elk can't dim insteon scenes through the ISY

[afenn]

It appears that the elk can't dim/brighten scenes through the ISY, while the ISY has no problem doing it directly.

 

Is this a known issue, or is this known to work?

 

I have noticed that the export from the ISY sets scenes as on/off switches. I have tried setting them to dimmers, but that still doesn't work.

 

Any ideas?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello afenn,

 

You should be able to dim/brighten scenes the same way as you would the lights. So, the main question is whether or not you can dim/brighten devices. If so, then we would have to contact ELK and see what they suggest.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

It appears that the elk can't dim/brighten scenes through the ISY, while the ISY has no problem doing it directly.

 

Is this a known issue, or is this known to work?

 

I have noticed that the export from the ISY sets scenes as on/off switches. I have tried setting them to dimmers, but that still doesn't work.

 

Any ideas?

[afenn]

I can brighten/dim individual devices with no problem.

 

I can't see how the elk would even have a chance to brighten/dim scenes when the ISY export file sets scenes to on/off. Seems like that part, at least, is an ISY problem.

 

Because of that, I wonder if setting those scenes to dimmable in the ELK even has a chance to work. I wonder if, because the ISY thinks they are on/off, he isn't allowing them to be dimmed.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello afenn,

 

ISY does NOT think they are on off. ISY exports the configuration as is to ELK ... ELK decides what nodes should be considered on/off.

 

I am going to send an email to our ELK contact and have him respond.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

I can brighten/dim individual devices with no problem.

 

I can't see how the elk would even have a chance to brighten/dim scenes when the ISY export file sets scenes to on/off. Seems like that part, at least, is an ISY problem.

 

Because of that, I wonder if setting those scenes to dimmable in the ELK even has a chance to work. I wonder if, because the ISY thinks they are on/off, he isn't allowing them to be dimmed.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi afenn,

 

I do apologize for the confusion. Mr. Lamb at ELK contacted me immediately with accurate information and thus now I have to retract my previous statements. This said, however, the limitation is INSTEON protocol which does NOT allow turning on a scene to certain on level. That's precisely why you can set the on level/ramp rate for each device in the scene so that when the scene is called, the devices will automatically go to their respective on level/ramp rate for that scene.

 

For this reason, collectively we had agreed to make scenes on/off only. As far as Dim/Brighten, that would not currently work with the current ELK-ISY protocol.

 

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[afenn]

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense. However, there's still one piece I'm not tracking.

 

If that's the case, why can I dim/brighten scenes from the ISY directly? Because I can click the brighten/dim button on the scene in the ISY's interface, and see it work, it makes me think that this is possible. If the ISY can do it, the elk should be able to do it through the ISY. What am I missing?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello afenn,

 

ELK does not send DIM/BRT commands. It only sends On with an On Level which, in our case, will not work. ISY, on the other hand, can send INSTEON fade up/down/stop commands. For this to work, ISY has to basically figure out what the user expects when dealing with a scene and, to exacerbate the situation, since scenes do NOT have associated on levels then it would be quite difficult to figure out how long to maintain the Fade up/down commands. I hope this makes sense.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense. However, there's still one piece I'm not tracking.

 

If that's the case, why can I dim/brighten scenes from the ISY directly? Because I can click the brighten/dim button on the scene in the ISY's interface, and see it work, it makes me think that this is possible. If the ISY can do it, the elk should be able to do it through the ISY. What am I missing?

[afenn]

I see.

 

In my case, I just want to control virtual 3 ways, with dim/bright. I prefer use the scene to do this, because when the ISY controls the load bearing switch directly, the other switches in the multi-way don't reflect the change in status on their light bars. When the ISY turns a scene (multi-way) on/off, the correct status is reflected.

 

I'm using eKeypad to control dim/fade dimmers and virtual multi-ways. I guess I'll just control the load bearing switches and live with the status inconsistency. Bummer.

 

Thinking about this a little more. eKeypad/ELK must be sending power levels when it dims/fades individual switches. I wonder if ELK couldn't do the same for virtual multi-ways if ELK thought they were dimmable? Any idea?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello afenn,

 

A bummer indeed!

 

The problem is precisely this: they do send preset dim levels (power levels) but this will not work with INSTEON. Instead, there should be three other commands:

Fade Start Up

Fade Start Down

Fade Stop

 

If these commands are implemented, then dim/brighten would work. Otherwise, I cannot foresee any other solutions.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

I see.

 

In my case, I just want to control virtual 3 ways, with dim/bright. I prefer use the scene to do this, because when the ISY controls the load bearing switch directly, the other switches in the multi-way don't reflect the change in status on their light bars. When the ISY turns a scene (multi-way) on/off, the correct status is reflected.

 

I'm using eKeypad to control dim/fade dimmers and virtual multi-ways. I guess I'll just control the load bearing switches and live with the status inconsistency. Bummer.

 

Thinking about this a little more. eKeypad/ELK must be sending power levels when it dims/fades individual switches. I wonder if ELK couldn't do the same for virtual multi-ways if ELK thought they were dimmable? Any idea?