How to push new scenes in isy Admin Console to isy Portal

[skierdude]

I created a new scene in the Admin UI, but I don't see it in the portal.  I imagine there is some program that runs periodically to synch the two.  Is there some way to manually force the update; or is there a known time frame for this update to happen?  I've waited about 15 minutes and haven't seen it yet.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[larryllix]

9 minutes ago, skierdude said:

I created a new scene in the Admin UI, but I don't see it in the portal.  I imagine there is some program that runs periodically to synch the two.  Is there some way to manually force the update; or is there a known time frame for this update to happen?  I've waited about 15 minutes and haven't seen it yet.

 

Thanks,

Eric

Click on the cyclic arrow,almost  top right.

[skierdude]

Thanks.  I had tried that originally without success.  I logged off the isy portal, and back in, and they are all now seen. 

Now I am finding that if I tell Alexa to discover devices, she finds the scenes that I've added in isy portal, but if I tell her to turn on or off the scene, she says it is not recognized.  Similarly I don't see any scenes under devices in the Alexa app.  I know I can do this with routines, but I would really like to control the scenes as I've created them in isy.  Is this a known issue, or is there some easy work-around?

[larryllix]

6 minutes ago, skierdude said:

Thanks.  I had tried that originally without success.  I logged off the isy portal, and back in, and they are all now seen. 

Now I am finding that if I tell Alexa to discover devices, she finds the scenes that I've added in isy portal, but if I tell her to turn on or off the scene, she says it is not recognized.  Similarly I don't see any scenes under devices in the Alexa app.  I know I can do this with routines, but I would really like to control the scenes as I've created them in isy.  Is this a known issue, or is there some easy work-around?

I have never controlled a scene directly from Alexa ----> ISY Portal. I use very few scenes and mostly control programs and/or Insteon devices. The majority of my lights are WiFi protocol so it takes an ISY program to co-ordinate them with Insteon devices/scenes. In ISY Portal I define most of my devices as Switches so they only get On/Off commands. Scenes have no checkback confirmation from the device, so no Insteon retries.

If I want dimmer lights I use "Alexa...turn on dim decks lights" and a program does the rest. The delay is insignificant from a vocal command anyway.

[skierdude]

My rationale for using scenes is that most of my switches are 3-way.  Your comment about the difference between switches and scenes is something else I was troubleshooting today - why one of my switches didn't turn off when the scene turned off, and isy said it was off.  Now it makes sense...so thanks for clarifying that issue!

 

What is the preferred approach for having two insteon switches controlling a single light, if not scenes?  I am also interested in being able to turn off all of my upstairs lights via an Alexa command.  If you have another approach than Scenes, I am very interested.  And lastly, can you give any hints how you'd write a program to interface isy with your wifi switches?

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, skierdude said:

My rationale for using scenes is that most of my switches are 3-way.  Your comment about the difference between switches and scenes is something else I was troubleshooting today - why one of my switches didn't turn off when the scene turned off, and isy said it was off.  Now it makes sense...so thanks for clarifying that issue!

 

What is the preferred approach for having two insteon switches controlling a single light, if not scenes?  I am also interested in being able to turn off all of my upstairs lights via an Alexa command.  If you have another approach than Scenes, I am very interested.  And lastly, can you give any hints how you'd write a program to interface isy with your wifi switches?

I don't totally avoid Insteon scenes. I use them with MSes for speed of ON response. I use them for multiple lights in my gathering room to allow them to be fairly synchronised, along with my WiFi lighting bulbs and strips. I use scenes for all lights functions like flashing the whole house for alarm purposes. Most of these are non-critical applications and if they fail it isn;t such a big problem.

In my 3:00 AM routine to turn off everything I use programs with individual lines of code, so that the status is reported back, and Insteon will retry up to three times if no ACK is received from each device.

If your 3-way scene is not working you may need to improve your comms or reduce your interference somehow. If it always fails use the admin console to examine and compare links. The direct linked scene is the way I would do it also, in that case. From programs you could operate the light directly. ISY doesn't know anything about secens anyway as they have no status.

My ISY bulbs and strips are all RGBWW units. I have 31 units now. To control them I use NRs to send command like URLs, receive them in my own NRbridge software, running inside polisy, that determines what brand of bulb they are and sends the appropriate URL lines out to each bulb. By prepping every bul that will be operated first and then sending out the final levels in rapid sequence I can make them appear almost simultaneous (no popcorn effect). In that case the effective "scenes" are hard coded into the NRbridge software. ISY and polyglot NSs haven't been able to do things fast enough yet.

 

[MrBill]

16 hours ago, skierdude said:

My rationale for using scenes is that most of my switches are 3-way.  Your comment about the difference between switches and scenes is something else I was troubleshooting today - why one of my switches didn't turn off when the scene turned off, and isy said it was off.  Now it makes sense...so thanks for clarifying that issue!

 

What is the preferred approach for having two insteon switches controlling a single light, if not scenes?  I am also interested in being able to turn off all of my upstairs lights via an Alexa command.  If you have another approach than Scenes, I am very interested.  And lastly, can you give any hints how you'd write a program to interface isy with your wifi switches?

Scenes show up under Scenes in the Alexa app.  However, to get her to discover them you say, "Alexa, Discover Devices"

[lilyoyo1]

19 hours ago, skierdude said:

My rationale for using scenes is that most of my switches are 3-way.  Your comment about the difference between switches and scenes is something else I was troubleshooting today - why one of my switches didn't turn off when the scene turned off, and isy said it was off.  Now it makes sense...so thanks for clarifying that issue!

 

What is the preferred approach for having two insteon switches controlling a single light, if not scenes?  I am also interested in being able to turn off all of my upstairs lights via an Alexa command.  If you have another approach than Scenes, I am very interested.  And lastly, can you give any hints how you'd write a program to interface isy with your wifi switches?

They should be added to the isy as part of a scene. When setting up in the portal, add the scene itself but add it as a light and not a scene