designed for a wide range of analogue values. The thing I've seen others use are are the CAO wireless tags that include a temp sensor. They can be set up to write temperatures, including outdoors, back into ISY variables via wifi>lan>ISY. Search the forum for CAO and you'll find a number of references Paul