kohai

I have two z-wave appliance power cords on two pumps. When the pump auto starts due to detecting water, the isy sends me an email (voltage > 0). Mine run really short... like 10 seconds since they are actually condensation pumps. Then in one pit I have a water leak sensor to tell me if a pump fails (e.g. water level rises). I need to buy a spare to have on hand. I haven't found the right way to monitor my outside sump pump that is on the french drains around the house. I haven't researched a good way to deal with monitoring it given the distance from my isy. I only use zwave.

I stayed there a couple of years ago. At the time, they had a control pad/screen/thing on the night stand that controlled the curtains and lights and probably other things.

It took me two tries to get it linked, but the first test has now worked.

Yesterday I googled about this and today it is a reality. Maybe I'm magic. https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa

It doesn't matter what I call the program in the ISY, right? It isn't looking at that name, just the spoken text entry I put in, right?

I'll give that a try. In looking in the app under settings, I can see what it thought I said. It's interesting that sometimes it has the exact phrase I have for my spoken word but doesn't know what to do with it.

I've tried reversing the phrasing too. So far, I've only tried programs. The ISY can trigger my lighting system (Centralite) via a network resource (centralite serial via a serial-ethernet device). Since the lights don't show up as devices, I've only tried programs.

OK, so you guys got me interested enough to try a dot. Several commands worked, but when I tried to add my office lights, I get a wonderful error from Alexa: I found several devices with that name. No matter what I say, she can't figure out what I'm doing. My spoken text is: Alexa, turn office lights off Alexa, turn office lights on If I delete one, the remaining one starts to work. I've tried using the word "den" instead of "office" and it doesn't matter. I've told it to forget devices and rediscover them between changes. I've tried removing "lights" from the phrase and it doesn't matter. I have 5 isy programs setup to be callable from the echo dot. Any tips?

I'm still trying to get my brain around the idea of wanting to talk to my home. I don't even talk to my cell phone or my cars that have voice functionality -- I find it generally frustrating because it never understands me. Is there a correlation between people that talk to their phones and people that want to talk to their homes? (that rhymed)

I don't have an echo or dot. I keep waiting for the killer use to justify it. What are you all using it for besides just listening to music?

Ditto here in Utah. The expense to outfit every new home versus the loss doesn't work out.

Ding ding! I agree with the train comments but shipping by train is slow due to logistics. The other day my father-in-law was talking about the car dealership he worked at until he retired last year (Volkswagen). They can order parts at the end of the day and have them from California to Utah the next morning. Every day someone drives from CA and stops at the handful of VW dealers to drop off parts. They (I assume VW) had their own driver because it was cheaper than overnighting all of those parts via UPS/Fed-ex. Every day someone made that drive (it's a 12 hour drive one way) to bring parts.

I often think the actual/eventual use case of technology is always slightly different than the inventors' ideas at the start. There's a pivot at some point. Self-driving cars around town is a dream that I'm not sure we'll get to. However, Uber and Volvo are starting right now in Pittsburgh (with human's monitoring behind the wheel). http://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-to-buy-self-driving-truck-startup-ottomotto-1471528978 I would think long haul trucking is the place to start with self driving vehicles. For example, I-15 goes from San Diego to the Canadian border (right through Utah). A truck with big enough gas tanks could just start and go (no need for a sleeping compartment... put more gas there). Freeway driving has less complications than around-town driving. Have a starting truck center and a destination truck center just next to the freeway. Hey, maybe we could have them remotely monitored like military drones. One guy at a desk somewhere could drive/monitor a dozen trucks up I-15 if they never really had to do anything other than follow their lane. I realize I've really simplified it but we're almost to the point of someone trying this.

I just setup an account with Elk about 4-5 weeks ago. Their form asked where I bought the system (probably verifying it was an authorized dealer). The only surprise was that the account is manually approved and takes 1-2 business days. I didn't do this in advance and the install was at a vacation home and I was leaving that day when I got around to needing the software and couldn't get it from their website. It was annoying but not end of the world as I wasn't done with the install and was coming back anyway. Elk has some decent videos on youtube about install. I like that youtube allows you to set the playback speed so I watched a bunch of those at 1.5x to get familiar with the system. The one other thing I ran into and Elk support was helpful to quickly point me in the right direction was with the wireless transceiver. I followed the instructions for the ERP2 software to enroll it instead of the keypad method and I either missed a step or the instructions didn't include a step that got me stuck until I called them. I thought I had a dead battery and drove around town looking for an odd sized battery (CR123a or something like that) before finding one, paying way too much for it, and then discovering it wasn't the battery. Anyway, the written instructions are generally well written and verbose.

