MiLight - Support for MiLight LED controllers

[io_guy]

Well there may be a delay getting this running. I ordered parts and they shipped (LimitlessLED which I have now discovered is in NZ, not US) and apparently they sent CanadaPost with an almost guaranteed strike starting Saturday.

[larryllix]

Well there may be a delay getting this running. I ordered parts and they shipped (LimitlessLED which I have now discovered is in NZ, not US) and apparently they sent CanadaPost with an almost guaranteed strike starting Saturday.

Well, I have still have a complete setup of parts for loan but again I am not sure how our paths would cross. I am off to Barrie and Haliburton area tomorrow, from Owen Sound area. I do meet up with sister-in-law that works in North T.O every day.

 

I am not in any hurry as Network Resources are working so far with long delays . Ship happens.

[apnar]

For anyone looking for a more DIY solution I've been playing around with individual addressable LEDs in strips using a BeagleBone Black as a controller (has a built in PRU that can bang out the bits fast enough).

 

I'm using this software package: https://github.com/Yona-Appletree/LEDscape   The result is a server that listens on a UDP port.  You simply send it a stream of values for the lights and they change.  Depending on how many lights are on each channel you can easily get over 100 FPS plus you get to pick the color of each individual light so you can do some cool effects.

 

I use the WS2812b LEDs which you can pick up the strips pretty cheap on eBay.

 

Last part of my project is to figure out how to power all the strips I have which is turning out to be most challenging part of the project.

[io_guy]

Got my bulb and bridge today. I connect to the bridge directly but the POS can't find any routers when I try to connect it. There's only about 20 in my neighborhood.

Anyone else have this issue?

[larryllix]

Got my bulb and bridge today. I connect to the bridge directly but the POS can't find any routers when I try to connect it. There's only about 20 in my neighborhood.

Anyone else have this issue?

That was fast shipping!

 

I had to run a special app on my mobile phone and connect to the bridge/hub via it's self created WiFi SSID.

Then after setting up the correct WiFi parameters to connect to your real WiFi SSID and you hit save, or whatever, the self-created SSID network disappears and it connects to your router SSID network.

 

I got into trouble and locked out once and I had to do a factory reset on the MiLight hub/bridge and start again with the app on the mobile phone.

 

The whole thing is a little weird but it works well. Your cell phone will switch back automatically to your home network SSID and continue like nothing happened.

 

BTW: Instructions usually show the bulb unlink incorreectly. Either use 5 taps on the On button or hold it for a long press. Which ever one is stated was wrong on every instruction I receieved.

I found you could have a device linked into several groups at once. With multiple bulbs it can cause some confusion.

[io_guy]

Got it running. Wouldn't work at all on my Nexus, had to switch to the wife's iPhone.

Should have something running this weekend on NodeLink.

[larryllix]

Odd. Mine was all on Android.

 

Cool! It's should be a difficult protocol. It's all one way with no handshakes.

 

IIRC Apostalakisl uses the old protocol with the 30-40 code range = RGB only

 

Some state they send things three times to ensure communication. An individual option for send count might be nice as I have some bulbs/strips that seem to need it occasionally.

 

When I do multiple colours, like Christmas, I send every bulbs colour out and then repeat the sequence around the room again. Every so often it seems to be needed. For all the same colour I repeat the On/device selct twice and then send single colours after for some. With ISY Waits of 1 second or more repeating is a PITA. Three times for NodeLink/RPi shouldn't be a problem for the human eye.

[io_guy]

Up and running on NodeLink now, pretty easy.

Any feature requests to fire in?

I have it able to set on/off, color and brightness from the admin console GUI.

All three can be set as a single command in programs.

[larryllix]

Up and running on NodeLink now, pretty easy.

Any feature requests to fire in?

I have it able to set on/off, color and brightness from the admin console GUI.

All three can be set as a single command in programs.

I have found it is best to dim bulbs down to the lowest level=2 before turning them off.

When turning them on to another colour, next time, and since the On is the addressing command, you get one bright colour flash before it can change. The lowest level fixes that mostly. I don't think that could be handled well in ISY.

 

Mot sure how you made the interface look in ISY but I assume you kept the 0 group as "All" groups.

 

I can test and give better feedback. Gone this afternoon mostly but back after 6 ish.

[larryllix]

Will there be support for several Hubs? I have two. Differnet IP addresses. Network Resources var substitution won't support var to text in IP addresses.

