Logging - How and What?

[zerop]

Did a search but WAY too much came up.

 

How and what do you log form you Insteon system?

 

Using email/notification I've set up some actions to be logged to a webpage using the web server on the ISY.  I log when some programs run such as when the HVAC turns on or the hot water recirculation pump turns on, when certain doors open, etc.  I do this by having each program I want to monitor having its own "notify" email (post to web server) made specifically for that action.  Most of my logging is more for curiosity of when and how often things happen around the house.  I’m sure the way I’m doing it isn’t the best way.

 

What do you log and how?  I read somewhere someone mention they have a log in excel.  How do you do that automatically?  Do you log every device in your house, when each light is turned on or off or only larger/big picture things like energy usage?

 

[oberkc]

I have found the built in log of the ISY sufficient for any desire I have to track device activity and history.  Yes, it can be exported to an excel file.  I did nothing to enable this, it tracks these events without any action on my part, so I consider it automatic.  I perceive that it tracks every communication event, either to or from the ISY. 

[stusviews]

The ISY saves a log of virtually all Insteon actions. AFAIK, Excel is required to view the log. Back to you concern:

 

Aside from curiosity, a use of notifications is alerts. A doorbell rang, a gate opened, something did happen that shouldn't have (e..g, a leak) or something did not happen that was expected to occur.

 

BTW, there are better and easier to use tools that can monitor energy use than a log.

 

But, a log is a great problem for a mathematics teacher to assign. I may have done that.

 

[MWareman]

You don't have to use Excel - the export is a .CSV file - you can open it in many programs. I use Notepad++

[Teken]

 

Did a search but WAY too much came up.

 

How and what do you log form you Insteon system?

 

Using email/notification I've set up some actions to be logged to a webpage using the web server on the ISY.  I log when some programs run such as when the HVAC turns on or the hot water recirculation pump turns on, when certain doors open, etc.  I do this by having each program I want to monitor having its own "notify" email (post to web server) made specifically for that action.  Most of my logging is more for curiosity of when and how often things happen around the house.  I’m sure the way I’m doing it isn’t the best way.

 

What do you log and how?  I read somewhere someone mention they have a log in excel.  How do you do that automatically?  Do you log every device in your house, when each light is turned on or off or only larger/big picture things like energy usage?

 

 

I use a combination of dedicated hardware, software, and cloud solutions. Which assist me to see real time, historic, and aggregated trends. The ISY Series Controller provides me from small to large tracking abilities which are integrated into several other cloud solutions.

 

In the screen capture you will see state / integer variables which track current, low, high values for specific areas, rooms, zones, floors, devices, appliances in my home. Using the power of the ISY Series Controller I forward the same data sets to the free hosted service of Smart Energy Groups (SEG).

 

As this allows me to use multiple graphs, charts, dials, to be used to track those sensors and energy readings for later review. While on the other extreme I use my Brultech Dash Box to capture all of the electrical energy, temperature, water, gas, weather data which is stored locally in my home.

 

I have the benefit of local storage, control, and security / privacy. While also having redundancy of the same data set held off site freely hosted in the cloud for later retrieval and sharing with the community should I so desire.

 

Ultimately all of the above takes some time, effort, and financial resources. 

[larryllix]

You don't have to use Excel - the export is a .CSV file - you can open it in many programs. I use Notepad++

Is the ++ significant on the Notepad name? When I open the logs in Notepad I get no newline and everything is run-on smashed together. If I use Wordpad it seems to handle it better but with two newline chars for each line.

[MWareman]

Yes. Notepad++ is a different tool than Notepad. https://notepad-plus-plus.org

[drkair]

Since I went to Office 2016 my log will not open in excel. It asks if I want to view the log in Excel, I answer yes, Excel opens but no data. Any ideas?

DonSR

[KeviNH]

I do two kinds of logging, both use ISY994 features with variable substitutions to get data into a useful form.

• For Program events that are of interest to other systems in my house, I use Network Resources to generate a syslog packet, this can be received and handled by any Unix system, or even Splunk, etc.
• I use Notifications to append text to a webpage on the ISY994 when certain programs run, this gives me a HTML view of what's happened today, which I can view from any web browser, e.g. from a phone or tablet.  Logfiles are named for the day of the week, and erased after 6 days.

One use of these is to figure out what happened when I miss a notification I expected -- if I didn't get the email notification, I can check my webpage log to see whether that program sent a "notification" to the webpage, basically an execution history instead of just a "last run" timestamp.

 

 

 

Since I went to Office 2016 my log will not open in excel. It asks if I want to view the log in Excel, I answer yes, Excel opens but no data. Any ideas?

Say no, save to disk, then launch Excel, find the saved .csv file on disk and open it that way?
 

In the screen capture you will see state / integer variables which track current, low, high values for specific areas, rooms, zones, floors, devices, appliances in my home. Using the power of the ISY Series Controller I forward the same data sets to the free hosted service of Smart Energy Groups (SEG).

Haven't tried SEG.   I do track some things locally (temperature and humidity), and have been playing around with sending event timestamps and tracking/graphing variables using the free version of UbiDots.

Edited November 19, 2016 by KeviNH

[Chris Jahn]

This may also help, I reposted the instructions for logging events etc. to a webpage on the ISY

 

http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/20328-create-web-pages-using-programs-requires-network-module/

[stusviews]

Since I went to Office 2016 my log will not open in excel. It asks if I want to view the log in Excel, I answer yes, Excel opens but no data. Any ideas?

DonSR

 

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