Scene or Program for "party" mode

[raymondh]

I have about 30 insteon devices in my house and with the exception of 3-way switches, Lamplincs, and to keep keypadlinc button's in sync, most everything is controlled with programs.

 

This includes an all off program, motion, and away mode light activities. I just put together a program to put the house in "party mode" The program sets the dim level of about 15 devices. To me it seemed easiest to use a program for this but I haven't really used scenes for anything. I wanted to check to see if it's better to use scenes for this kind of thing or if programs are fine.

[EricK]

For most things you should be using scenes which result in direct communication between devices. A program must go thru the isy. Say you have a switchlinc for the kitchen lights and a keypad button that you also want to control the same lights. Create a scene kitchen lights and add the switchlinc and keypad button as controllers of the scene. This will work better than a program, ex: if Kpl is switched on then set switchlinc kitchen lights on.

So for your party scene add all the devices you want to control and set the on off levels for each device. Just be aware that you must set responses for each controller.

For my away button I have created a scene, however part of this includes every device and just about every Kpl button in the great room, which are already part of the all off scene in the great room. So maybe it would have just been easier to make a program, that when I press away, the great room all off scene is triggered. A lot easier than adding 30 devices to a scene. Someone recently suggested being able to add scenes to scenes this way if you make a hardware or function change you only have to make the change in a primary scene.

E