Newbie - can I do this and how?

[watson524]

Hi all,

I'm a convert from the insteon hubs (just were not stable enough for me) so a while ago, with the help of folks here, I switched our one house to an ISY. We have a simple setup, just a bunch of light switches and it went fairly well. Only one light switch I never got working that I have to get back to. We have an old insteon indoor camera I'd like to get working somehow but that may or may not work based on what I'm reading. I use agave to access the lights when I'm away from home and some are on a program (i.e. the candles in the windows) through the ISY control software.

Here's what I'm looking to do in fairly short order:

1.) Get several cameras that don't have to be screwed in (ability to easily move them around and just plug them in somewhere) that I can see through an app and possibly record to my laptop or have it at least send pictures on motion/sound (my insteon one I can turn the sensitivity down if we're away so any motion would have it start snapping pictures and emailing them to me) What kind of cameras would you recommend etc?

2.) Have a second house also leave the Hub and switch to an ISY but let me see it on my phone as well, either through the same Agave (or other) app or a second instance of it

3.) at that second house, it's similar to our first one, just some basic light switches but it also has a zwave door lock that I currently control through Schlage's smart things app and using IFTTT I have it make an entry in a google doc log every time there's a lock/unlock event at the door. Can continue to control the lock through the smart things app if need be, but would be nice to consolidate.

4.) Eventually I may want to add other things to the systems (i.e. infrared) but I think you can add that on to the base ISY994iZW that I have (and I'm assuming that'd be the same one I'd want to get for the other house that has the zwave lock)

I don't currently pay a monthly fee or anything (I think when I got agave for the first house I paid a small annual fee) and would like it to stay that way but if because of the cameras I need to pay, so be it.

Also I should note that I have a dyndns account for both locations so hold a static IP on the WAN side

thanks so much in advance!

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, watson524 said:

Hi all,

I'm a convert from the insteon hubs (just were not stable enough for me) so a while ago, with the help of folks here, I switched our one house to an ISY. We have a simple setup, just a bunch of light switches and it went fairly well. Only one light switch I never got working that I have to get back to. We have an old insteon indoor camera I'd like to get working somehow but that may or may not work based on what I'm reading. I use agave to access the lights when I'm away from home and some are on a program (i.e. the candles in the windows) through the ISY control software.

Here's what I'm looking to do in fairly short order:

1.) Get several cameras that don't have to be screwed in (ability to easily move them around and just plug them in somewhere) that I can see through an app and possibly record to my laptop or have it at least send pictures on motion/sound (my insteon one I can turn the sensitivity down if we're away so any motion would have it start snapping pictures and emailing them to me) What kind of cameras would you recommend etc?

<snipped>

I am just in this process....when I feel ambitious.    Look for IP cams that can be enabled/disabled from ISY. Turning on the motion sensing trigger is great but you need to disable that while you are home. Manually changing it from home to away will be forgotten.

 

After spending a medium amount of money on a Dahua cam, my sister in law bought 4 of these on sale for under $100 CAD, Amazing quality at 1080p and the app is so easy to use and well done. I don't know anything about security features though. 

Note:Prices will be CAD.

 https://www.amazon.ca/Wyze-Wireless-Camera-Vision-Android/dp/B076H3SRXG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1537729133&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=WiFi+camera

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi watson524,

1. I leave for others to chime in as, unfortunately, I do not know

2. You can. All you have to do is to have your ISY accessible remotely: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i/ISY-26_INSTEON:Remotely_Connect_to_Your_ISY

3. You need to upgrade your unit to have Z-Wave support which you already have so I do not see any issues

4. OK

With regards to monthly fees, that's totally up to you. In case you want to integrate with Alexa/Google Home, then you may have to.

With kind regards,
Michel

 

[watson524]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

After spending a medium amount of money on a Dahua cam, my sister in law bought 4 of these on sale for under $100 CAD, Amazing quality at 1080p and the app is so easy to use and well done. I don't know anything about security features though. 

