Trying to understand a dynamic lighting solution

[RingZan]

So, I have been trying to program a few scenes for the last few years and constantly get stuck where I have to write overly complex programs that pick and choose when to work completely. I was hoping firmware 5.X would solve this, and kinda does, but not completely.  In brief,  I am trying to make a scene light up if an object in the scene is on, but not the whole scene, thus allowing me to see on a keypad that something in that scene is on without activating the rest of the devices in the scene. Below is my shortened scenario: 

Equipment:

(2) 6 Key Insteon switches.  - (FD) Front Door and (KT) Kitchen (Example Below)

(2) On/Off Insteon Dimmers. (HH) Kitchen Hi-Hats and (PD) Pendant Dining

          FD and KT 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HH+PD OFF

Current Scenario: 

1. Press  HHPD ON and both HH and PD turn on as well as Scene HHPD (Example Below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

2.  If I turn off both HH and PD manually then HHPD stays on even though all lights in that scene are off. (Example Below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HH+PD OFF

3.  If I turn on just HH when everything is already off then HH is on but HHPD stays off. (Example Below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

 

Ideal Scenario:

1. Press  HHPD ON and both HH and PD turn on as well as Scene HHPD (Example Below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

2.  If I turn ON HH  then HHPD should light up, but not activate the scene HHPD(thus not turning on PD). (Example below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

3.  If HH and PD are on and I turn of PD  then HHPD should remain lit up, but not activate/deactivate the scene HHPD. (Example below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

4.  If I turn Off HH and no other device that HHPD controls is on, then HHPD's light should turn off without me pressing HHPD off. (Example below) 

HHPD ON
HH ON/OFF	PD On/OFF
Blank	Blank
HHPD OFF

 

 

I am not sure if this is a limitation of insteon or if there is a better way to attack this with programming (which I have tried a lot of ways). I am happy to export my whole homes programming if anyone is curious to what I have done so far. It is quite more complex then just the example.   

 

Thank you in advanced for any help that comes my way. 

 

 

[larryllix]

Welcome to the UDI forums!

I can't really completely understand what you are trying to do as the usage of the word "scene" for everything is confusing me.
The load connected to the wiring of the KPL is controlled by the HHPD On and HHPD off button/leds and no programs can interfere with that connection. I can't discern what the HHPD Scene contains. To turn on the HHPD LED you have to turn on the load connected. That cannot ever change.

I don't see any involvement for a second KPL, Front Door, or Kitchen devices. Are they involved in this logic?

Are your KPL buttons HH ON/OFF and PD ON/OFF in Toggle mode or are you doing the toggle function in ISY programs?

[RingZan]

I am sorry for making this confusing, lol. 

There is no load wired to the 6 way switches, they are only being used as remotes to control a scene. There is 3 scenes total. There is a PD scene, a HH Scene and another scene called HHPD that turns on both HH and PD's Switch, not the scene.  Attached is a picture of the layout. It is a lot more complex then my example, but hopefully it explains it better. 

The PD and HH scene is controlled by a regular dimmer with load.  There are two 6 button switches that control HHPD with the big on and off(these 6 button switches have no load). On the top two buttons of the 6 button switch, there are 2 scenes one to control HH's Scene and the other to Control PD's Scene independently. 

There is no toggle modes currently and no functions on this switch at the moment. 

 

 

[paulbates]

If I understand correctly, there are 2 approaches but I think only one will work

1. Make each participant a controller in the scene. I don't think this will work
   • All have to be controller capable... not all older plug in modules are (doesn't look like you have any)
   • Complicated by plug in modules where whatever's plugged in gets physically turned off (again, only if plug in modules were added in the future)
   • A device can only be a controller in one scene.. not workable if devices are shared across the different groups you have
   • Turning any device on turns them all on
   • In summary... its an approach but I don't see it working the way you want, unless there are other ideas suggested
      
2. Write programs for each group:

If

       DR Pen BF Foyer is switched on
  or   DR Pendant - BF - Din is switched on
  or  ..... (add all the rest of the partcipants)

Then
       Set <keypad key> on

 

This will likely do what you want, again if i understand the requirement. You can also write an additional program that uses Status instead of Switched/Control, also use AND instead of OR for each participant.... it would catch all participants being turned off and turn the keypad key off

Paul

[lilyoyo1]

You'll want to status your switches.

If status switch A B or C is not off set kpl button D on.

Then you'll want a second program to turn off the button

If status switch A B and C is off set kpl button D off

[oberkc]

There is no limitation that I am aware that would keep you from doing this.  

I also believe that this must be done via programs.  I am with lilyoyo1 on this.  Logically, you want HHPD to be on if either of the other two buttons are on, and you want HHPD off if both of the other two buttons are off.  The program would look something like

if 

status HH is on

or status PD is on

then set HHPD on

else

set HHPD off

[larryllix]

Scenes cannot perform any logic and your task demands some logic.

It will take programs to complete your task. Unfortunately, scenes are required to operate the LEDs in KPLs so programs will be required to operate scenes to operate the LEDs. 

Insteon was designed to only be a remote control system and not smart with logic. Wouldn't that be something if they installed some simple gate logic inside the SwitchLincs? 
eg: If xxx is On and yyy is switched on.  It could change the game with IEDs (intelligent end devices)  distributed around the house.

[lilyoyo1]

5 minutes ago, larryllix said:

 

Insteon was designed to only be a remote control system and not smart with logic. Wouldn't that be something if they installed some simple gate logic inside the SwitchLincs? 
eg: If xxx is On and yyy is switched on.  It could change the game with IEDs (intelligent end devices)  distributed around the house.

That would be nice but I think it would overly complicated things for most people. You'd still need someway to program that in so a controller would still be necessary. That's not even taking into account the additional cost it would add to switches which no one would want to pay for. 

I do wish the kpl buttons were truly independent so that we didn't have to go through the process of making a scene just to be able to control it. 

[larryllix]

2 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

That would be nice but I think it would overly complicated things for most people. You'd still need someway to program that in so a controller would still be necessary. That's not even taking into account the additional cost it would add to switches which no one would want to pay for. 

I do wish the kpl buttons were truly independent so that we didn't have to go through the process of making a scene just to be able to control it. 

There is that but....
Insteon devices already had retry and hop logic and a CPU with hundreds of Links spots inside so an enhancement of the software shouldn't make a smart Insteon device cost any more than a bare RPi Zero. LOL

ISY with it's current scene management should be able to stuff a simple and or OR logic into a device and off load some of the load grind onto IEDs. Just think, people with the scene obsession (no names ) would be able to make more things work with an offline PolISY. It could do cool things like security Locking of devices by requiring two switched On commands in a sequence.

I guess the Chinese haven't thought of it for Insteon yet.

[lilyoyo1]

30 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Just think, people with the scene obsession (no names ) 

I wonder who that could be ?!!!

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with you and it would be nice. I just think about how many people have problems with a simple 3way switch and hate to see what additional complications would do to them.  

While one would think there wouldn't be an additional cost we know there would be. Let's be real, a person will spend 35 bucks on a no name zwave switch with no features (and complain) before coughing up 50 bucks on a well known brand that does zwave properly. While insteon is the only game in town, the race to the bottom is on. Anything that costs them more can be detrimental.