LFMc

BTW, I got this email from SmartMeterTexas.com yesterday. It appears that Oncor may be expanding their offerings to us involved in meter watching. With them being able to provide data via an API, would this mean we can (possibly) dump Zigbee and consume the data directly over the internet via a (future) nodeserver? Probably just a hypothetical question at this point. But reading between the lines, this may be an attempt to dump dealing with Zigbee in the future (as your previous message alluded to). Right now I am getting data every 30 seconds and have the option of polling more often. I bet that any API they allow to see their data directly will never allow polling that often. I will have to do some more research on what the details are in this "approval" from the PUC involves, after all, "the devil is in the details". There are lots of very vague claims in the email. Another interesting issue occurred in August. Some Oncor users are buying power through brokerage wholesalers who pass along "the cost" of the electricity for a flat fee of $10 per month. What they don't tell you is they are buying power hourly on the spot market. Last August during a particularly hot day, the spot market for power in Texas jumped to $9.10 per KWHr for an hour in the peak power hour of the day. My friend uses one of these brokers called "Griddy" and his bill for electricity was $135, for one hour! Ouch! I did't pay that much for the entire month. Email from SMT: "Due to recent approval by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Smart Meter Texas will be releasing new functionality on December 10, 2019. A few key highlights of improvements and changes are the following: Ability to receive your data via an Application Programming Interface (API) Ability to receive your energy data via email Enhanced mobile awareness Enhanced to display 24 months of data Improved access to generation information An improved customer experience with a new website look and feel Watch for future emails for additional information and action required. Thank you for being a Smart Meter Texas user. Regards, Smart Meter Texas Team"

Thanks for the corroboration of Oncor meters being faulty. One very weird situation I haven't mentioned yet was after they reset my meter (without telling me) is both of my HAN devices reconnected automatically without permission. I had previously removed both of them from my HAN list of approved devices. I verified this through smartmetertexas.com. So they both "logged in" to the Zigbee HAN network and were working correctly without showing at the SMT dashboard or HAN log. I even let them run for a week or so in that condition to see what would happen, i.e. would Oncor wake up and figure out something was wrong. What this leads me to believe is possibly Oncor has an "accept all" setting without credentials on the HAN in an effort to appease my haranguing (albeit nicely) them over their meter causing the problem. I finally did put in a request via the SMT website to officially register my devices just in case Oncor came back and turned on security restrictions, if my theory is correct. Lastly, if you are registered on SmartMeterTexas.com, you can see the last firmware update date on the site under the meter information. That was one of the first things I suspected, but my meter, at that time, had not been updated in a few months, but today I see that they updated the meter about two weeks of rebooting it. Here is where you can see the info on the meter. Thanks again for the feedback.

Thanks Michel, Their support for a HAN user is fairly non-existent as it is. Just so you are aware of some other changes that have occurred since Oncor rebooted my meter. I had my SmartenIT repeater still located next to my smart meter instead of mid-distance between the meter and the ISY. But since the meter reboot the ISY has been almost flawless on data flow (from the meter) which has never happened before without the repeater and other enhancements strategically placed. So I turned off the repeater and the data flow is still near perfect at the 80+ feet through the house from the meter, even without the aluminum reflector. I bring this up because of the prior range issues I had trying to get the Zigbee interface on the ISY to connect up to the meter. I know it caused you (and me) a lot of concern about why the Zigbee range was so limited. Now it seems the range has easily more than doubled since the reboot. I have no idea if the Oncor tech somehow boosted the meter's Zigbee power output or if it was just the reboot of the meter that solved the "no connection" and range issue at the same time. Clearly the option of getting the TDU to reboot the smart meter is a valid option when there are range or connectivity issues. This is also a confirmation of the ISY's Zigbee interface as being solid and more than adequate for a much longer range (as the UDI specs state), even through multiple walls. I'll update you if I see any further anomalies in my SEP communications.

