paulbates

Paul Did you try factory resetting the PLM? Sometimes unexpected behavior is addressed that way

Hi Yep, just for the ones that have unusual behavior or a 0101 icon next to is. I've had a few do to when I've swapped PLMs. In rare cases, airgapping a switch or even factory resets have been needed... again, only for those where the procedure didn't work. Paul

Hi, review / follow these directions http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/19331-my-plm-died-and-i-bought-a-new-one-what-should-i-do-next/ Do not use Delete Modem Paul

I've had 2 different alarm systems with wireless since I've had dual-band Insteon. I've never noticed a problem. My current alarm system has the capability to sense and notify when its being interfered with or jammed. I have not seen a message like that in its log Paul

Ed These kinds of problems are hard, especially when intermittent. Let's hope this gets it. Paul

Ed Gotcha. All of the programs (the 6 log rows above the red) were sending scene commands at exactly the same time. I think that is related to what's going on. Can you create a new scene with all of those lights in it and use that just to turn them all off with that one scene with one program when the sensor stops sensing motion? The UDI recommended practice is to put a 2 second 'Wait' gap in programs between the 'If' sensing from a sensor, and commanding the devices to act. Paul

Was this initiated by a motion sensor? Its interesting that there was all of the events above exactly at 06:40:22 from the program log. That could potentially to be both a battery panic from a motion sensor and the source of what opened the door.

That sure happens to me occasionally for black-outs and especially brown outs.

Steven- Agree with Larry. I'm an Insteon only user and have been on V5 since last November. Go to 5.04 and plan on staying there until the upcoming zwave changes are made and "shaken out"... eg Do not upgrade to 5.05 when its released. There are a few little bugs but they are livable.. You'll get some error messages starting the admin console. They can be ignored. Also, there are the Control, Status statements in programs.. and Control (old) and Status (old).. Some devices with multiple controllers in them like keypads and EZ Floras need to use the (Old) version. Someday that will be fixed, for now use the (old) versions and move on.. No performance impact, and this kind of thing is expected in the beta. I would migrate to 5.04 and backup as Larry stated. Let programs stay the way they were, then start making changes slowly and make backups. There are new features and nodeservers, these capabilities more than outweigh the few little things to be addressed. Paul

If the noise is significant enough, it can cause component (Capacitor) failure in the 2413 PLM. This is a known problem with the 2413 due to component quality, and was not an issue for the 2412. The diagnostic behavior, when this has happened to me in the past, is that the PLM will start losing links and then eventually fail. Since this is happening repeatedly to multiple PLMs for you, my guess is that something on the powerline is causing the PLM to fail. What you are exactly describing happened to me when using a PLM with Homeseer, not the ISY.

The ISY is currently a respectable second as a primary controller and ahead of homeseer. Good to see, though its hard to tell how random the sampling really is. I believe that there are more actual HS users vs ISY. Given how crazy this market has become, it would be good to see a true randomized sampling of HA users of each of this modified version of the poll by household: Primary Controller (same list + Aduino, Pi, Beaglebone,.., echo,...) Secondary Controllers & Hubs used PLC Primary - I have xxx% (Insteon, Zwave, Zigbee, Lutron, X10,..) PLC Secondary - I have xx% (Insteon, Zwave, Zigbee, Lutron, X10,..) Non PLC protocols used (wifi, BT, IR, ....) All HA cloud protocols (HomeKit, AllJoyn...) All Cloud Integration mashups (IFTTT, Stringify,...) Paul

Going back a few posts, this sounds like there is some kind of significant circuit noise like a motor or a transformer, and possible a filterlinc is not enough. Is there anything with a motor involved near the PLM, filter or no filter? Like a furnace fan, pool pump, sump pump, dehumidifier? I chronically lost PLMs until I installed one of these to the furnace power feed, it clips peak voltages and I stopped losing PLMs. I eventually replaced the furnace with one with an ECM motor and now its no longer needed. https://www.amazon.com/X10-Line-Noise-Reducer-XPNR/dp/B0002M5OIY

I had 2 ezfloras for 5 years, its a great device. I just switched to the rainmachine. You do need the Nodelink program running on a pc or raspberry pi to connect it to the ISY. The rainmachine is easier. You will also have an easier time selling you house with the rainmachine as it will run standalone without the isy, not so for the ezflora. Even though I use the ISY to monitor and manage some of the rainmaichine's functions, it can operate independently on its own. While you can use rainmachine's cloud service to easily remotely access the rainmachine, its not required. The rainmachine can be fully accessed and controlled without it. Ezflora programming was gratifying, but very manual and a lot of work. The rainmachine has a web interface to easily set up sprinking schedules and connect to weather services. The rainmachine didn't exist in 2011, if it had, I would have chosen it. A note for either of these solutions, the terminals for the wires are small on both devices.. you'll want to work with your installer to have a patch panel or terminals installed to connect it to the yard Paul

