ISY-26 Product Requests

[Guest]

Please place all product requests in this thread.

 

Thanks

[Guest]

Some kind of progress indicator would be nice while the system crawls the network. Not sure if it could be a ETA, % or what would work, but something giving an indication that things are moving along and did not freeze would be good.

 

Thanks

[Michel Kohanim]

Some kind of progress indicator would be nice while the system crawls the network. Not sure if it could be a ETA, % or what would work, but something giving an indication that things are moving along and did not freeze would be good.

 

Thanks

 

heatvent, you do not have a progress bar right now when you are restoring?

[Guest]

I was thinking that when you hit the start linking button, the ISY would crawl through the network and identify links, etc. I figured it out. Thanks for the quick reply.

[sloop]

the one feature i liked about houselinc is the swap insteon address function - if (lol - if) a device fails and needs to be replaced, it sure makes life easier

[Guest]

I saw that you don't release source code on the ISY. Not sure if this is due to any license restrictions. I think it would be great if there was an open source project around the ISY (linux based or whatever). You might be surprised on some of the functionality people will come up with. There's a lot of people with great ideas, time on their hands and the willingness to invent and share.

[Michel Kohanim]

Slooplinc:

 

Are you done with your (linc)ing!!!! I cannot guarantee a date but your requested functionality is in our plan and shall be implemented after we are done with triggering schedules and vice versa. I hope you will not have any of your Insteon device fail before then!

 

 

Heatvent:

 

We actually thought about doing precisely that but the OS is licensed and, as such, can never truly become free. Thus, we decided to go for the next best alternative: provide free SDKs to whomever wants to write network applications for ISY. We might start working on a Linux based solution (when we get some free time) which would give us more flexibility for making ISY a little more open source.

 

Thank you both for your suggestions,

With regards

[Guest]

How about being able to enter a time server address and have the ISY autosync time to the server.

[Michel Kohanim]

How about being able to enter a time server address and have the ISY autosync time to the server.

 

heatvent,

 

It's ironic that you would say that; we actually had that function and took it out since it was pretty difficult to find "good" public NTP servers without having the users go through a maze of level1/level2 stratum server names and those which worked consistently.

 

We had some good luck with "clock.sjc.he.net" and "clock.fmt.he.net" but they started being inconsistent as well. So, we decided that till such time that we have "our own" NTP server, this service would cause more harm than good.

 

Of course, as always, we are open to suggestions but our major requiremnet is that the user does not and should not have to know about NTP server hostnames adn required to enter such.

 

With regards,

[Guest]

How about being able to enter a time server address and have the ISY autosync time to the server.

 

heatvent,

 

It's ironic that you would say that; we actually had that function and took it out since it was pretty difficult to find "good" public NTP servers without having the users go through a maze of level1/level2 stratum server names and those which worked consistently.

 

We had some good luck with "clock.sjc.he.net" and "clock.fmt.he.net" but they started being inconsistent as well. So, we decided that till such time that we have "our own" NTP server, this service would cause more harm than good.

 

Of course, as always, we are open to suggestions but our major requiremnet is that the user does not and should not have to know about NTP server hostnames adn required to enter such.

 

With regards,

 

Not sure what a NTP vs a NIST time server is, but how about the US one in Boulder CO (time.nist.gov)or the Microsoft (time.windows.com).

 

These seem to work fine for my computer to sync time as well as my D-Link router.

[Mark Sanctuary]

It looks like not all places in the different GUIs are consistent in saying controller or responder. There are places where it still says master or slave.

 

Might want to do a global search in the code for these.

[Michel Kohanim]

Sean,

 

Thanks so very much for the suggestions. I have them all listed in our "requirements" bucket which we review weekly for implementation.

 

I'd like to request a restart selection from the File menu to reboot the ISY. Yes, I know it should never be necessary, but I'd still like to see it there.

We have to think about it. On the one hand, it might be a security risk but, then again, on the other hand, if someone gains access to your ISY, s/he can do much more harm than resetting the device. Let us think about it.

 

 

The floor plan room blocks should be resizable

They are resizable; you just have to be quite accurate to grab an edge and drag it.

 

light icons need to wrap or truncate the descriptions so they don't get too wide. You can always expand it out to full length when the user selects them. I discovered this because I use fairly long, descriptive names for my devices and it makes them really wide on the floor plan.

Floorplan has always been at the floor of our plan! First, we have to decide if we want to continue expanding it or replacing it with some other platform. At the moment, and unless we get a lot of demands, we don't plan on doing anything more with it.

 

Each different device should have it's own icon and color, to distinguish them from the other devices.

I would love to have some Icon contributions and, after review, we'll put them in. Any volunteers?

 

Allow different easy-to-select sort options for the My Lighting group.

Good idea. By the way, you can click on any of the columns on the View pane and have everything sorted based on that column.