 

It is unfortunate that these things can only support four groups each. I was hoping they would produce one to support 16 or 256 groups eventually.

[io_guy]

Yep, you just install a NodeLink device for each hub.

 

I have all as the main node and each group as a sub.

 

I'll add an option to dim down prior to off.

[larryllix]

Nice!

 

Us poor guys have never had such luxuries before so it's hard to comment on additions yet.

 

Xathros and maybe Apostolakisl should comment sometime for input.

[Xathros]

Sweet.  Not sure I can offer much till I play with it and see what seems to be needed.

 

Ready to test!

 

-Xathros

[io_guy]

OK, who has an Ebay China link to get these cheap.  I'm up and running now and these things work way better than the ApplianceLincs I currently use for table lamps.

 

I have an ISY program that toggles my ApplianceLinc when I switch my main overhead SwitchLinc off (when the main overhead light is already off).  It's about a 3 second delay from switch to action.  With these it's almost instant.

[TheFallenAngel]

OK, who has an Ebay China link to get these cheap. I'm up and running now and these things work way better than the ApplianceLincs I currently use for table lamps.

 

I have an ISY program that toggles my ApplianceLinc when I switch my main overhead SwitchLinc off (when the main overhead light is already off). It's about a 3 second delay from switch to action. With these it's almost instant.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351646103215 make sure you select the RGBW otherwise tell sent what they choose..

 

Cheers,

Alex

[larryllix]

OK, who has an Ebay China link to get these cheap. I'm up and running now and these things work way better than the ApplianceLincs I currently use for table lamps.

 

I have an ISY program that toggles my ApplianceLinc when I switch my main overhead SwitchLinc off (when the main overhead light is already off). It's about a 3 second delay from switch to action. With these it's almost instant.

I dealt with at least two dealers from ebay.ca. They usually have clones stores on ebay.com but dealing in US funds and Paypal like to add a little more to the price.

 

Unfortunately one dealer has nothing in their store anymore, and the other only has a bulb and bridge deal.

 

Most of thee dealers on ebay deal under dozens of names as they get a few bad ratings and ebay kicks them off so they just continue using another store name. Many packages from different dealers came in the same package..

 

If you deal in US funds and get a refund you will pay double exchange so you may want to deal with CAD only.

 

The RGBWW strips are hardly ever handled by the same dealers as the MiLight gadgetry and bulbs.

 

I have all 9W RGBWW (as opposed to 6W) bulbs and when full on white they look like 100W incandescents and dim down real low too.

 

I had several RGBW 5050 LED strips but once I saw the RGBWW strips I took them down and they sit in a box now. way too purple.

 

Nice to hear you are pleased. I have four Hues and would trade them for MiLights any day, but they both have their own strengths.

 

We begin to realise how slow Insteon really is but it has some handshaking and a much higher level of protocol.

[larryllix]

Installed NodeLink o.5.6 with MiLight support! Awesome! and Thanks so much!

So much more freedom in ISY!
 

After playing for a few moments only, some improvement suggestions:

• When dimming before the off, a half second delay, to display the soft down ramping level before the absolute light cutOff would give a better and more uniform look to the Off.
• Fuschia was spelled incorrectly in the API defs. I won't mention all the American spellings
• Most times selecting a colour name doesn't update the colour code in the device colour code box. Colour codes vary slightly between bulbs and RGBW(W) strips. Using codes can override and nullify the names in usage, if desired.
• After an Off the On only turns on groups at the lowest setting as would be expected. I have no suggestion for that one. That was how it was left but doesn't respond with the usual and expected ISY flavour. 

 

These MiLight things are fast for sure now that I can see it without the ISY "Wait 1 second" delay every operation.

 

Can't thank you enough for what you have done

[io_guy]

After playing for a few moments only, some improvement suggestions:

• When dimming before the off, a half second delay, to display the soft down ramping level before the absolute light cutOff would give a better and more uniform look to the Off.
• Fuschia was spelled incorrectly in the API defs. I won't mention all the American spellings
• Most times selecting a colour name doesn't update the colour code in the device colour code box. Colour codes vary slightly between bulbs and RGBW(W) strips. Using codes can override and nullify the names in usage, if desired.
• After an Off the On only turns on groups at the lowest setting as would be expected. I have no suggestion for that one. That was how it was left but doesn't respond with the usual and expected ISY flavour. 

