Program a Scene

[Scottmichaelj]

I maybe missing something because I am new to having a ISY99/ir - however in the programming section of th admin console I dont see where I can program a scene to dim to a certain preset level.

 

Heres what I am aiming for -

 

Each night at sunset I want certain lights to go on in my home. Easy enough I have already made a program for "sunset" and turn on all the insteon devices I want on. Then at say 9pm when I usualy sit down to watch TV I want all those lights to go into a (nite mode) and dim to 50% or what not. Then at 10 when I am really settled in for the night watching TV I want to have all the lights dim to say 25%. This way if I am not home it gives a "looks like there home" appearance. However here is the kicker - if I am home and I turn off a light say in my kitchen I I dont want it to turn back on and dim it to 50% at 9pm. I want it to do a query and if its off then leave it off.

 

I am doing this now for our entry light and I have it query - but I have 3 programs for this one light not including turning it on at sunset with the others. One to dim at 9 if on another one to dim again if still on at 10 and then one for off at 11. Maybe I have to but I dont want to make a seperate 3 programs for each light that was turned on at sunset. Do I have to do this? Do I setup maybe a "dim night" scene then inside that scene put the levels I want then select it "on" from the program? What am I missing here?

[Algorithm]

You could create a scene containing your lights, and have a program turn the scene on at sunset. At 9pm another program could do a Fade Down on the scene, followed by a pause and then a Fade Stop to bring the lights to 50%. The length of the delay would control the level that the lights would stop at, and can be determined by experimentation. At 10pm another similar program could do another Fade Down (with different delay) to bring the lights to 25%. If any lights had been turned off, they would not be affected by the fades, since they are already at zero.

[Scottmichaelj]

You could create a scene containing your lights, and have a program turn the scene on at sunset. At 9pm another program could do a Fade Down on the scene, followed by a pause and then a Fade Stop to bring the lights to 50%. The length of the delay would control the level that the lights would stop at, and can be determined by experimentation. At 10pm another similar program could do another Fade Down (with different delay) to bring the lights to 25%. If any lights had been turned off, they would not be affected by the fades, since they are already at zero.

 

I tired this however fade stops dont work well for some reason on scenes for me. Can you think of any other way to do this? I had a similar scene in my Home Theater Room where when I hit the "HTR Off" button on my pronto remote then my ISY99ir would fade the lights down then wait 5 mins before turning off so I knew that the command was recieved - it worked a couple times but then became unrliable and finally stopped working all together.

[IndyMike]

huddadudda,

 

The fade should function as Darrell had described. I use a very similar setup with timed triggers to notify my family that "bedtime" is approaching.

 

If your routines function part of the time, there is something else going on (noise, comm errors, conflicting program).

 

Would you be kind enough to post your code and elaborate on the "intermittent" behavior?

 

IndyMike

 

You could create a scene containing your lights, and have a program turn the scene on at sunset. At 9pm another program could do a Fade Down on the scene, followed by a pause and then a Fade Stop to bring the lights to 50%. The length of the delay would control the level that the lights would stop at, and can be determined by experimentation. At 10pm another similar program could do another Fade Down (with different delay) to bring the lights to 25%. If any lights had been turned off, they would not be affected by the fades, since they are already at zero.

 

I tired this however fade stops dont work well for some reason on scenes for me. Can you think of any other way to do this? I had a similar scene in my Home Theater Room where when I hit the "HTR Off" button on my pronto remote then my ISY99ir would fade the lights down then wait 5 mins before turning off so I knew that the command was recieved - it worked a couple times but then became unrliable and finally stopped working all together.

[Scottmichaelj]

Well sorry for not replying sooner I was away on vacation for two weeks! I needed a rest then when I got back I went on some business trips so I am now back home...

 

So after doing some testing I found out this -

 

If I set my remote up for pressing the "2" button on a NEC remote for my ISY99 IR I found the program does not work properly. Some lights turn off right away when they should dim just a bit then delay off.

 

However when I manually run the program from the admin screen on the ISY through a web browser the program works fine.

 

It appears to be only when receiving an IR - Anyone know hy could this be? A bug maybe? I am using firmware 2.6.3 - Seems only to do this with delays.