 

 

Display a total count of the individual devices so I know if I missed one. Or two.

Interesting!

 

The Remove All button on the Schedules page needs a confirmation (are you sure you want to do this?). I clicked it by accident yesterday and all my schedules went poof! Now I'm scared to move the mouse pointer anywhere near it.

Your wish is our command! It's already part of 2.1.

 

 

Make the buttons under a keypad be a collapsible subgroup under the main Keypad heading so that the buttons don't look so much like individual devices. Something like this:

 

+Kitchen Keypad

_____A

_____B

_____C

Next device

Good idea!

 

Don't require me to specify a port or starting html file (p.html) to get to the interface. If the IP address is 192.168.0.100, I'd like to be able to point my browser at http://192.168.0.100 and have it bring up the main interface.

What you are suggesting requires using Port 80 which is not a good idea since some people have some other devices that might be using port 80 and thus it would make it quite difficult to support remote access (you cannot have one port forwarded to more than one IP). As such, I have to humbly decline the ommission of the port. The rest, we can omit.

 

 

 

Yes, I know the UPNP makes this unnecessary, but I'd like to be able to do it this way as well (sometimes the UPNP doesn't work as well as it should on my network). Same deal with the Telnet 120 (don't make me specify a port).

This might be a security risk. Let us think about it.

 

Lots of suggestions, but all of them pretty small and (I hope) fairly easy to implement. This is a fantastic device, and I'm very happy with it. If you get an IR bridge working with it, I might have to marry it! (Don't tell my wife. )

 

Thank you very much for your suggestions one of which we have already implemented with more to come. IR is coming soon ....

 

With kind regards,

[Mark Sanctuary]

Sweet...another vote for this one.

 

+Kitchen Keypad

_____A

_____B

_____C

Next device

[Guest bjcatlin]

Two suggestions:

 

On a scene, on the right-click menu, add an option to activate the scene, so that I can easily activate it from any computer.

 

In the schedules, have a button at the bottom to "Test" the highlighted schedule.

 

Probably should have the same "Test" button on the triggers page as well.

 

That's it for my suggestions right now.

 

B.J.

[Guest]

I'd like to request a restart selection from the File menu to reboot the ISY. Yes, I know it should never be necessary, but I'd still like to see it there.

We have to think about it. On the one hand, it might be a security risk but, then again, on the other hand, if someone gains access to your ISY, s/he can do much more harm than resetting the device. Let us think about it.

 

I don't recall seeing a request for role-based access, but it seems like it would be useful to separate some of the functionality, like a restart or the configuration section, into an Admin role and basic control into a User role. This implies that the ISY should be able to support multiple users too.

 

---todd

 

I really like the admin role vs. user. Actually, I am thinking to go one step further. Admin gets the GUI like it is. User gets a simplified GUI that is really a switch panel more or less similar to the floor plan, with the functionality of being able to turn things on and off and see what timers have run or are scheduled to run, and option to skip a timer or event once, twice, for a week, etc. That way, the wife and the kids can use the ISY to turn on/off lights. This whole setup could also be avoided by some kind of system tray icon that runs at startup and when double clicked opens a program that is able to communcate with the ISY over IP but runs a simplified interface off the PC rather than off the unit (of course that doesn't let the wife login over the internet to turn on a light/appliance but I think is another good alternative).

 

Another request I would have is to have the option when the GUI opens to open maximized instead of in a window.

[Guest]

Have a checkbox when selecting a scene that allows the user to apply the on level/ramp rate to all switches in the scene to simplify this process.

 

It would also be nice in the configuration to set a default on level and ramp rate (i.e. if you generally prefer 2.0s, then you don't have to reset all the time). So each time a new device is added or new scene created the default is Xs (there could be a separate default for devices and scenes as well).

[Guest]

I was surprised to see that the triggers do not have time delays. Example of how it would be used is a going to bed scene where press the GTB button, the stairway light turns on, wait 10 minutes, then turns off. Is there a way to do this?

[Michel Kohanim]

I'd like to request a restart selection from the File menu to reboot the ISY. Yes, I know it should never be necessary, but I'd still like to see it there.

We have to think about it. On the one hand, it might be a security risk but, then again, on the other hand, if someone gains access to your ISY, s/he can do much more harm than resetting the device. Let us think about it.

 

I don't recall seeing a request for role-based access, but it seems like it would be useful to separate some of the functionality, like a restart or the configuration section, into an Admin role and basic control into a User role. This implies that the ISY should be able to support multiple users too.

 

---todd

 

Todd,

 

It's in our plan!

 

Thank you so very much,

With regards,

[Michel Kohanim]

I'd like to request a restart selection from the File menu to reboot the ISY. Yes, I know it should never be necessary, but I'd still like to see it there.

