dywicked

Definitely a bad decision from an end-user perspective. There may have been a good reason from an implementation perspective. -David

I understand the problem you are describing - I think what I am saying is that for certain applications / scenarios, these limitations of the protocol can be overcome as long as the user understands how these workarounds are implemented. For example, in one room I have a switclinc dimmer and a few lamplinc dimmers. I never set these independently, I always have them at the same level (whatever it is). For this specific scenario, which I think is very common - it would be simple for the ISY to look at its own database, and have the PLM send the Insteon command to every device in the scene to set the on level to x (0-255) based on what the user inputs (says). It would be important for the user to understand that if they enable this functionality it will override whatever on-levels the current scene has set, but would be very useful to have as a capability when appropriate. In theory this could be implemented in even more complicated ways, for example - apply stated on level only to devices which are already on in the scene, unless all are off in which case set all to the specified level etc.. But baby steps I guess? I suppose it would be best if this logic could be written directly by the user (programs that can take a brightness level via voice and operate on it as a variable). -David

Insteon's white paper confirms that there is no command to set the brightness level of a scene as there is for a device. I kinda feel like the whole point of ISY is not to necessarily "circumvent" native Insteon functionality, but to build on top of it. At least, that's why I use it. Given the breadth of devices Insteon makes and the fact that many of them would have limited usefulness without higher-level programming on top of the native capabilities, I would go as far as saying that Insteon expects it. Best, -David

Hi Michel, That makes sense - I only read the Insteon white paper once and immediately almost forgot everything. So if the set brightness command is only applicable to a device, and ISY has its own awareness of the devices in a scene, would another workaround possibility be to issue the set brightness command to every device in the scene? Maybe even make this a toggleable option in the portal so you can have "Fixed" or "Variable" scenes? Regards, -David

Funny, I just posted about this in the connected home thread. Right now with connected home and a device, I seem to be able to ask Alexa to set the device to a specific brightness level. For example, "Alexa, set the master bedroom to 50%." Ideally, I would like to be able to do the same with a scene, as more often than not, my scenes are just groups of devices I control together (vs. a fixed setting). Best, -David

Hi Benoit, Everything has been working great in my home, nearly flawless in fact. I'm glad that you will be allowing 5 spoken names - this will cover the issue where different people in the home or even I may refer to something in more than one way depending on context. The only other real pain point I have is related to the inability to dim/raise scenes - as I have quite a few which are just groups of devices which I always raise/dim together. I've seen a few discussions about this in the thread, but I was wondering if you have decided whether or not you will implement this in the future. I know I can group devices in the Alexa app, but it would be a lot of work to maintain the same groups in two different places. Thanks, -David

Along the same lines, it would be great if you could define "local" spoken fields to different echos somehow - for example, if a I am in one room and I say: "turn off the lights", it turns off whatever scene/device "lights" is mapped to for that particular echo. I doubt the particular echo identifies itself to UDI in any way, but I can dream right?

Selfishly I would prefer a comma delimited list, but can see how this would get ugly and confusing, especially when just reviewing the list. What if instead of having multiple spoken fields, you could simply have multiple instances of the same device/scene/etc. but with different spoken definitions? That way if a user wants to see a list of devices it's still just one list rather than columns with variable widths that are difficult to format. Best, -David

If there are constraints that would make more problematic, 3 sounds like a reasonable number. -David

Hi Benoit, Re: The undefined description - got it. I'm not sure that's how I populated those devices but as long as it doesn't represent a problems he cosmetics don't matter to me. Re: Setting brightness - You are correct that it is a scene, and the same test on a device works as expected (although it occasionally is failing with the same syntax repeated). The thing to note is, I use scenes in two ways: One way is to simply group devices. For example, there are four recessed lights in my media room which each have a microdimmer these are all part of a scene called "Media Room". I also have a 6 button KPL which brightens and dims a scene including all four lights. This is a type of scene which I would like to control the brightness of (with the Hue emulator I do). The second way I use scenes is to set predefined patterns and brightness levels. If you take the same room in this example I have a "Movie" scene. This scene sets the lights closest to my screen on at 10% brightness and turns the ones toward the rear of the room off to prevent glare. The button on my KPL for this scene is not a toggle - as the intent is always to bring the lights in the scene to this specific configuration. I could see this having unintended consequences if these things are not explicitly defined, but it would be nice to be able to control a scene this way. Perhaps in the future scenes can have an option to be static or variable or something like that (in the echo context). Anyway, I'll say it again - this is pretty great for a start! -David

+1 Having the ability to define "spoken aliases" would be great. It would also be nice to be able to automatically create common aliases with a check box or something. For example, automatically create prefix aliases for "Lights in xxx" and suffix such as "xxx lights". I'm sure there is a lot of work before you guys get to enhancements, but I might as well get it out there. Regards, -David

Overall this is working great - two observations so far: I assume this is just cosmetic, but incase there's more to it: In the Alexa app on my iPhone if I look at the list of all my devices, most of them have the spoken name on top, and what I assume is meant to be a description underneath. Some devices have the device or scene name listed in the description field while most say "undefined". From a functionality perspective - on devices I have exposed through the Hue Emulator I can say "Alexa set living room to fifty percent" and it does. For ISY devices I get a response of "That command doesn't work on device living room". Nice work so far, congrats! -David

Did you link your Alexa account in your profile in the ISY Portal? Do you see your devices in the Amazon Echo section of the ISY Portal? Best, -David

You need to purchase the ISY portal if you haven't already and once you do click "My Profile" in the upper right corner of the Portal. From there you can log in to link your Amazon account to portal. Michael K: you may want to add that to your steps above. Regards, -David

This is awesome! Great work. -David