 

• I'll add an option to NodeLink to specify the desired off delay when using the dim-before-off option
• I'll correct fuschia.  Canuck here but never did like adding a u to all my words.
• I'll work on the coder code updating correctly, it did work at one point.
• In the ISY you can specify an optional brightness for the RGB and White on commands.  Is this not what you need?

[larryllix]

 

• In the ISY you can specify an optional brightness for the RGB and White on commands.  Is this not what you need?

I'm a little confused by that question and not sure about it all, just yet.

 

Due to the weird protocol, users may have to know how to use it as either

- Some orders of command lines may not work

or

- an On code would be needed to be sent to address devices every time a colour, or level, is changed.

 

The code sub worked every time from the group control but randonly not from the individual controls.

 

The Admin Console program line to to turn On a bulb to a level, with a colour, colour doesn't indicate in the program lines correctly. One parameter is missing.

 

EDIT:

 

When I send All ON or ALL OFF commands on one hub after another I need a time delay or it misses most of the time on the second command line. Meanwhile my Hues are still ramping so there may be some traffic congestion somewhere. I have two repeats selected. I will try some rearranging, maybe put the Hues between the two Hubs in time sequence.

[io_guy]

I just uploaded a new nodesetup.zip.  I think the one I had on the server was out of date, should fix the xxxx you mention.

[larryllix]

I just uploaded a new nodesetup.zip.  I think the one I had on the server was out of date, should fix the xxxx you mention.

Haha.I just uploaded a new one over top of one from about 0.4.5 somewhere.

 

I'll give that a try. I assume I can just reload (no delete) specify in the Node setup in ISY and that ISYmust be rebooted after.

[larryllix]

OK. Loaded the available nodesetup.zip and rebooted ISY.

 

I see no change same as per attached screenshot above.

 

I have noticed in the device manual control menus:

 

-when setting the parameters for one hub it sets parameters for the other hub, and all devices, IN BOTH HUBS.

It wouldn't be a big deal, but if I try to set two devices manually to the same colour, or brightness, the setting logic sees no change in value, and doesn't send code to do it.

[io_guy]

I'll look into this tomorrow. Some of this may be ISY quirks/bugs.

[larryllix]

I'll look into this tomorrow. Some of this may be ISY quirks/bugs.

One more thing I have noticed and I finally remembered when I wrote some python code to operate these from the RPi.

 

I found that by that data storming the hubs I could flood their receive buffers. I wrote some tight loops to rotate the colours through a sequence.

 

I found the sequence could be done Tx, and yet the bulbs would still be changing for a bit. Can't remember the details but I remember I had to slow the code Tx swamping down somewhat, adding a 0.05-0.1??? second delay after each UDP Tx.

 

 

I am having trouble with sequential writes to one hub and then the next hub with successive lines in ISY programs. If I put a WAIT 0 seconds between "Hub1/All on" and "Hub2/All On" it helps somewhat but doesn't always work to fix the second hub missing commands on some, or all, bulbs.

 

I have increased my Tx repeat to x3 but it hasn't helped this.

[io_guy]

Having trouble following your issues, they're pretty intermixed, Maybe start a new thread and keep editing the first post with the running issue list.

 

One more thing I have noticed and I finally remembered when I wrote some python code to operate these from the RPi.

I found that by that data storming the hubs I could flood their receive buffers. I wrote some tight loops to rotate the colours through a sequence.

I found the sequence could be done Tx, and yet the bulbs would still be changing for a bit. Can't remember the details but I remember I had to slow the code Tx swamping down somewhat, adding a 0.05-0.1??? second delay after each UDP Tx.
 

 

I could add a 50ms delay between retries but this will delay the look since it would do 3x (for example) ON commands with delays, and then 3x BRIGHTNESS commands with delays and then 3x COLOR commands with delays.

 

 

I have noticed in the device manual control menus:

-when setting the parameters for one hub it sets parameters for the other hub, and all devices, IN BOTH HUBS.
It wouldn't be a big deal, but if I try to set two devices manually to the same colour, or brightness, the setting logic sees no change in value, and doesn't send code to do it.

 

No idea what you mean here, I can't reproduce this.

 

 

The Admin Console program line to to turn On a bulb to a level, with a colour, colour doesn't indicate in the program lines correctly. One parameter is missing.

 

 

Posted a new nodesetup.zip that should fix this.