Simple Control (Roomie Remote) How To

[deirwin]

I have Simple Control (formerly Roomie Remote), ISY994, Insteon lighting controls, and Z-Wave thermostats.  I have been unable to integrate the thermostats with SC.  I see them as lighting nodes.  I also had issues when first integrating, as it showed duplicates of most items in ISY, as if it was resyncing.  There doesn't seem to be a simple way to add an item to a room, like a dimmer ro thermostat.  Has anyone had any luck with this?  Could you steer me toward direction or solution?

[ENrgStar]

Same issue. I use an Insteon thermostat adapter on a Venstar thermostat. It reports as a light node and reports the set temp as a integer from 0-255, and I don't think it reports current temp at all.

I think its the way Roomie reads the data coming in.. I've reported it to Roomie, I'm sure they're working on it.

[jwbbucs]

Recently purchased the ISY994 and I'm looking at the Simple Control Home app to serve as the UI front-end on a dedicated ipad.  Currently comparing what it can control on the home automation side of things (the AV integrations look great).  Do you know if they have fixed this yet?  I'd very much like to be able to control the thermostat from the Simple Control app.  It also seems you can control a variety of thermostats directly through Simple Control.  Is there an advantage to controlling through ISY vs Simple Control directly?  ISY seems much more powerful, but I need a nice front end UI for this to do what I want.  Otherwise I fear opening the wallet for Control4 or something like that.  Any help is appreciated!

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi jwbbucs,

 

First of all, thanks so very much for getting an ISY.

 

The last time we heard from Roomie was almost 2 years ago alas nothing since.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[ghaynes27]

I have Simple Control and ISY and it's working great so far. I have about ~40 insteon switches that Simple Control handles no problem. Since it supports feedback I get the current state of all the lights and the level of brightness. I also have it control all of my ceiling fans which use zwave switches. Simple Control really lets you use all of the ISY functionality. You can control devices, scenes and run programs. Let me know if you have any questions.

[jwbbucs]

I have Simple Control and ISY and it's working great so far. I have about ~40 insteon switches that Simple Control handles no problem. Since it supports feedback I get the current state of all the lights and the level of brightness. I also have it control all of my ceiling fans which use zwave switches. Simple Control really lets you use all of the ISY functionality. You can control devices, scenes and run programs. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

I see from the VERY basic information on SC website that ISY can send triggers to SC to execute actions (like turning on a series of lights based on an ISY program - I think it can do that at least), and I see that you get feedback to SC to display current levels (which is great), but can you setup a trigger on SC (a button in the app for instance) that can send a trigger to ISY to do something (such as engage the ELK security module or run some complex program that what SC can control itself)?  I'd probably buy the SC app just for the front-end GUI and it would still be a lot cheaper than Control4 or something on that end of things, but I'm hopeful.  Just trying to figure out what is the best in class solution for a cobbled together HA system that delivers the functionality AND high-end look of something like Control 4 or Crestron, but on a much more modest budget.

[etsvilik]

I'm using SC with ISY for number of years. Works great together. Practically I consider SC the best UI for ISY day to day control you can buy, bringing together ISY and all other HA devices in the house.

 

All design process takes place on iPad without separate software etc. We are all Apple household so everybody has full fledged remote control in their pocket on iPhone and number of iPads placed around the house. All changes to design and status synchronized across all devices automatically.

 

SC allows you to create buttons and have it execute any ISY programs, scenes etc. ISY commands can be also a  part of any macro (Actions in SC speak). I have not found the case where I need to trigger something in reverse - from ISY to SC. SC has a new product - SC Hub that I don't have. It acts as central repository and synchronization host. I would assume Actions can be triggered by network resource sent from ISY to SC Hub.