mikewu99

Reliability. Using programs requires the thermostats, the KPL, the ISY, and the modem to all be functioning correctly to use the KPL to control the thermostats. Using scenes only the KPL and the thermostats need to be working. The other issue is convenience. If I understand the other thermostat threads correctly, if I want to change both the heat and cool setpoints in auto mode I would need to go to cool mode, set the cool setpoint, go to heat mode, set the heat setpoint, then go back to auto mode (or is that just for querying the setpoints?). If I use scenes I just activate the scene corresponding to the conditions I want to set. Anyway, if you count votes I add +2 for the improved thermostat support (since I now own two ISYs I get two votes )...

Hopefully this is on the to-do list? I can't be the first to request this...at least with the ISY (as opposed to the SmartLinc) I'll be able to do a field upgrade when this feature becomes available... I can't even use the manual procedure (set setpoints and mode on the thermostat, press the button on the Venstar Insteon adapter) to link a particular thermostat setting to a scene that the ISY is part of? According to the adapter documentation I can link sets of thermostat settings to buttons on the KPL. Until I can program the scene through the ISY I guess I could manually set up my configurations and link to the KPL independent of the ISY and use the ISY to override the scene setting (and query the thermostat) when necessary. Basically there would be links between the thermostats and the KPL that the ISY is unaware of... Can the ISY control the KPL to emulate button presses on the KPL? That way the ISY controls the KPL which initiates the appropriate thermostat scene...

Searched through the archives - found lots of useful information but not the answer to my question: I just bought a second ISY99 for our vacation home, initially to be able to control and monitor the temperature remotely. I had purchsed two Venstar thermostats, Insteon adapters, access point, and a SmartLinc to do the job. Turns out the SmartLinc can't query the thermostat temperature despite the information I found on a Smarthome wiki page (the wiki page was changed to indicate that is was advance information on a future product only after I had ordered it). I bought an ISY99 to replace the SmartLinc and will be setting things up this weekend. I also purchased a tabletop KPL to be able to control the thermostat settings manually. I want to set up a number of scenes corresponding to various thermostat settings (Home, Away, Heat only, Cool only, Off). I want to be able to control the scenes either from the tabletop KPL or from the ISY. My question regards setting up scenes including thermostats from within the ISY. For example, with dimmers I can set the dimmer parameters (on level, ramp rate) for a scene from the ISY GUI. Can I do the same for the thermostat - set heating/cooling setpoints and operating mode for a given scene from the ISY GUI? Ideally I would like to add the devices (two thermostats and KPL) to the ISY by typing in the Insteon addresses and set everything up through the ISY GUI - no running around the house pressing buttons... I know I can write programs to control the themostat from the ISY (and will write programs to periodically query the thermostats) but I think controlling a finite set of operating configurations is more robust if I use scenes. Hope this makes sense...

I concur with all the observations in MikeB's post, except that for me rebooting the PC does not seem to help. Possibly related to the cable modem? My modem is Motorola SB4100: Software Version: SB4100-1.4.9.0-SCM00-NOSH Hardware Version: 0 MIB Version: II GUI Version: 1.0 VxWorks Version: 5.3

Did a little experimenting this morning, here are results in no coherent order: (1) The problem may be when I try to reach the forum - I was able to poke around the main website and the wiki, but shortly after opening the forum all universal-devices.com becomes unreachable via web browser. I haven't tried this often enough to be scientific, but it seems like the forum webpage triggers the oroblem. (2) When universal-devices.com is unreachable via IE it still responds to ping from a command prompt, so it is not likely a DNS error. (3) I downloaded Firefox. If the universal-devices.com is in the unreachable state it is also unreachable from Firefox. However, I haven't been able to go into the unreachable state from Firefox, just from IE. (4) The only way to reach universal-devices.com after it enters the unreachable state is to wait. Rebooting the PC does not help. I haven't studied the wait time, but rlav's estimate of 10 minutes seems about right. (5) I also tried rebooting my router - didn't help. Could this be a Comcast problem? I guess for now I will try Firefox to access universal-devices.com. I probably won't get a chance to try anything more for at least a week as I am going out of town.

Just to clarify: this is not a new problem, it happened several weeks ago when I was first setting up my ISY. At the time I thought it might have been a temporary server problem since access was fine from work the next day (I hadn't tried to access again from home until this morning).

Strange problem when accessing universal-devices.com web pages from computers at home. I can initially access the website, but after following a number of links (to the wiki or to the forum, for example) my computer suddenly cannot resolve universal-devices.com - I get an error saying "This link appears to be broken". This in not just finding a stale link - I cannot even get back to the main web page. I thought this might be a problem on the particular computer I was using, so I connected through another computer (also on my home network). At the same time that the first computer was saying that www.universal-devices.com appears to be broken the second computer pulled the page up immediately. However, after poking around the web page for a minute the second computer started giving me the same broken link errors. I am writing this from my computer at work where I have never experienced this problem. I have been having this problem from home ever since I installed my ISY (I don't know if I tried accessing universal-devices.com from home before I got the ISY). Both computers at home are running Windows XP with current updates. One is running IE7 and the other is running IE8. They are running different firewall software but the same (corporate) version of Symantec AntiVirus. My ISP is Comcast which I connect to through a Netgear FVS318 router. Has anyone else reported a similar problem? I couldn't find anything doing a forum search. Not really an ISY problem but makes it hard to work with my ISY if I can't access the documentation.

I just ordered my ISY, should be here next week. After spending a frustrating half hour crosslinking a pair of Switchlincs I am looking forward to being able to configure everything from the ISY. Howveer I have a really basic question: If I program a scene with the ISY (say a 3-way switch configuration with 2 Switchlincs) is the scene information programmed into the Switchlincs, or is the ISY involved in running the scene? In other words, if I set up the scene with the ISY and the ISY goes away for some reason will the scene still work?