ISY Portal Maintenance - 12-24-2017

[bmercier]

Hello everyone,

We will have a maintenance this Sunday 12-24-2017 at 5:00 AM PDT which will last 1 hour. During this period, your ISY will be offline for a few seconds.

Changes
- Google Home: Color bulb support.

- Google Home: Ability to expose scenes/devices/programs a Google scenes (in addition to light/switch/outlet)

- Google Home: Ability to expose devices as Light, Switch or Outlet

- Google Home: Preferred ISY is no longer required if there is only one ISY in the account.

- Proxy bug fixes and additional logging

- Subscription servers bug fixes and additional logging

 

When adding color bulbs, you need to add the zwave color node (ZW999_186)

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 

Benoit

[MWareman]

Merry Christmas!

 

(Also, what is the purpose to exposing a Google Home scene/device/program as an Alexa scene - or is the Alexa mention a typo...?)

[bmercier]

Yes "Alexa scene" was a typo. I should have called it a Google scene. 

 

Google and Echo both have a device type named "scene". I call them an Alexa scene (or a Google scene in this case) to distinguish from an ISY scene.

 

The only advantage, to my knowledge, is the ability to use a wording like "Ok google, activate <name>".

Also, if you don't want the ISY scene to have a light, outlet or switch icon, then exposing it as a scene may be a good option.

 

If your scenes are used primarily for lighting, then it's probably best to expose them as light. One of the drawbacks of exposing an ISY scene as a Google scene is that they can't be dimmed.

 

FYI, the Echo skill already has all of that functionality. One of the goal of this update is to bring GH functionality at par with the Echo skill.

 

Benoit

[MWareman]

Thanks! Appreciate it... looking forward to the functionality...

[stusviews]

I get that exposing a portal program as a Light allows an Alexa Routine to turn that program both On and Off, otherwise only On is allowed. What I seem to have missed and I can't find the original reference, is the benefit (or lack of) exposing anything as a switch or outlet.

[MWareman]

Likely the icon thats displayed in the Alexa app....

 

Also, a ‘light’ will accept dim commands, as well as the ability to be queried for status. Other device types do not support this. If you declare an ISY scene as a ‘light’ the dim and status commands will be ignored.

 

(I think switch and outlet can be queried as well, it’s just scene that cannot....)

[asbril]

Thanks Benoit, Joyeux Noel et Bonne Annee

[stusviews]

Likely the icon thats displayed in the Alexa app....

 

Also, a ‘light’ will accept dim commands, as well as the ability to be queried for status. Other device types do not support this. If you declare an ISY scene as a ‘light’ the dim and status commands will be ignored.

 

(I think switch and outlet can be queried as well, it’s just scene that cannot....)

 

I already know what "light" does. But what are the advantages of "switch" or "outlet?" Are they the same? If so, then why different categories? If not, then what are the differences?

[MWareman]

I already know what "light" does. But what are the advantages of "switch" or "outlet?" Are they the same? If so, then why different categories? If not, then what are the differences?

Probably just the icon in the app...

[bmercier]

The maintenance is complete.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Benoit

[MWareman]

Merry Christmas!

[MWareman]

It seems I cannot 'Send spokens' anymore to my Home devices. I get 'Error contacting the Google HomeGraph API.'.

 

I wonder if others are seeing this - or if it's just me...

[MWareman]

It seems I cannot 'Send spokens' anymore to my Home devices. I get 'Error contacting the Google HomeGraph API.'.

 

I wonder if others are seeing this - or if it's just me...

 

I disconnected Home from Portal and re-linked. Then I was able to push again.

 

It kind of defeats the purpose if we have to disconnect and rejoin each time the Portal is upgraded though. Is this going to be a common thing?  I's a real pain to go thru and re-assign rooms in the Home app each time (though this would be *much* better if you are able to send room info as well....  )

[asbril]

It seems I cannot 'Send spokens' anymore to my Home devices. I get 'Error contacting the Google HomeGraph API.'.

 

I wonder if others are seeing this - or if it's just me...

My experience is that the error message is in fact an error    ....  I get the error message but the spokens are sent to my Google Home .

[bmercier]

I disconnected Home from Portal and re-linked. Then I was able to push again.

 

It kind of defeats the purpose if we have to disconnect and rejoin each time the Portal is upgraded though. Is this going to be a common thing?  I's a real pain to go thru and re-assign rooms in the Home app each time (though this would be *much* better if you are able to send room info as well....  )

 

Hi Michael,

 

I am not fully sure of when/how the issue happens, but I don't think it's related to the portal upgrade.

 

This error is shown when the google API returns me a "INVALID_ARGUMENT". This is normally due to giving it an invalid agentUserId - This case happens when the account is not linked (Google does not recognize the agentUserId, which is passed when doing the account link).

 

Possible cases:

- Google Home not being linked

- Having linked with user profile A, then login to ISY portal using profile B. Even if it's in the same account, this error will be shown.

- I'm aware of an another case, as asbril mentioned, and that happens when a user has linked more than once to the same ISY Portal account. 

 

I looked at the logs, and saw the failure(s). I tried to see which user profile it was linked to the last time that you linked, but the logging server does not keep enough days back in time.

 

I'm under the impression that Google loses that piece of information somehow. I recently fixed an issue with our oAuth server. Perhaps that will help.

 

As for the room, sure that would help a lot. Whenever Google will support it, we will.

 

Benoit

[MWareman]

Thanks Benoit.

 

I do have several user accounts - but in my case I’m using only the same Google and Portal account each time (just yesterday, after the issue, I added a Google Home for my Daughter using her own Google and Portal account so as to not confuse them).

 

I’ll keep an eye out to see if I comes up again.

 

Michael.