We have to think about it. On the one hand, it might be a security risk but, then again, on the other hand, if someone gains access to your ISY, s/he can do much more harm than resetting the device. Let us think about it.

 

I don't recall seeing a request for role-based access, but it seems like it would be useful to separate some of the functionality, like a restart or the configuration section, into an Admin role and basic control into a User role. This implies that the ISY should be able to support multiple users too.

 

---todd

 

Todd,

 

Good suggestion; it's been captured for assignment to a release and implementation.

[Michel Kohanim]

Two suggestions:

 

On a scene, on the right-click menu, add an option to activate the scene, so that I can easily activate it from any computer.

 

In the schedules, have a button at the bottom to "Test" the highlighted schedule.

 

Probably should have the same "Test" button on the triggers page as well.

 

That's it for my suggestions right now.

 

B.J.

 

B.J.

 

Good suggestion; it's been captured for assignment to a release and implementation.

 

Regards,

[Michel Kohanim]

I'd like to request a restart selection from the File menu to reboot the ISY. Yes, I know it should never be necessary, but I'd still like to see it there.

We have to think about it. On the one hand, it might be a security risk but, then again, on the other hand, if someone gains access to your ISY, s/he can do much more harm than resetting the device. Let us think about it.

 

I don't recall seeing a request for role-based access, but it seems like it would be useful to separate some of the functionality, like a restart or the configuration section, into an Admin role and basic control into a User role. This implies that the ISY should be able to support multiple users too.

 

---todd

 

I really like the admin role vs. user. Actually, I am thinking to go one step further. Admin gets the GUI like it is. User gets a simplified GUI that is really a switch panel more or less similar to the floor plan, with the functionality of being able to turn things on and off and see what timers have run or are scheduled to run, and option to skip a timer or event once, twice, for a week, etc. That way, the wife and the kids can use the ISY to turn on/off lights. This whole setup could also be avoided by some kind of system tray icon that runs at startup and when double clicked opens a program that is able to communcate with the ISY over IP but runs a simplified interface off the PC rather than off the unit (of course that doesn't let the wife login over the internet to turn on a light/appliance but I think is another good alternative).

 

Another request I would have is to have the option when the GUI opens to open maximized instead of in a window.

 

heatvent,

 

Yes ... you are absolutely correct. It's been captured and shall be implemented.

 

Regards,

[Michel Kohanim]

Have a checkbox when selecting a scene that allows the user to apply the on level/ramp rate to all switches in the scene to simplify this process.

 

It would also be nice in the configuration to set a default on level and ramp rate (i.e. if you generally prefer 2.0s, then you don't have to reset all the time). So each time a new device is added or new scene created the default is Xs (there could be a separate default for devices and scenes as well).

 

heatvent,

 

Yes. Good idea ... it shall be implemented.

 

With regards,

[Michel Kohanim]

I was surprised to see that the triggers do not have time delays. Example of how it would be used is a going to bed scene where press the GTB button, the stairway light turns on, wait 10 minutes, then turns off. Is there a way to do this?

 

heatvent,

 

Thanks for your patience! Our next release will have this functionality and, due to popular demand: MORE TRIGGERS!!!

 

With regards,

[Michel Kohanim]

I was surprised to see that the triggers do not have time delays. Example of how it would be used is a going to bed scene where press the GTB button, the stairway light turns on, wait 10 minutes, then turns off. Is there a way to do this?

 

If we're on the topic of triggers, I'd like to request a way to invoke user-written code in response to a trigger. Specifically, I suggest having the ISY make a SOAP request over HTTP in response to a trigger firing. For this to be valuable in my situation, I'm assuming that the ISY-26 would execute the request, so the applet doesn't need to be running.

 

Also, do you have a release date for the web services SDK?

 

Thanks.

 

---todd

 

Todd,

 

Very interesting suggestion; as a matter of fact ISY is equipped with D2D (which means that triggers could be applied to other devices on the network) but it requires the other network devices to also be ISYs!!!

 

Other issues :

a. How can ISY be guaranteed that a SOAP service is available with a network agnostic address. Two choices: UPnP vs. DPWS each one of which have their own flaws

b. What should ISY do if the service is not available: retry? how many tries? ignore? make the trigger inactive?

c. What would be the interface between ISY and the triggger consumer service?

 

We are also pondering a "text based" file which could be uploaded to ISY but this is still in the pondering stage!

 

As far as web services SDK, it's taken a back seat! Would you please let me know how you find the ISY-JSDK and what you would want to see improved?

 

Thanks and regards,

[Guest]

It would be cool to be able to export a table of devices to .txt or excel. Something simple, name, address, type, firmware, etc. It's nice to have as a reference if needed.

 

It would also be good if addressess showed up somewhere (i.e. when highlighting a device in My Lighting). Just to tell what is what.

 

Thanks