ISY to control ELK (C-bus) lighting

[Opals]

Hi all,

 

 

I am in Australia and have been looking at purchasing the ISY from the US as they are not available here from my searching.

My system consists of the M1, M1XEP, C-bus lighting serial expander (Clipsal Australia wired lighting system).

 

This all works fine using M1 rules and also the EKPro app for full control of all M1 functions.

 

Will the ISY be able to control these lighting loads by using the same method as the EKPro I assume?

 

 

Primary goal is to link my ELK with a cloud based controller to use Google Home/Alexa voice controls.

 

 

Any info appreciated..

 

[Brian H]

One issue you may have.

Your power is 230 Volts 50 Cycles.

The ISY994i uses a 2413S PLM to interface to the power lines for communications. It is strictly 120 Volts 60 Cycles.

The RF frequency used by the PLM is 915Mhz for Dual Band communications. Your country uses a different frequency.

 

I am not familiar with what you want to do. So if a PLM is not needed. There is a firmware version that does not need the PLM and go into a safe mode when the PLM not detected.

 

The ISY994i also has its own wall wart power supply so powering it in your locations should not be an issue.

[Opals]

Hi Brian,

 

I have been in discussion with John @ Orchestrated Home about the setup and he has kindly tried a config which will work, but I am also open to any other ideas.

 

 

Essentially i need to trigger a Lighting load on the ELK with a voice command (Google/Alexa)

 

I have researched and found the ISY suitable for bridging between the ELK and the cloud account Google Home requires from my short time playing since xmas.

So then I assumed ISY with ELK module would be able to command a light to turn on/off, but apparently not that easy.

I have this working via EKPro app at present.

 

 

John has suggested I make a phantom X10 light device that can be setup in ISY to trigger a program to trigger an ELK relay

From this I can map a lighting scene from the ELK side easy enough.

 

This is more work than I first expected, but if this is it, then I think I will go ahead with the purchase.

 

 

With regard to the PLM, I don't need this or any other Z-wave control so I will remove the z-wave board.  The PLM issue was not mentioned to me so I will double check if I can use the ISY without it.

I assumed you can buy them as an option so figured it should run with or without the PLM.

 

 

Cheers

Adam

[Brian H]

As far as I know. All the retail ISY994i modules have the firmware that needs the PLM. If you have a Z-wave version now. It may already have it installed.

The other version can be installed from the firmware section here if needed.

You may see it referred to as the Z-Wave version but it is the exact same firmware except it will not go into the safe mode. if no PLM is detected.

 

4.6.2 is the latest released version.

The original post in this thread has the Z-Wave version if you need it.

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/22000-release-462-is-now-official/

[MWareman]

The Zwave firmware does not require a PLM.

 

If you get the networking module and the elk module, you will be able to incorporate elk objects in your programming on ISY.

 

I do not know if Elk lighting objects will be exposed to ISY Portal and allow spoken to be assigned though. I do a lot with Elk, but don’t have any C-Bus loving I could test for you... maybe someone else knows for sure...

 

Worst case, create programs to control your lights, and then assign spoken to trigger your programs. A bit of maintenance would be needed, but that would work.

[Opals]

So, if I can assign a spoken for a program, then this will bypass the x10 phantom required.

 

This is what I would like, 1 less step at least.  If the program just triggers an ELK relay, ELK can handle the rest with rules.  Although I will use these up pretty quick if I needed to control all lights.

I wont be needing to do that, so i will just manage it as required.

 

Going to get the module and give it a try.

 

 

Thanks for the help

[seacontracting]

Hi Opal 

How did you go in purchasing the Isy? From who did you purchase it ?

I have the isy /Elk combo and it works great. I am now looking at purchasing another Isy as i have range issues to my shed. Isy sales says they dont ship here and it wont work here in Aus, even though mines been working great for the last 5 years