Alex While this is not something I can directly use, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to document and share something that will help a lot of people. Thank you. Paul

Great, glad you are working, hopefully your yard is good. Paul

Hi John, I get what you are describing, I personally don't miss it in the notification section. There are times am tweaking a new programs and there can be a ton of messages that would flood my iphone notification area, which I typically use for higher level things like meetings, sever weather, travel notifications, etc. If something needs my immediate attention there is a specific sound for it, otherwise I use the app and can look under the appropriate pushover app. This certainly could be requested as a feature in the app to turn on and off. Paul

John I'm personally ok with that. I keep the app open, and have unique sounds for key alerts and prefer for the notifications to tell me about new events. Paul

Brian Its sounds like in this case the XPNR would be better recommendation because they kill high voltage spikes? That has been my experience with them, they prevented PLMs from being killed by motor noise. Paul

You can have them both running simultaneously, provided you have duplicate ISYs, Zwave Card and PLMs. I would treat it as a slow migration from ISY1, which is V4, to ISY2 which is V5. This how I migrated from HS to ISY. Have ISY1 be V4, set all devices and programs up on it. Set up ISY2 as a bare V5 system, no devices or programs. Slowly, over time, migrate groups of things over to ISY2 V5... lets say all of the switches and programs associated with yard lights.. move them at one time as a group to ISY2. Make sure the yard lights and programs work properly on ISY2. Give it time to validate, then do another group. One day, ISY1 has nothing on it and becomes backup gear, and the ISY2 V5 box actually becomes the new PROD. Paul

Probably that's the problem, the iolinc and GDO noise source are too close to each other, if possible plug the iolinc elsewhere. - You could put an insteon noise filter between the GDO and outlet. - I used these XPNRs for the old furnace motors and low voltage lighting transformers: https://www.amazon.com/X10-Line-Noise-Reducer-XPNR/dp/B0002M5OIY They wire straight across hot and neutral, as close to the noise source as possible... if the GDO has wire nuts in the housing, right there, or inside of the outlet they plug into. I've seen other devices here in the forum called snubbers which I believe are functionally the same thing, but a little smaller. I can vouch for the XPNRs, have a number of them deployed. Its very likely that a lightning strike was the culprit, these filters won't help that. Paul

The path out of V4 to V5 will be "organic" and not necessarily an X on the calendar.. Its about risk appetite, and which functions/devices you have that could be legitimately deployed under 5 now? For instance, I moved to 5 and kept everything as is. Then, I set up a node server and moved 1 of 2 thermostats to it. I ran that for for a while till I was comfortable, and then moved the other thermostat. I then changed programs to use new functionality, a little at at time. Break it into pieces, come up with a plan... Lots of backups. My experience for V4 to V5 was nothing like the HS 2 to 3 upgrade, meaning fairly straight forward with a plan. When your other half questions it, you can blame me Paul

Line noise on the circuit from motors in things like GDOs or power tools used in the garage can cause insteon devices to fail. I've had a similar experience with a PLM that was too close to my furnace's fan motor, I had to put filters on the furnace fans, which stopped it from happening. Paul

I would plan on some testing. I'm pretty sure the EZflora is a triac design for AC. I pretty sure that if it would work, it needs to be AC. I would assume it would work 24VAC or lower, not sure though. Paul

Hi Its less about viability and more about what's important to you. My take is that UDI does not budge on quality, versions take whatever they take to get right, given the price point. FWIW, I was a 10 year user of all 3 versions of HomeSeer and switched fully to the ISY 2 years ago, for the positive reasons of the product, this forum and last but not least, UDIs direct involvement. I've been on V5 for 10 months. Using io_guy's Automation Shack software, I'm getting direct benefit of Node Server technology. There are additional Node Servers I'm looking to take advantage of. Also, UDI has healthy commercial consulting and power industry projects to keep them not only stable, but growing. How many "flash in the pan" HA hub like solutions have come and gone in the last 2 years... or are very shallow from a capability standpoint? Since new builds generally have some financial "wiggle room", I would get 2 ISY 994is, and make production, and the other one the backup and V5 test box. Chances are you can move some functionality to 5 now. Paul

It could be a couple of things. 1) Insteon devices can "lose their way" sometimes after being installed. Right click on the keypad in the admin console and select "Restore device" 2) It could be the keypad is going bad... if you put your ear close is it buzzing loudly, any other anomalous behavior 3) It could be communication problems. I would suggest trying 1) and report on 2) because its quick easy to do. See if 1) addresses it Paul