Tales from Texas

[TexMike]

Several power outages a day for the last several days are taking a toll on my home automation. See one example day in the attached screenshot. A while ago State Farm home insurance provided a free Ting monitor https://www.tingfire.com/ primarily to monitor for arcs that can cause fires, but it's a nice power monitor too.

The little UPS I got from Talentcell to power my ISY and Polisy failed and no longer supplies power w/o AC power. The battery indicator shows fully charged. One of the downsides of the unit was soldered batteries that cannot be replaced. On the positive side, Talentcell customer service responded quickly and is sending a replacement unit.

An older GE Z-Wave switch that controls the main kitchen lights failed in an unexpected way, it cannot be manually operated. If sent a Z-Wave on it will chatter until sent an off. All my other Z-Wave switches and dimmers work fine manually, mostly Homeseer. Since it was controlling critical lighting, I replaced it with a manual switch for now.

Perhaps also related, I can no longer connect to my Polisy with http. It answers ping at its reserved IP address and I can SSH to it and the nodeservers appear to work. After things settle down, I'll open a ticket as it seems other folks have needed UDI remote support to correct that problem.

Currently I'm leaving the Polisy powered down and only power up the ISY in the morning and evening to open/close my blinds. I knew this might be an issue with the iBlinds not having manual control when I bought them. I think the new model has manual control, but for the price I installed them knowing the lack of manual control.

So Murphy is alive and well with my most critical lighting failing in a way I never considered. I'll probably replace the switch with a Homeseer and maybe order a spare too and do some testing on the GE switch later. Too much going on now with water pressure getting low and boil water in place, I've got enough on my plate right now. I've had about enough of generational pandemic and weather events.

[Michel Kohanim]

@TexMike,

I am so very sorry to hear and my prayers are with you and everyone in Texas. 

With regard to Polisy, did you try https (not http)?

With kind regards,
Michel

[TexMike]

@Michel Kohanim Thank you so much, many have it much worse. We have had enough intermittent power to keep the house relatively warm, many haven't had power for days. Our natural gas supply has not failed as it has for some. We continue to have water at low pressure, while many have had no water for days. Even with dripping taps, we had some slushy pipes a couple of days, but no busted pipes. In this area outside Austin, houses are not built for this type of weather, water lines are not buried deep and lots of of uninsulated plumbing running through the attics. This area usually gets a couple of light freezes per year and we had nine days in a row below freezing with two nights in single digits.

Power has been up all night and morning, so I powered up the Polisy and did reset/update using the reset button on the box and that seems to have fixed it. I hadn't updated Polisy in a while so maybe when the power started initially having problems and the UPS failed it might have been trying to do updates.

Thanks

[Michel Kohanim]

@TexMike,

Thank you for sharing. Hopefully all our prayers will be answered soon. 

With kind regards,
Michel

[Mustang65]

Hope everything gets back to normal for all you Texan's. Stay safe!

Here across the big pond in Florida we do not deal with the cold, it is electrical storms. Feb 7th a major lightning strike hit close to the house and I am going through a lot of your electronics issues. ISY is partially working (locally) I had a backup ISY and unbelievably the SIM card worked in the replacement ISY. I have 4 plug in Insteon controllers that died. Interestingly enough the the only model that blew were the 2457D dimmer version. All the on/off modules are up and running fine. I may install some MOV's in the replacement modules. Three computer monitors bit the dust with one smart TV, the HVAC brain card blew which took out the ecobee 4 thermostat. Microwave shot. And there was a whole house surge protector with the green lights still active. It looks like the hit was on the cable company feed which took out the cable modem, had a spare of course. Not that I like to be prepared, but this is the lightning capital if the USA. Just installed a new  Leviton commercial surge protector on the back of the house yesterday along with surge protectors on the cable company coax coming in along with the output of the RJ45 cable from the cable modem.

I will deal with the Polisy Pro after the ISY is up and running.

Good luck!

Don

[TexMike]

Grew up in Melbourne, so I know first hand about the electrical storms. Amazing you had all that damage with a whole house surge protector. Good luck with the recovery.

[Brian H]

You may find a MOV in the modules. Across the Line and Neutral.  If the voltage surge was between ground and either Line or Neutral. It probably will not do much.