Ltek Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 I'm new to ISY and it looks like variables can only be numeric? I'd like to use strings... am I missing something simple here? thanks
LeeG Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 Enhanced variables are expected the beginning of next year.
Ltek Posted December 21, 2013 Author Posted December 21, 2013 beginning of 2014 meaning January? The more I dig into ISY the more very basic gaps I'm finding - like Home Automation 101 stuff.
LeeG Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 Sorry, I have no specific information about what and when. A recent post by UDI indicates variable changes are coming in the 5.0.x sequence. See …. viewtopic.php?f=68&t=6673&p=101746
oberkc Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 The more I dig into ISY the more very basic gaps I'm finding - like Home Automation 101 stuff. I must admit to being curious what it is that you cannot do with existing programming capability.
Ltek Posted December 21, 2013 Author Posted December 21, 2013 The more I dig into ISY the more very basic gaps I'm finding - like Home Automation 101 stuff. I must admit to being curious what it is that you cannot do with existing programming capability. I'm writing up an email to Michel, I think it is more appropriate then posting a 2 page email of my impressions. After 15 years in this hobby, using over a dozen 'controller' apps/devices, it is becoming clear now why ISY is often used in conjunction with apps like Homeseer.
larryllix Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 I'm writing up an email to Michel, I think it is more appropriate then posting a 2 page email of my impressions. After 15 years in this hobby, using over a dozen 'controller' apps/devices, it is becoming clear now why ISY is often used in conjunction with apps like Homeseer. I would be interested to know how you would use Homeseer and ISY together? I am currently using Homeseer Pro, as a test, and I find it has lots of "gaps" also, just writing basic lamp timers and state flags, so far. Eg. there is no "else" in my version, but I have created a clumsy workaround that I really don't care for. I have no ISY yet and can't compare them. I have some fair experience with another event driven, real-time system for electrical grid control and ISY appears to be and have similar quirks to it, from my reading here. Perhaps if you posted one problem at a time people may help you resolve some of your "gaps". All programming languages have "gaps" that most of us don't like. Let's hear the beefs. On my X10 experience, in the end I concluded I should just write a driver for the CM11 module (I did) and just run VB code to do the rest. Since I like the programming language environment, why not just use it instead of a restrictive, pull-down, template type, environment, lacking "case" and "while-do" constructs?
Ltek Posted December 21, 2013 Author Posted December 21, 2013 Most HA apps do not have ELSE. The flow of most HA apps is... Trigger / Conditions -> Actions aka IF -> THEN ... While it is a nice thing to have for the 10% of the time it will be used - the same exact thing can be accomplished using another If/Then. What kept me away from Homeseer, after my long time usage through 2.x, was the dropping of support for Insteon and the lackluster Zwave support - of course, this was like 4 years ago. I then moved to mControl - while the app as decent (though basic) and worked well with Insteon and Zwave - general support / bug fixes were non-existant. Homeseer only supports Zwave natively but the logic is robust and the plugins are numerous, and community is the most active I've ever seen. Homeseer users us ISY to provide Insteon support... but they seem to use Homeseer as the main logic hub.
larryllix Posted December 21, 2013 Posted December 21, 2013 Most HA apps do not have ELSE. The flow of most HA apps is... Trigger / Conditions -> Actions aka IF -> THEN ... While it is a nice thing to have for the 10% of the time it will be used - the same exact thing can be accomplished using another If/Then. What kept me away from Homeseer was after I wanted to use Insteon switches. I have both Zwave devices and Insteon devices. Homeseer only supports Zwave natively. People us ISY to provide Insteon support... but they seem to use Homeseer as the main logic hub. Wow! I have run into this twice today. The top half of your post was not visible until I went to quote it. I assume you edited it after I loaded it. I realise your "else" workaround in Homeseer but they can be real clumsy. Here is a simple example I am working on: All motions trigger a routine called "House occupied". Very easy but determining the off state (=not home) gets more complex. Years ago I used this to run my furnace fan in a cyclic basis to save energy. - When the house was occupied run the furnace fan more often - When not home run it much less. - If the furnace fan runs from a thermostat heat call, reset the timer, it just ran. I had a "House occupied" reset routine at 7:00 AM absolute, to reset it, but didn't like it. Doesn't know you left the house until the next morning. Good for vacations but not for going to work of one-night stands. (I wish) I decided timed resets could be valuable but require different reset times based on time-of-day to be efficient. Motion detectors are going to see you move for 8-10 hours wile you sleep. Very simply put; each motion detector, or wireless remote, calls "House Occupied" "House Occupied" can set a testable flag and reset it after a delay time. But how long? Since there is no "else", at least two new programmes have to be created. One that tests for night-time, setting the time off for 10 hours, and one that test for day-time, setting the timer for say.. 2-4 hours. More efficient daily segments and pattern intuition create more programmes, if faster determination is to take place. I see this taking about five, six or more programmes, as subroutines to the main routine "House Occupied", just to work-around not having an "else" construct. Now I have an older version of HouseSeer, unless they have since added "else" to it. Pretty clumsy! Suggestions?
Ltek Posted December 21, 2013 Author Posted December 21, 2013 Larry, I don't have a ton of time to work on this with you but I can tell you Home Occupancy has 1M ways to do it no matter what system. I've done things like this and much more complex even with Homeseer, Vera, and other systems. For your case it actually look like 3 simple Programs ... Condition: house was occupied (e.g. Motion detected) -> Action: run the furnace fan more often Condition: When not home (no motion detected after # min AND temp < XYZ AND whatever OR whatnot ) -> Action: run it much less Condition: If the furnace fan runs from a thermostat heat call -> Action: reset the timer and, many examples are in VBscript, Jscript, java, C#, VB, etc since Homeseer can use almost any language that runs on Windows. there are tons of threads on Homeseer's forum over the years talking about home occupancy... happy reading
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