BJB2757

That worked, thanks for fixing it! My Alexa routines triggered by the 'motion detector' are now working once again:)

My email also spontaneously stopped working approximately 24 hours ago.

It would be great if there was a 'virtual device' that you could add to the Harmony, and include it in every activity. You could then program any available buttons on the Harmony remote, to trigger a function on the virtual device. The virtual device could be connected to a node server, and you could have ISY programs watch the corresponding nodes for button presses & and then do anything you wanted. I have zero idea how to create such a virtual device & get Harmony to allow us to add it to a Harmony activity. But other than that, the right person could probably implement this pretty easily I'm guessing? Or maybe such a virtual device for the Harmony already exists??? Or is this essentially what the Hue Emulator node server already does? I will try it.

OK thanks, good to know I’m not missing anything. Some other people have said that functionality is not consistent with all the different nodes that are now possible. But still it would be nice if at least you could copy scene attributes for Insteon, so we’d at least have the same functionality as before. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does "copy scene attributes" exist in 5.3? I don't see it.

I'm an "auto" diehard. My ISY sets the thermostats to 70 heat/74 cool when we're home, sets back to 66 heat/78 cool when we're not home, and 64 heat/80 cool (vacation mode) when we've been out for more than 20 hours. "Home" is based on my cell phone being within the geo fence, or any of the motion sensors being triggered within the prior hour (I don't rely on the geo fence for my teenagers). Also have some other functions, e.g. there is an "on the way home" mode that gets triggered when I leave my office (plus any time I'm driving in the direction of the house) so that it's nice and warm (or nice and cool in the summer) by the time I arrive, and stuff like that. It's rare that I override the automatic settings by pressing the buttons on the front of the thermostat, or by asking Alexa. It's hard to say which I enjoy more: configuring this stuff, or benefiting from the completely hands-off automatic nature of it:) -Barry

That's good, that's good. Maybe one refinement for the third case: when the current temp is smack in the middle of the two old setpoints (which could definitely happen if the temp readings are discrete, e.g. heat is set at 70.0, current temp is 72.0, cool is set at 74.0), then check and see which of the NEW setpoints it is closer to. -Barry

Thanks a lot. Although that's a bit of a heavy lift given my knowledge level... -Barry

The Yonomi folks are very responsive, just like UDI:) They responded and confirmed that the Harmony API does not provide a direct way to do volume up/down, mute/unmute, or channel changing. Yonomi said they've discussed this with the Harmony people, and "believe they are working to add support for it". Now we just need Harmony to return UDI's emails, so we can cut out the lag-y IFTTT middle man! -Barry

Hi Alex, yep, for each of them to respond by turning on the respective lights in that room, you indeed need 3 separate amazon accounts. And also yes, if you want Prime music in each room, you'd need all three amazon accounts to be Prime (at least that's how Amazon has things working right now). As you point out, the Echoes do come pre-linked to the Amazon account that ordered them. After the Echos arrive, you have to un-link them from your main account, log into new Amazon accounts that you create specially for this purpose, and then link the Echo to those additional accounts. On the ISY Portal, you create a sub-account for each Amazon account. Instructions here: http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY_Portal_Amazon_Echo_Integration#Instructions_for_using_Multiple_Echos_Smart_Home My two cents: it's ridiculous that Amazon requires this - my guess is they simply did not anticipate this situation of having Echoes in multiple parts of a house needing to have different "contexts". It's early days:) I bet that at some point they'll give us a way to have multiple contexts all within a SINGLE Amazon account. Another thought: You do have the option of leaving all three Echoes in one amazon account, and have different spokens set up for each room, e.g. "Turn on Den", "Turn on Bedroom", "Turn on Kitchen". But because all spokens will work in all rooms (and for me this is a pretty big "but") if Alexa mis-hears you as it occasionally does, or if someone is intentionally goofing around, you will end up turning stuff on/off in other parts of the house and not know it. e.g. you could be in the kitchen late at night, and you accidentally turn on the light in the bedroom where someone is sleeping. Whereas with separate accounts, you can set things up so that each room does not know about the other room's spokens.. -Barry

