ctownj30 Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 This may be a dumb question but is there any way to avoid having to set devices into communications mode before writing changes? Its become a very long process for me to set all devices into comms mode every time I want to make changes - involves screwdrivers and ladders and half an hour each time. I'm about to just throw out all the Insteon wireless devices and switch to Z-Wave devices triggering programs. Any other ideas before I do that? thanks - djm
simplextech Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 You still have to "wake up" z-wave battery devices to push the changes to them. Otherwise the changes will sit until the wake-up interval which on most devices is defaulted to 12 hours. Most can be adjusted to decrease the wake-up interval with the exchange of battery consumption. Either way it's still not a instant push of changes like with powered devices.
ctownj30 Posted January 25, 2019 Author Posted January 25, 2019 I guess what I meant with the Z-wave devices was that the only thing the device would know about is my ISY controller - when the Z-Wave box has an event, it tells my ISY, and the ISY triggers the scene/light/program/etc (so I'd never have to touch the Z-wave box other than its initial setup and changing batteries), right?
ctownj30 Posted January 25, 2019 Author Posted January 25, 2019 I guess I could do this with the Insteon sensors too: don't put them in any scene, just trigger scenes in programs?
simplextech Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 4 minutes ago, ctownj30 said: I guess what I meant with the Z-wave devices was that the only thing the device would know about is my ISY controller - when the Z-Wave box has an event, it tells my ISY, and the ISY triggers the scene/light/program/etc (so I'd never have to touch the Z-wave box other than its initial setup and changing batteries), right? A few questions.... What Z-wave box? How is it sending information to ISY? As a secondary controller? Or are you going to use the ISY994i ZW+ card? If the end goal is to "not touch" battery devices I think you will be disappointed.
simplextech Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 2 minutes ago, ctownj30 said: I guess I could do this with the Insteon sensors too: don't put them in any scene, just trigger scenes in programs? Yes. IF you don't use them within scenes then let the program do all of the logic. However I did some testing last night with a Motion Sensor II and used the "adjust scene" capability from a program and it worked perfect and without having to put the sensor into comm mode.
larryllix Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 47 minutes ago, ctownj30 said: This may be a dumb question but is there any way to avoid having to set devices into communications mode before writing changes? Its become a very long process for me to set all devices into comms mode every time I want to make changes - involves screwdrivers and ladders and half an hour each time. I'm about to just throw out all the Insteon wireless devices and switch to Z-Wave devices triggering programs. Any other ideas before I do that? thanks - djm Some newer Insteon devices put themselves into "Linking mode" for about 30 seconds after an event seeing motion. ISY has an option to support this using programs to write the updates when an event is triggered..
paulbates Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 50 minutes ago, ctownj30 said: ....Any other ideas before I do that? You can experiment with this: Insteon battery devices can have changes written to them right when they activate. I'm not sure if this is V5 only or not. In this example, I picked dusk dawn so it will get written at least once a day. You could do it by the motion node, and then as soon as you walked by the MS it would trigger.
ctownj30 Posted January 25, 2019 Author Posted January 25, 2019 Ok now we're talking! I assume when changes are written through an ISY program, ISY is aware of it (it knows there are not more pending changes; device icons change, etc.)?
larryllix Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 Just now, ctownj30 said: Ok now we're talking! I assume when changes are written through an ISY program, ISY is aware of it (it knows there are not more pending changes; device icons change, etc.)? Yes. ISY has a 'waiting to be written' cache.
paulbates Posted January 25, 2019 Posted January 25, 2019 Yes. I would write a few test programs like above and see how it works. Its been a few years since I tried it. My scenes don't change that often anymore.
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