Note:Prices will be CAD.

 https://www.amazon.ca/Wyze-Wireless-Camera-Vision-Android/dp/B076H3SRXG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1537729133&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=WiFi+camera

These cameras look like a good, down and dirty option and are priced well with great reviews! Do all 4 of hers show up at the same time in the app? It would really give me flexibility to just set them anywhere inside plus I like the 14 day cloud storage

 

1 hour ago, Michel Kohanim said:

2. You can. All you have to do is to have your ISY accessible remotely: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i/ISY-26_INSTEON:Remotely_Connect_to_Your_ISY

The funny thing is, I can access mine remotely using the port forwarding on my router and have a static IP on my ISY but in the ISY admin software on my laptop, it doesn't think internet access is enabled, unless that's for something else

[oberkc]

1) I do not integrate my cameras with anything insteon (yet).  I prefer cameras that do not require the cloud to operate, and have settled upon D-Link DCS-2332 or -2230 for outside use and DCS-932 for interior.  All can be viewed by streaming URL directly and I use Ipcamviewer Pro to monitor these.  I seems to me that these would meet your stated needs.

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, watson524 said:

These cameras look like a good, down and dirty option and are priced well with great reviews! Do all 4 of hers show up at the same time in the app? It would really give me flexibility to just set them anywhere inside plus I like the 14 day cloud storage

<snipped>

Yes. They all show up on one screen on her iPhone. She taps one of the screen, it explodes full screen and the voice opens up between the phone and the cam that has the focus. Yeah, she talks to her dogs from work during the day.

[watson524]

Does anyone know off hand if I have the ISYiZW for controlling a Schlage door lock, do I need the Smart Things box I already have or does that go away?

[dbuss]

8 minutes ago, watson524 said:

Does anyone know off hand if I have the ISYiZW for controlling a Schlage door lock, do I need the Smart Things box I already have or does that go away?

I have two homes, both with ISYs controlling seven Schlage door locks with no problems and a Smart Things box is not needed.

[watson524]

Just now, dbuss said:

I have two homes, both with ISYs controlling seven Schlage door locks with no problems and a Smart Things box is not needed.

Awesome, good to know. May I ask what app you're using on your phone to control everything? I'm trying to wrap my head around how this all works on the phone vs on the laptop where I know I'll have two logins to the two different houses on the ISY admin console

[dbuss]

1 minute ago, watson524 said:

Awesome, good to know. May I ask what app you're using on your phone to control everything? I'm trying to wrap my head around how this all works on the phone vs on the laptop where I know I'll have two logins to the two different houses on the ISY admin console

I have Agave and Mobilinc on my phones. Both work very well.

[watson524]

Ok thanks. I have Agave now for the one house so I figure I can just add another login to flip between the two.

[dbuss]

4 minutes ago, watson524 said:

Ok thanks. I have Agave now for the one house so I figure I can just add another login to flip between the two.

All you have to do in Agave is click on the menu and then click on Profile and then click on Add New Profile. Then you can add your second profile.

[watson524]

Thanks for that tip!

[watson524]

I went with the same ISY I have for the other house (with the z wave and then I'll add the x10 when it comes since at the holidays we do use a few old plugins) and also some d-link cameras. The Wyze ones are getting consistently bad reviews after their latest update last week and unfortunately, I don't have time to wait for them to fix the bugs that were introduced so I'll keep that on the back burner for future purchases.

The d-link devices you can get that do local recording of multiple cameras is pretty cool too so I'll have to see what's what with that vs just upgrading the cloud storage.

Now I'm off to do some reading on how to switch from hub to ISY since I can't remember on mine but I feel like I should have had to un-link devices from the hub but I couldn't because my hub just flat out died which is what's happened at the second house now too.

[oberkc]

Just factory reset each device, then add to ISY.  No need to deal with hub.