Yes exactly - my harmony hub does indeed use IR to control the volume of my AV Receiver. What I'm looking for is a non-IR way for the ISY to communicate with the Harmony (and then the harmony would use IR to control the volume). Then Alexa could control the ISY. I use Alexa --> Yonomi skill --> Harmony to do simpler thinks (like simply turning off the TV) because Yonomi executes much faster than IFTTT. But, like IFTTT, Yonomi also does not have a volume-changing activity. The lack of a direct interface between ISY and Harmony is one thing. But given that neither IFTTT nor Yonomi enable you to change the volume, maybe the Harmony API doesn't expose a volume-changing function??? I'm going to ask the Yonomi guys - they are very responsive.

Woah, nice that works. Thank you so much! -Barry

A few months have passed...it is now pretty easy to have the ISY send a post to an IFTTT Maker recipe which can then turn on/off any Harmony activity. For example when I say "Alexa turn off everything" the ISY runs a tiny program that turns off the lights, ceiling fan, and (by sending a post to IFTTT) it also tell Harmony to turn off the AV system. But, if anyone can point me to the simplest way to tell Harmony to increase/decrease volume (without transmitting IR through the air), please let me know! Thanks. -Barry

Hi Michael, Has this URL changed? Should it work from any browser? I tried it with my UUID, was prompted for credentials, but then Chrome said "server error". Also tried embedding credentials, i.e. https://myusername:mypassword@my.isy.io/api/voice/spoken/nodes?uuid=myuuid, with the same "server error" result. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -Barry

Agree with MWareman - it would be perfect if MobiLinc would allow a distinct username and password for local access…it already allows a distinct IP address for local access! -Barry Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You need two Amazon.com accounts if you want to give the same exact verbal command in two different rooms, and have different things happen. For example, "Alexa turn on the lights", when I'm upstairs, turns on the upstairs lights. The same command when I'm downstairs, turns on the downstairs lights. All the lights in my house are controlled by the same ISY and ISY portal with a subaccount. -Barry Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is working pretty well for me. I have one ISY, one ISY portal with a sub-account, and two Echoes. I can say "Alexa turn off the lights" downstairs, and the downstairs lights turn off. I can say the same exact phrase when I'm upstairs, and the upstairs lights turn off. It's beautiful! It's just a bit of a bummer that this functionality requires two Amazon.com accounts. You can connect two Amazon accounts to each other, which gives you some goodness, for example both accounts share the same "to do" list, and the same shopping list. But one account cannot play the other account's Amazon music collection. And you can play Amazon Prime music only if that particular account pays the $100/year for Prime. You can tell Alexa to switch accounts, which does let you play the "other" account's music...BUT when you switch accounts ALL voice account switch, i.e. if I'm downstairs and say "Alexa turn on the TV"...the upstairs TV turns on:( With the success of the Echo products, hopefully Amazon will enable different contexts for multiple Echoes on the same Amazon account! That is the only clean solution to this. -Barry

Regarding thermostats, like many others I use "auto" so that the heat & AC do what they are supposed to...all on their own. It's super convenient. Thermostats with "auto" modes, including my previous Honeywell models, and my 2 current Insteon thermostats, have TWO set points, one above which the AC turns on, and the other below which the heat turns on. (For "auto" to make sense, the "cool" set point needs to be a few degrees higher than the "heat" set point.) On the Insteon thermostats, when you press the up or down arrows on the front of the thermostats, BOTH set points simply go up or down by one degree. You can do this from the ISY as well. In fact I have Alexa-voice-triggered IFTTT recipes tell the ISY do to the same thing. For example, "Alexa trigger warmer" tells the ISY to raise BOTH set points by 1 degree. Note that this might cause the AC to turn off...or it might cause the heat to turn on...which is EXACTLY what you want if you are using the "auto" mode. Benoit, why not have the Echo "increase the temperature" function simply do the same thing. Completely IGNORE the ambient temperature if the thermostat is ON in any mode. If the thermostat is in heat mode or cool mode, simply change the set point by one degree. If the thermostat is in auto mode, simply change BOTH set points by one degree. -Barry