rccoleman

The tactic that I used for notifying me of specific alarm zone violations was to have a separate program for each with a useful name and then to use ${sys.program.#.name} in the subject and content. That gives me a separate text notification for each zone without the need for a bunch of network resources. I note that {sys.program.#.name} isn't listed at that link, and I'm actually using it in an email to Pushover, but it seems like it would work in a network resource, too. Rob

I think I had the programs set up to ensure that both relays weren't powered at the same time (luckily, they were both off when the Zwave relay first receives power), but the startup load of the fan exceeded the capacity of the relays. In the end, I like my whole house fan too much to put it at risk for an infrequent speed change.

I spent some time trying to get a Z-Wave dual relay to work in conjunction with my Insteon On/Off switch, but the relays were only rated to 10 amps and it had a bad effect on fan startup. You also have to ensure that both loads aren't powered at the same time, so you'd want to use a set of programs to change each relay and check the state. I just gave up on it and went back to manual speed switch. If you find a solution, I'd love to hear it. I don't often need to change the speed remotely, but the physical switch just makes my fan feel...incomplete

That bar comes and goes for me. Michel remoted into my system and observed the behavior, but there hasn't been much traction on getting it fixed. See if it comes back after you quit and restart the admin console a few times. My thread on this issue is here: http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/18209-elk-bar-at-the-top-of-the-admin-console-sometimes-missing/?view=getnewpost

That would be useful. You can go back into the history to listen to what it heard for each instance when it responded, but not if it didn't. The available recordings haven't given me much insight when it doesn't do what I want - they sound perfectly understandable to me.

Thanks, I'll experiment with that. Maybe it won't look as goofy with black paper.

I've seen the same thing with just a Samsung TV using the built in speakers and my new Echo Dot. Even raising my voice and lowering the TV volume wasn't enough - I had to walk right up to the Dot and speak directly at it. Without the TV on, the Dot works fine from across the room. My Dot is next to a window, so I'm not excited about yelling at it and having my neighbors wonder what the heck I'm doing. That TV does seem to have an outsized influence on my Dot. I also have an Echo in the same room with a Denon surround sound system and its able to pick out my commands much better with the TV on. I've also had it spring to life when it heard something Alexa-like on the TV You may be onto something about there being background noise that I can't hear, but messes up the Echo/Dot's recognition.

My thinking was to put them all in a folder where I can enable or disable all of them using a variable, rather than enabling and disabling each one. Do you see anything wrong with that approach?

I really like the idea of a program triggering on activity and forcing an update - that's really clever! At least with my motion sensors, the worst case is that I'll have to walk around my house and let all of the sensors see me. Do you find it to be reliable? The motion sensors don't go to sleep before the ISY can write its updates? To be honest, I hadn't figured out why "write device updates" was a useful action in a program until you mentioned it. For now, I put all of the programs in a folder gated by a variable. I was hoping that simply turning off automatic updates would allow the current update to finish (fail) and not kick off another update, but this morning my ISY soldiered on and tried to update all nine motion sensors and remotes one after the other. Unless you have only one or two devices, it seems like that's rarely the behavior that you'd want. Rob

In an attempt to address some strange behavior that I've been seeing, I've swapped out my PLM and restored devices several times. Every time, I end up with many battery-operated devices that need updates, and the ISY starts a long and seemingly uninterruptible process of trying to communicate with each and every battery-operated device in my house, timing out and failing every time. I have a 994i Pro, so if I think ahead and turn off updates of battery-operated devices, I can prevent this long and fruitless process, but if it gets started, it basically ties up my ISY for a long, long time and accomplishes nothing. Worse yet, if I have to reboot the ISY for some reason (like installing a node), the default behavior is to turn automatic updates back on and it quickly kicks off this long process again. I'll get around to updating the battery-operated devices at some point, but it's a pain to hit them all and I'd prefer to do it at my own pace. I have a few questions - Is there a way to make the setting for automatic writes, for both wired and battery-operated devices, sticky across a reboot? Sometimes I'd really prefer to be in control of what the ISY does with my devices, and the power-on default is to automatically update everything. Is it possible to interrupt the automatic process once it's started? I've found that I can sometimes reboot the ISY and quickly log into the admin console and turn off updates, but it's a race that I sometimes lose, and it seems awfully brute force. Clicking the "turn off battery-operated updates" button when it's already in progress doesn't seem to help. Is it possible to force a node back to "up-to-date" and avoid the need to write any pending updates? I had some mismatched records in my wired devices that I fixed by doing a File | Restore Devices, but it also queued all of my battery devices for updates. I had just finished manually updating my battery devices (climbing up on ladders, etc.) and I know that they're all up-to-date, so I'd love to just say "that's already up-to-date". I was trying to avoid the long process of individually checking and restoring each of my 42 wired devices, but now I get to walk around the house again and "update" each battery device. Ugh. Rob