Being there is a PUC rule in place (§25.130(j)(8)) requiring HANs connections on the meters, I would have a hard time believing they could justify taking it away. In fact, I believe they are due for a major update to the smartmetertexas.com web site that should include more features such as "green button connect my data" universal access, but I cannot be sure. I found this web site that seems to be an advocate for more consumer access in all states. http://www.missiondata.io/activities#index They specifically discuss activities state by state. There doesn't appear to be much recent activity in Texas. But there is an un-referenced comment stating: "Third party access has been challenging due to poor technical support of SMT" on the Texas activity. I can personally testify as to the level of difficulty they made it for me to get someone who even knew what I as talking about to address my problem. What I had to do was to ask the Oncor gate keeper if they were familiar with the PUC ruling §25.130(j)(8) (pg. 69 of this document http://www.puc.texas.gov/agency/rulesnlaws/subrules/electric/25.121/31418adt.pdf) and were they taking responsibility for not complying (after I got their name of course). That immediately got me to a supervisor in charge of dealing with HAN device issues. Then I was told it would take up to 10 working days to get around to it. In reality, it took about 5. Clearly there seems to be a low priority and a lot of foot dragging about getting anything done with valid HAN issues. On the other hand, I can also see their side as they probably get LOTS of issues with people buying HAN devices and can't figure out why they just don't work by just turning them on. Please feel free to update me if you get more detailed information. I would think that it might help UDI to be a part of the Mission:Data alliance. --Leon

Just an update. Hopefully this helps someone else out in the future. Thanks to UDI's assistance, @Michel Kohanim, we pretty much ruled out any of my 2 disconnected Zigbee items having a problem, so that left my Oncor smart meter as the culprit. After 4-5 phone calls over 3 weeks to Oncor, they **finally** conceded that I knew what I was talking about and agreed to pay a visit at my site to test the Zigbee HAN system on the meter as they claim they could not test the HAN from remote. I decided to put both my devices (SmartenIT repeater and ISY) back in to search mode and did the same on the Oncor website, smartmetertexas.com on 8/28 which puts the meter, supposedly, into accept devices mode. I did this because Oncor apparently will do anything they can not to have any contact with a customer. From experience, I suspected they would not honor their promise to contact me before and during the visit so I would know what is going on and be able to test the system. Just as I suspected, 3 days later, my Smart Meter's Zigbee network just woke up and my 2 smart home Zigbee devices magically reconnected to the Home Area Network on their own. No contact before or after on what Oncor did to fix their meter problem. It now appears they issued a remote reset on the meter as at the same time I had 3 PCs shut down and reboot. But apparently it was quick enough of an outage that my ISY did not reboot and it isn't on a UPS. So now when I go to SmartMeterTexas.com to see the status of my devices that should be connected to Oncor, it says the meter is still waiting for me to connect my devices. This is very weird because both my Zigbee devices are showing on their side that they are connected, but the Oncor side is showing they have never authenticated. Sounds like more phone calls are needed to get their software working correctly. In the end it just seems like big companies like this will typically do most anything to not expose problems on their side. So, I should have insisted originally that they reset the meter from remote. I did ask originally for them to do this and they told me it wasn't possible. They may have been referring to just a Zigbee/HAN reboot only, but I would have taken anything to get the meter's network back up.

This morning at 5:45am, my rest communications to my smartmeter went into error mode and then stopped even trying to communicate 15 minutes later. Now looking at the rest logs, it only shows an entry when I restart the ISY994i saying "system start". I moved the ISY to within 3' of the meter and still nothing. On the ISY Dashboard, My Electricity module show the time as "unsynchronized". There is an LED at the base of the Zigbee antenna that is not on. It faces away from me in my cabinet, so I am not sure what it's normal illumination should be. Any ideas? I have not re-seated the Zigbee module in the ISY yet. Does this seem to be a dead zigbee module? Any help would be appreciated.

I understand, but my ISY DNS wasn't pointed to my router, just a down server. I am in the process of moving dns and dhcp services to the router as I simplify my network.

Thanks, I wasn't considering the ISY going outbound to the portal. Good point. It's DNS setting was to the internal server, so I changed it to an external DNS. I can't imagine that not having access to internal DNS would cause it any issues, but I could be wrong. It would be nice if the ISY had a secondary (fail over) DNS setting like PC's have. Leon

While on vacation, i started getting a "no isy found" or similar error message when trying to login to my ISY while on the road using the ISY portal. But, I was able to open up a VPN PPTP tunnel to my router and connect directly to the ISY from remote. When arriving home, I realized my server that runs my DHCP server had crashed and DHCP was not working. But my ISY has a fixed private IP address and works without access to DHCP. Upon restarting the server with DHCP, it now responds to the portal connection. As a rule of thumb, all critical equipment I have has a fixed, private IP address. I am a bit confused as to what caused the portal to fail, because without DHCP, I would think the problem would be reversed and my remote device using the VPN wouldn't get a DHCP private IP assigned to it and the portal should continue to work directly. The VPN is being handled by my Mikrotik router. Also the down DHCP server was also handling internal DNS. Thoughts? I would like to make sure my ISY portal access is independent of most other network services other than the internet, router and ISY being up.