[IndyMike]

huddadudda,

 

I'm going back over posts - we're you able to resolve your IR issue?

 

I'm curious because I'm due to receive a RF remote at some time (possibly similar problems).

 

Is it possible that you were receiving more than one trigger from your remote (re-entering the program). This was rather common in the X10 days.

 

IM

 

 

Well sorry for not replying sooner I was away on vacation for two weeks! I needed a rest then when I got back I went on some business trips so I am now back home...

 

So after doing some testing I found out this -

 

If I set my remote up for pressing the "2" button on a NEC remote for my ISY99 IR I found the program does not work properly. Some lights turn off right away when they should dim just a bit then delay off.

 

However when I manually run the program from the admin screen on the ISY through a web browser yhe program works fine.

 

It appears to be only when receiving an IR - Anyone know hy could this be? A bug maybe? I am using firmware 2.6.3 - Seems only to do this with delays.

[Scottmichaelj]

I have not had any luck controlling a group of lights properly with fade up/down and dim stops within a scene. I have kinda found a work around by making a scene with a preset of the desired brightness for each light. Then when I hit the IR code with the universal remote - the ISY then activates that scene at those levels. But there are drawbacks - like if a light is off then it turns back on and if you want multiple lights to dim after a certain time frame like I do then you have to do multiple scenes activated at time delays.

 

I got fade stops to work with just an individual light with 4 buttons - on/off/dim/bright - this is how I have things setup for the master bedroom. I must say this doesn't still work as good as the X10 commands using dim. I am actually thinking about going back to X10 commands because of this.

 

I dont think this an issue with the ISY but with the PLM modem not being able to issue mutiple commands at once. I could be wrong. The other thought is maybe the size of my home vs the distance from each light being dimmed, although my home is only 3500sq ft. By the time the ISY issues the command to the PLM then sends it out, then turning around and sending out the stop command the lights are out, since this happens in milliseconds/seconds. I have not played with the dim rate of the lights because I like where they are right now, but maybe another work around would be to make the time it takes to turn off each light longer therefore it would get the stop command. This is all just speculation but overall it might just depend on each users personal setup/preference.

 

Hope this helps. BTW I am using a Pronto TSU9400 in the living room, another one in the bedroom and a TSU9600 in my home theater room with one RFX600 RF module that is in a central location with the ISY/PLM so I can send commands from anywhere with the remotes.

 

huddadudda,

 

I'm going back over posts - we're you able to resolve your IR issue?

 

I'm curious because I'm due to receive a RF remote at some time (possibly similar problems).

 

Is it possible that you were receiving more than one trigger from your remote (re-entering the program). This was rather common in the X10 days.

 

IM

 

 

[Sub-Routine]

AFAIK the fade commands use the same rate as holding a switch, not a user specified rate.

 

The PLM does not send commands to individual devices when scene commands are invoked so there are not multiple commands being sent for fade up/down/stop.

 

I was surprised at how well the fade works with the ISY and IR, but you are not having the same experience.

 

One other thing I did notice was that if a lamp was still ramping to a level when a dim or bright (not fade) is sent the lamp will jump to it's target and then dim or bright from there. If a fade works the same way then perhaps some of your lamps are still ramping towards off when the fade is sent.

 

I am just throwing out ideas here...

 

Rand

[Algorithm]

huddadudda,

 

I tired this however fade stops dont work well for some reason on scenes for me. Can you think of any other way to do this? I had a similar scene in my Home Theater Room where when I hit the "HTR Off" button on my pronto remote then my ISY99ir would fade the lights down then wait 5 mins before turning off so I knew that the command was recieved - it worked a couple times but then became unrliable and finally stopped working all together.

Please post your code.

 

If I set my remote up for pressing the "2" button on a NEC remote for my ISY99 IR I found the program does not work properly. Some lights turn off right away when they should dim just a bit then delay off.

 

However when I manually run the program from the admin screen on the ISY through a web browser the program works fine.

 

It appears to be only when receiving an IR - Anyone know hy could this be? A bug maybe? I am using firmware 2.6.3 - Seems only to do this with delays.

Please post your code.