Scenes/Devices and Echo

[bigDvette]

So I don't understand the behavior of the echo integration (and now that I have dug in the mobilinc integration.

 

The scenario is I have a lot of 3 way or KPL controlled devices (lamps, lights, fans ...).  So naturally those are setup in groups.  For the purpose of this discussion we have the following:

 

Lamp_01 - Load control

Lamp_11 - Slave switch

Lamps - Lamp Scene with Lamp_01 as responder only (lamplinc) and Lamp_11 as controller/responder

 

In mobilinc when in the devices page, if I click on the icon for Lamp_11 it will turn on the lamp and both devices show status of on.  If I go in to the device and on the screen click ON, only Lamp_11 switch changes status to on and Lamp_01 stays off (and therefore lamp not on)

The second behavior is also what the echo does.  I don't want the echo to control the scene because I can't dim the scene through echo and it doesn't properly report back status.  If I control the Lamp_01 switch, my devices are out of sync but the light goes on. If I control the slave switch, the lamp doesn't go on.

I don't want to write programs to control every light and maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any advice?

[brians]

I always wondered how MobiLinc does this to make slaves devices turn on/off when you are using the device to turn on/off rather than the group. Either there is some Insteon method they know which nobody else knows about (unlikely), or they have some specific code which handles this in mobilinc when it knows a device is part of a group.

I solved by writing programs in the ISY for all my 3-way setups and lamplinc etc. which turn on/off the slaves if detect a light is turned on/off

 

[bmercier]

When you have a device as a controller in a scene, it will only turn on/off the scene when physically activated, not remotely. This is how insteon works.

Somehow, it looks like Mobilinc reads the scene, and activates the scene when it sees one of the member being controlled.

Here's a way to do the same thing with Echo:

Create a program like this:

IF
	Device is not off
Then
	Turn on Scene
Else
	Turn off scene

Expose that program as a Light.

You will be able to control your scene using Alexa, and it will hold a status (The true/false status of the program). Obviously it can't be dimmed, but at least, you will have a status.

One of the drawback to the above is the additional Insteon communication that will occur. Whenever the scene will be turned on, the member device will turn on, which will trigger the program, which will trigger the scene. The propram will be triggered only once, because once the device is on or off, it will stay in that state, and not trigger the program.