Yes, I think it does have what you are saying. I can click the up or down arrow and then I can press "permanent hold" or just press "done" and it will do a temporary hold until the selected time (which by default is the next time the system schedule changes). Note that mine are wifi and not z-wave. Pics attached (if I do it right).

This is the one I grumble about. I've got 5 of them. If the voltage fluctuates much, it can drop the wifi connection. I have a honeywell multizone controller that they are all hooked to. Some zones work just fine and I've got 2 zones that are funky. I can move the thermostats around and the problem stays with the zone. It also only seems to happen in the winter. Go figure. On a side note, things I do like about them: - They aren't round. I can't stand round. They look like a more traditional thermostat but look nice and updated not 1980 boxy. So, I guess I'm saying I like their industrial design much better than other thermostats (both old and nest-like). - The color background of the lcd can be customized and I can select something like the paint color. This makes it blend in better and look intentional. - It can auto switch from heat to cool. Must have that in Utah where our temperatures swing that much in a day (Spring/Fall). - Layout is readable and decent.

I should have stated the spectrum analyzer was because Honeywell support was blaming RF interference on the wifi issue. Once I ruled that out, they moved on to blaming the voltage. I didn't have more than a volt meter to have that debate and after showing that the voltage was high enough I decided to stop fighting. My theory is the slight fluctuation in the voltage causes the problem (assuming Honeywell is right that it is a voltage problem... it is location specific and not thermostat specific so this makes sense). Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent to the thread.

I'm kind of turned off on the Honeywell wifi thermostats (not zwave). I have 5. After working with their support for a long time, they think my Honeywell zone controller/furnace has enough fluctuation in voltage to the thermostats that they occasionally lose their wifi connection. In my measuring of voltage, it fluctuates slightly but is still well within their specs. It seems to be specific to only happening in the winter. I'll see when it gets cold again. I spent way too much money on spectrum analzyer, etc, to debug it. I should have cut them loose and tried to return them.

So, do you all have your programs checking the 'away' status variable in their IF statements to determine if they should run?

I wonder if you can have a program that monitors if other programs are disabled and re-enable them. Unless he disables the monitoring program.

I don't think anyone is arguing that a Ubiquiti is better than a Ruckus. They are similar products for different niches and have different price points to match -- each company is intentionally serving different customer bases. E.g. a Hyundai vs Lexus. The Hyundais work fine but they aren't a Lexus, even if Hyundai makes some cars that look really similar they still aren't a Lexus but people buy Hyndais and drive them around and are happy with them because that is what they wanted when they went shopping and it was what they could afford. If I install a multi-wap setup with more than just a couple of waps, I definitely will look into Ruckus based on your suggestions. Just stumbled across this for those that don't want to run unifi controller on their own machine. Note that the controller is not required to run all the time if you aren't using the portal/guest functionality. https://www.cloudunifi.com/

If you google Ubiquiti reviews, you see that they do get good reviews. They are budget-oriented-entry-level-commercial-grade equipment which is definitely a step up from the home access points we are all used to using and the prices are good so that the jump from residential to Ubiquiti is feasible.

I'm not sure a blanket statement that Ubiquity is junk is accurate. I think the two companies bring different things to market and based on the person's needs, they can choose. For a simple inexpensive setup, Ubiquity can work well. If you want 20 access points, then Ruckus brings more tools.

I just installed two UAP-AC-PRO units here at my house and I manage a small network of them at my kids' school. I like the Ubiquity products. I haven't tried the one you are referring to. I also have an Edgerouter Lite that is really configurable. I don't see how an access point would conflict with a ISY since they are different frequencies (z-wave/zigbee vs wifi).

I have three Windows 10 machines. Two work, one doesn't and I haven't ever dug enough to figure out why the one doesn't work.