mikewu99 Posted June 10, 2009 Posted June 10, 2009 Searched through the archives - found lots of useful information but not the answer to my question: I just bought a second ISY99 for our vacation home, initially to be able to control and monitor the temperature remotely. I had purchsed two Venstar thermostats, Insteon adapters, access point, and a SmartLinc to do the job. Turns out the SmartLinc can't query the thermostat temperature despite the information I found on a Smarthome wiki page (the wiki page was changed to indicate that is was advance information on a future product only after I had ordered it). I bought an ISY99 to replace the SmartLinc and will be setting things up this weekend. I also purchased a tabletop KPL to be able to control the thermostat settings manually. I want to set up a number of scenes corresponding to various thermostat settings (Home, Away, Heat only, Cool only, Off). I want to be able to control the scenes either from the tabletop KPL or from the ISY. My question regards setting up scenes including thermostats from within the ISY. For example, with dimmers I can set the dimmer parameters (on level, ramp rate) for a scene from the ISY GUI. Can I do the same for the thermostat - set heating/cooling setpoints and operating mode for a given scene from the ISY GUI? Ideally I would like to add the devices (two thermostats and KPL) to the ISY by typing in the Insteon addresses and set everything up through the ISY GUI - no running around the house pressing buttons... I know I can write programs to control the themostat from the ISY (and will write programs to periodically query the thermostats) but I think controlling a finite set of operating configurations is more robust if I use scenes. Hope this makes sense...
MikeB Posted June 10, 2009 Posted June 10, 2009 Unfortunately at this time you cannot utilize the Insteon Thermostat within scenes on the ISY. You could, as you suggested however, use ISY programs to set the thermostat to specific modes/setpoints based on the press or status of your KPL buttons.
mikewu99 Posted June 10, 2009 Author Posted June 10, 2009 Hopefully this is on the to-do list? I can't be the first to request this...at least with the ISY (as opposed to the SmartLinc) I'll be able to do a field upgrade when this feature becomes available... I can't even use the manual procedure (set setpoints and mode on the thermostat, press the button on the Venstar Insteon adapter) to link a particular thermostat setting to a scene that the ISY is part of? According to the adapter documentation I can link sets of thermostat settings to buttons on the KPL. Until I can program the scene through the ISY I guess I could manually set up my configurations and link to the KPL independent of the ISY and use the ISY to override the scene setting (and query the thermostat) when necessary. Basically there would be links between the thermostats and the KPL that the ISY is unaware of... Can the ISY control the KPL to emulate button presses on the KPL? That way the ISY controls the KPL which initiates the appropriate thermostat scene...
MikeB Posted June 10, 2009 Posted June 10, 2009 This is a known issue, but I believe priority is low because there are workarounds (using ISY programs). I'll let Michel comment further on the priority of this. I wouldn't recommend setting up any scenes manually, since the ISY expects to be aware of all device links. Creating scenes manually will produce unexpected results. I would suggest creating all your scenes (minus the Thermostat) then creating ISY programs to change the Thermostat based on your KPL button presses. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work for you?
Michel Kohanim Posted June 10, 2009 Posted June 10, 2009 Hi, As Mike suggested, we do have this feature on our list of todos and the only reason it has a low priority is that our new GUI should fix the issue (which has a medium priority). With kind regards, Michel
mikewu99 Posted June 10, 2009 Author Posted June 10, 2009 I would suggest creating all your scenes (minus the Thermostat) then creating ISY programs to change the Thermostat based on your KPL button presses. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work for you?Reliability. Using programs requires the thermostats, the KPL, the ISY, and the modem to all be functioning correctly to use the KPL to control the thermostats. Using scenes only the KPL and the thermostats need to be working. The other issue is convenience. If I understand the other thermostat threads correctly, if I want to change both the heat and cool setpoints in auto mode I would need to go to cool mode, set the cool setpoint, go to heat mode, set the heat setpoint, then go back to auto mode (or is that just for querying the setpoints?). If I use scenes I just activate the scene corresponding to the conditions I want to set. Anyway, if you count votes I add +2 for the improved thermostat support (since I now own two ISYs I get two votes )...
Michel Kohanim Posted June 10, 2009 Posted June 10, 2009 Hello mikewu99, In release 2.7.5 (to be out over this weekend hopefully) let's you control heat/cool setpoints separately and individually without having to change the mode. With kind regards, Michel I would suggest creating all your scenes (minus the Thermostat) then creating ISY programs to change the Thermostat based on your KPL button presses. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work for you?Reliability. Using programs requires the thermostats, the KPL, the ISY, and the modem to all be functioning correctly to use the KPL to control the thermostats. Using scenes only the KPL and the thermostats need to be working. The other issue is convenience. If I understand the other thermostat threads correctly, if I want to change both the heat and cool setpoints in auto mode I would need to go to cool mode, set the cool setpoint, go to heat mode, set the heat setpoint, then go back to auto mode (or is that just for querying the setpoints?). If I use scenes I just activate the scene corresponding to the conditions I want to set. Anyway, if you count votes I add +2 for the improved thermostat support (since I now own two ISYs I get two votes )...
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