Welcome to a whole new world...

[Compusmurf]

Lightning struck close, wiped out quite a few things in my house.  One of them was my insteon hub.  I've been following this forum for awhile and was going to upgrade eventually.

 

Today is the day.

 

I have dozens of switches, outlets, leak detectors, smoke bridge, door sensors, etc installed with basic setups.  I have everything written down and mapped out.  Even have all the time schedules, scenes written down and mapped out.

 

Hopefully my migration goes fairly "easily".

 

I'm an IT guy by profession.

 

 

 

ANY gotchas I should be aware of just starting out?

[paulbates]

Hi, and welcome to the UDI forums!

 

Since you know insteon already, that's a start.. you have things like power leg bridging worked out.

 

Things to know

• There is a manual for it and I found reading it first helped a lot. Like many HA solutions, the ISY has its own approach and learning it. Look under 3.2 on the link
• The ISY uses a Java client currently. Installing and keeping it running- due to browsers and virus packages not liking java- can be a problem from time to time. It works well for me and after getting it set up, I don't need to use it that often
• Since you have desired behavior or devices mapped out, I would plan on using the information and start over: Factory reset devices and add them fresh into the ISY
• Work in logical groups of devices when migrating, get used to how things work, then move on. Start with something simpler and move to more complex
• After you get isnteon working again, I would start simple and grow into other features like Modules (Climate, Network).
• A big one to be aware of is the ISY firmware families. The 4.x branch is the current stable release. The 5.x is in alpha, but very far along. I've been using it as an insteon only user for a year and a half. You might want to start with 4.x, use it a while, and then think about upgrading 5.x as it progresses.
• There is a big forum and a big wiki. So while doing your research is good, this community is a great resource. Ask away!

Paul

[larryllix]

Welcome to the forum!

 

Factory reset every Insteon device before linking to ISY. This will save you a whole lot of frustration with devices doing "acting weird".

 

Create all scenes inside ISY with the admin console. Then it knows and makes easy management later.

 

Personally, I would start off with v5.0.10 myself. By the time (if you can) find a bug in it using all Insteon, a "stable" release will be on the table. I have never found any v5++ to be unstable in the software world. Some GUI things but never a crash or hang, ever.

 

.....Honey! We hooked another one!

[Compusmurf]

Oh, I was hooked before, I didn't go "all in" on controller yet.   Add a little here, little there, wake up one day and my house is 1/2 replaced, water sensors everywhere water could leak, mailbox, garage door wired, etc.

 

Everything was OK, but planned on someday upgrading the controller so I could actually "automate" more than the basic Insteon hub.  Of course, a good electrical storm encouraged the update faster than I was planning.

 

With the hub out, I had to dig around and actually find the REAL garage door opener, then batteries for it.......  Oh the inconvenience.

[paulbates]

With the hub out, I had to dig around and actually find the REAL garage door opener, then batteries for it.......  Oh the inconvenience.

 

The horror

 

Yes, what you'll get with the ISY is real integration and real automation.. not a fancy remote control.  A number of levels to participate at... from ISY programs, to taking advantages of common interfaces / languages. 

 

Paul

[Compusmurf]

I'm going to start simple.  Get everything in and talking, then I'll put my scripting experience to work.

 

Now, if only the UPS guy shows up.  Waiting is like watching paint dry.

[oberkc]

then I'll put my scripting experience to work.

 Don't assume that your experience in IT or scripting gives you a leg up.  Too many such folks have done so and been frustrated when the ISY did not react as their experience led them to expect.

 

I suspect you will have no problems adding your devices and creating scene.  With programs, however, it seems those with programming experience often claim the ISY does not behave as does the rest of the programming world.  (I don't know if this is true, nor care.)

 

With programs, each has three sections: if, then, and else.  This is logically straight-forward.  One thing seems to confuse some early on....the "if" condition is also the "trigger".  Each statement in the condition can trigger an evaluation of the entire condition.  It is important to know the trigger events that each statement represent.  For example, a program such as:

 

if

time is from sunrise to sunset

then

do something

else

so something else

 

will be triggered no more and no fewer times than twice: at sunrise (where it will be true) and sunset (where it will be false).  It will NOT continually do something between those times, but it will do something only once, then something else only once.

 

A program such as

 

if

time is from sunrise to sunset

and

light switch is turned on

then...

else...

 

will be triggered as sunrise, sunset, and any time the light switch is turned on. 

 

Just be aware of triggering events and take advantage of them. 

[builderb]

I was doing fine until I learned the

 

if

device X is switched on

and

device X is not switched off

then

turn on

else

turn off

 

trick for on/off control.

 

Then my brain melted.

[larryllix]

Yeah, It is definitely a culture shock for inline programmers, until they adapt to the event driven style.

 

People with object oriented language experience should not have much trouble swinging over to the ISY side.

 

ISY programming feels almost identical to other event driven languages I have dealt with before except for the menu driven syntax system. Actually an old Dos X10 system HC2000 was almost identical to ISY.

[Compusmurf]

So far, so good.

 

I did make 1 little mistake early on.  I forgot to wipe a few devices and tried to "import" some previously saved settings.   Lesson learned.

 

My scripting experience is based on powershell which is OS event driven partially so that isn't an issue.

 

All my original time based scripts are setup and working.  

 

I'm fighting with email/txt message notifications.  Using default, I'm finding hit or miss to email or txt, however the test message works almost 100%.

 

Still have some learning.  I may choose to use my own email server instead.

[larryllix]

Many have been caught here.

FYI:

Notifications have to have body text as well as header text or ISY won't send them.

[Compusmurf]

It's got body, I think it's TMOBILE that's the issue.  Just an update.

 

All my devices, scenes, Insteon stuff, Zwave stuff all work great.  Compliments of TASKER on my android phone, I get popup messages.  (Better than a TXT message anyway)

 

Agave is really cool.  I will be purchasing that for sure.

 

I've written some pretty basic scenes and programs, my wife really liked the motion sensor activated lights.  (Zwave device to insteon)  She's starting to dig the flexibility.  I hooked it to my Google home and she loves chatting with it as well.   She's coming up with ideas now.   She wants a motion sensor activated walk in closet light now.

 

I do have 2 programs I need some ideas on.

 

I have the garage door, garage light and motion sensor in Garage.

 

1 program alerts me when the garage door opens.

The other one alerts me "every 10 minutes" if garage door stays open for over 1 hour.   (so we don't accidentally leave door open all night)

 

For the first program, I would like it to notify me on open AND on close.

 

I'm assuming I'd need a variable so that way it only happens once each time and not over and over.

 

Is that thought process correct?

[oberkc]

Is that thought process correct?

 

 

I have found that there is very little of the basic stuff that requires a variable.  If you are using a variable as a binary indicator (on/off, open/close) then there are probably simple ways to do this without a variable.  Generally,  a program status (true/false) is plenty good enough to track status of something.  I have never had much use, for example, for a program such as:

 

if

status door is open

then

set variable to 1

else

set variable to 0

 

Why not, instead, use a program such as

 

if

status door is open

then

nothing

else

nothing

 

Use program status, rather than the value of a variable.

 

If you find that using a variable makes things easier to visualize, then go for it.