I have several Insteon wireless thermostats that I use to monitor temperature and humidity in outside patio areas. When the batteries fail the ISY shows the last reported temperature and humidity and it could be days before I realize that the batteries have failed.

Being that the thermostat doesn't have a battery node, has anyone come up with a clever program to determine if the thermostat's battery has failed?  I'm currently running 4.7.3 firmware.

 

Although I have never used variables I believe you could use them to compare the temp in the early morning with that of mid day and, if no change is reported, change the battery. 

The humidity gets updated every 5 minutes on battery but ISY programming can only detect changes to the value, not that is updated.

However if an allowance of say 12-24 hours can be allowed a change of humidity should happen at least once per day.
Use SmokeGrub's technique (above) and combine with humidity to reset a time out or time out variable.

IIRC saving a parameter field requires V5+

I think that with 4.7.3 I really don't have any options.  My first thought, as smokegrub suggested, was to assign either the temperature or humidity to a variable. Guess I'll have to sit it out until I move up to 5.x.x. 

4 hours ago, Techman said:

I think that with 4.7.3 I really don't have any options.  My first thought, as smokegrub suggested, was to assign either the temperature or humidity to a variable. Guess I'll have to sit it out until I move up to 5.x.x. 

The same thing is accomplished by just creating a change of value heartbeat program and using a Wait for the same time span. Both methods look for a change in value. No temperature or humidity save to variables are needed.

OTOH. I recommend v5.

10 minutes ago, larryllix said:

The same thing is accomplished by just creating a change of value heartbeat program and using a Wait for the same time span. Both methods look for a change in value. No temperature or humidity save to variables are needed.

OTOH. I recommend v5.

Can you give me a program example on comparing values.

1 hour ago, Techman said:

Can you give me a program example on comparing values.

If
    stat.temp < 999
  OR
   stat.humidity < 102%

Then
    $sStat.comm.falied = $cFalse
    Wait 24 hours
    $sStat.comm.failed = $cTrue
    Wait 15 minutes
    notify Techman "Stat lost comms!"

Else
    ----

You don't need to know what the temperature was, only that temp or humidity changed once per day (or less).