IR controlled dimming

[lukeharrington]

I may be in the wrong area and if so feel free to move. Im trying to simply make it possible to use my harmony one remote and when I am on the activity "watch a blu ray" that the play button dims my insteon and isy994 controlled lights and pause and stop brightens them. Seems simple but I cant figure out what I need as far as hardware and or software. Thanks

[oberkc]

I am only superfically aware of how harmony remotes work. I believe that they have an inherent X-10 capability. If you can incorporate an X-10 device into your bluray activity, you have the option to make use of an X-10 IR reciever and use this to trigger a scene via ISY program.

 

Another factor is what version of ISY do you have and where is it located. Is yours a version with IR reciever? Is it near the TV? If yes to both, you could configure it to recognize the specific IR command you wish to use to trigger a lighting scene.

 

If none of the above, you could go with an insteon IRLinc and program the ISY to recognize the specific harmony command (via IRLinc) you wish to use to trigger a scene.

[arw01]

If you go the insteon irlinc, you need to get intouch with Michel here and make sure the firmware get updated to the one that works with the ISY.

 

You can upgrade your ISY to IR, but you still need it to physically be in light of site with it's ir cable (you need to buy that) to get it to receive Pronto Hex (I think that is the format the ISY recognizes).

 

There is a couple of fellows here working on a GC-IRE based solution, and I have been working on a Raspberry Pi using irLinc open source software.

 

Currently I can respond with my ISY to certain buttons being pressed on my Tivo remote. E.g. if I hit pause 3 times within 5 seconds, the lights turn on. If I hit play 3 times in 5 seconds, a slow fade to off runs on the lights.

 

I'm working on adapting the Perl Module jeffrey wrote to let me have 2 way communication with the ISY via subscriptions so I can SEND ir signals as well via the Raspberry Pi.

 

Alan

[apostolakisl]

I have several harmony remotes all of which are controllers for ISY.

 

First off, you need the ISY with IR. If you don't have that one, I would look into seeing if you can trade up. Other options exist, but this is the best.

 

Logitech already has ISY in its Harmony database. Add the ISY to your Harmony along with the 40 pre-configured IR codes that Logitech knows for ISY.

 

You will need to have your Harmony in line of sight with the ISY, or if you have the Harmony with the extenders, then you can use the extender to control ISY.

 

Then it is a simple matter of adding ISY IR commands to your activities on the Harmony, and programming the ISY to respond to those IR commands by setting your scenes.

 

The other option is to get the Insteon IR receivers. I tried one of those a while ago and it didn't work for a damn, so I returned it.

 

I have my Harmony setup to control my alarm Elk alarm system as well as lots of lights that I might want. Like I can shut off the kitchen lights when the kids leave them on, or turn the front door lights on when someone rings the bell.