I'm not. I'm using port 2101 without SSL. My understanding is that using the secure port would prevent any communication with the M1XEP, but a) programs involving Elk components work fine and sometimes the bar shows up and sometimes it doesn't (as you saw when you remoted in). Rob

Michel, do you expect to look into this for 5.0? The Elk bar is still often missing as of 5.0.4. Rob

I'm trying to do something that feels simple to me, but I just can't figure it out. I basically want a Mobilinc (iOS) dashboard button that both shows the current alarm status (armed/disarmed) *and* lets me toggle the status by tapping it. Essentially what the giant red/green button does in the Mobilinc Elk plug-in, but on the dashboard. Simple requirements - * The dashboard button should always show the current alarm status (armed/disarmed), regardless of how it got that way (keypad, ISY admin console, program, etc). * Tapping the dashboard button should toggle the alarm state: If it's armed, disarm it. If it's disarmed, arm it in Away mode. I can write programs to do either one of these things, but not both together on the same button. I've tried all sorts of combinations of integer and state variables, disabled programs, and any other clever tricks that I can think of and I just can't make it work without unintended side effects. Is there an easy way to do this that I'm just not seeing? Edit: my apologies for putting this in the wrong area - I was looking for similar topics and ended up in the wrong one. Perhaps a mod can move it to "questions and answers". Thanks, Rob

Heh, that was on purpose. For whatever reason, I turn them north-south on single boxes and east-west on bigger ones. Feel free to disagree, but at least it's not random

Here's mine: Pretty easy to do, and easy to change out if you want to rename them. Rob

I did the same with acetone-free nail polish remover (drug stores have both kinds, acetone and acetone-free), and it doesn't damage the buttons. It probably takes a little more effort, but I was pretty happy with the result. Add some clear PTouch labels and the buttons look great! Rob

I installed a new Elk keypad yesterday, enrolled it, and it's working fine. Unfortunately, if I go into the ISY admin console and refresh the Elk topology, the new keypad doesn't show up in Elk->Areas->All Areas->Keypads. I only see the two keypads that I had when I first set up Elk in my ISY. I do see the new zones that I've added periodically, so some of the topology is updating. Just not the keypads. It just looks like an informational display with no interactive components, so it's not that big a deal for me. I just thought that I'd mention it. Rob

Done - #8794. Thanks, Rob

I wonder if it's an OS X issue. I've launched the same Java app a bunch of times in a Windows VM under Parallels and the Elk bar has come up every time. If I close it in the VM and open it under OS X, I won't see the bar. When I go back to Windows and re-launch, it shows up. I deleted and reinstalled Java on OS X, but it doesn't seem to have helped. Edit: Nevermind. I have seen a missing Elk bar under Windows. Rob

Me neither. It either shows up when I launch the admin console or it doesn't. Each time I launch the admin console it seems to be random whether I'll get the Elk bar.

I was looking through your wiki and noticed the following on the page that describes the event viewer: The display level corresponds to the Debug level in the ISY Shell. The Event Viewer window displays the same information as is found in the Java Console, but without the necessity of telneting to ISY and using the DBG command in order to set the Debug level. I can tell Java to open enable logging and tracing and also to automatically open the event window. The ISY shell also seems to accept the "DBG" command, even though it's not in the menu. No matter what I do, I still can't get the same output that I see in the event viewer, and instead I get a bunch of Java-related messages. Some examples are: security: Missing Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar security: Missing Application-Library-Allowable-Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar security: Validate the certificate chain using CertPath API security: Missing Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar security: Missing Application-Library-Allowable-Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar security: Validate the certificate chain using CertPath API security: Missing Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar security: Missing Application-Library-Allowable-Codebase manifest attribute for: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i/4.4.3/insteon.jar Is there a way to use the Java console to see the messages that you need to see? I also connected a long Ethernet cable to take the wireless extender out of the picture, but the first few times I launched it, the bar still didn't show up. After quitting and launching a few more times, it eventually showed up. Rob

Yep. No Elk bar, but status for Insteon devices updates in near real time. Rob

No, if it doesn't show up when I first start the admin console, it never does. If I keep quitting and restarting the admin console, eventually it'll show up. Rob

Yeah, I realized that after posting. Is there any way to get to the events via telnet? There doesn't appear to be a "real" shell there, but more of a command processor. Or a way to log them somehow? Or a way to monitor the situation from the Elk? I'm rather new to this system and I'm not sure what options are available. Another potentially relevant point is that I don't have the luxury of an Ethernet connection to my alarm panel and my XEP is connected to a wireless extender. I'm seeing remarkably good throughput and ping times with no apparently packet drops, but I'll try to run a long Ethernet cable and see if it's more reliable. That would only be a temporary solution, though. Rob

I think that's a separate version of the Java app that's compatible with OS X 10.6, but the "mainline" version is compatible with all versions after that. I'm not using admin16.jnlp, but just admin.jnlp. Michel, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Rob