I'm an engineer by training, so form follows function. Background's last thing I worry about. (-;

Is that Blue Iris giving you the camera views? The camera integration is a very nice touch. Count me in.

for no cloud and no closed system with ISY interconnection via Rest using Blue Iris software will give you lots of options. I consider BI software the ISY of the video security world. It is nice that you can send triggers from it to the ISY or set up independent notifications. BI has an app for your cell phone also. Disclosure: I have not yet pulled the trigger on an integrated camera and a door bell for mine yet. I am just in the thinking about it stage. I think I paid $50 for the software when I bought it. Well worth it.

Doesn't this do what you are asking? https://www.amazon.com/Envisalink-EVL-4EZR-Security-Interface-Honeywell/dp/B016WQTJ4S/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1KRXPUAL5O83S&keywords=evl4&qid=1557497275&s=gateway&sprefix=EVL4%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-3 I bought one for my DSC system but haven't integrated it yet. Another day, another project.

Here you go Tom, BOGO dual outlet sale!! $12.50 per controlled port! Thru 5/8 sale. https://get.smarthome.com/insteon-outlets/

Has anyone seen or designed and printed a 3D grid to go over the insteon mini-remote keypad buttons (2342) to prevent accidental activation of the buttons? When I have to carry these in my pockets, I am **ALWAYS** accidentally pressing the buttons. So I wondered if anyone may have a source or a design file to print one on a 3D printer. Seems like a fairly easy starter project for 3D printing, but I have never used one, yet.

Nope, I buy new or used electronic cabinet fans like Rotron or Comair off ebay, craigslist, etc. They are 110Vac and they are relatively quiet (if in your attic) and very powerful. No one notices the tiny bit of noise way down the vent line. I will typically mount them on the rectangular plenum coming off the air handler and buy a hat section that bolts right to the fan for the vent size I want to attach. Then I cover it in insulation and plug it into the insteon dual outlet. My ISY triggers it when the AC or Heat comes on depending on my program. I use a delay start on it and a delayed off to scavenge the excess heat or AC from the duct work. I do not use the grill shown in the picture. These fans are made to last thousands of hours in hot environments without issue. You can adjust the downstream damper or register to not fully open if you want to limit the flow. I see them on ebay for as little as $25 to $30.

I also use 24v dampers from Smarthome, but any commercial HVAC parts house has them probably cheaper. I have a couple in my attic, so to save complexity and money, I use a dual Insteon in wall 110 VAC receptacle wired to the back of the furnace power on/off switch. I plug the 24v power supplies into them that way I get to run two dampers per insteon device. https://www.smarthome.com/insteon-2663-223-on-off-outlet-ivory.html Since 24vdc wall warts are cheap, it works out well for me. If you get the Insteon dual outlet on a 50% off sale, that gives you basically two insteon controlled outlets for about $14 a piece. I have used this setup in a hot Texas attic for over 2 years without a single issue. Just be sure to get the damper for the best setting (normally open or normally closed) so the transformer is off most of the time. I.E. my xfmr only comes on when the AC kicks in and it meets the ISY program conditions, so I have way less than a 5% duty cycle.

November, 2016, really? I think they found these NOS PLMs in a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship from China that floated on to shore a couple of years later.

Just got a "new" PLM in from Smarthome. The version is still 2.4. Being the date code is 4716, I guess they sent me a 2-1/2 year old unit as a "new" one. Buyer beware. Now to decide if I want to waste time and breath arguing with their support over it or not.

Reliability, seriously? I'm running full on Insteon on everything. Why would I start now worrying about reliability? :-9

Maybe someone should just program a "Insteon Node server" with a Pi RF interface to avoid the PLM altogether. Then they could do a Z-Wave node server next so I can add Z-wave to my full ISY 994i-ZS Zigbee unit. Imagine, no more PLMs and no more modules. We could use Robert's RF Node server as the starting point:

Smarthome has the 2413S currently at 50% off with no sale expiration date. Has anyone gotten a V 2.5 yet from SH? Or are they dumping 2.4 inventory?

Ditto on the tape being trash. No matter how much they tell you how good it holds. I had new baked on painted aluminum cleaned with alcohol and it fell off within 12 hours. Just get out the silicone glue the first time.

Thanks Michel. I'm just looking for some spare/redundant hardware parts to start my switch to V5, etc.

Thanks all, so it is a kit that includes the X10 module. Obviously a hot seller. (-;