Alexa and ISY Groups, Scenes, and Devices.

[PB11]

Hi All

Let me preface this by saying, I am happy to delete this topic if is proves to be more confusing then helpful.

I'm just brain dumping so I'm not certain how clear this will be to anyone but me, and the entire topic may not even be an issue for others.

If anyone thinks there should be more clarity please let me know and I'm happy to edit.

 

There are others on the forum with much more knowledge then what I have to share regarding this topic, and much of what I'm writing down has been gained from much help and input from others over the past year, but I thought I would put this into text for anyone who might be playing with a similar setup.

 

My take on ISY Scenes, Alexa Groupings, and Alexa Routines is as follows.

My initial setup was to create scenes on the ISY Admin Console, as well as Groups and routines in Alexa.

The biggest hurdle was with my multiple 3 way switches

By grouping any 3 way switches as a scene in ISY i.e. Kitchen Lights removed any ability to control switches on an incremental level, i.e. dimming room lights.

I initially thought I could name all 3 switches "kitchen Lights" and that Alexa would send the command to all 3. This was not the case and in fact caused Alexa to see multiple devices of the same name and therefore return the error "There are multiple devices with this name, which one would you like".

To get around this, I named the switches after the room followed my a number and the scene after the room light i.e Scene Name = Kitchen Lights    Light Name = Kitchen Light 1.

This adds difficulty when attempting to control any single switch via voice command. "Alexa, set kitchen light 3 to 50%".  Functions, but not ideal.

If I also created  groupings in Alexa with the same room name to gain control over things like Sonos Room Grouping, it created another naming conflict which was difficult to trouble shoot and locate when trying to solve the  "There are multiple devices with this name" or " The command is not possible with this device" (wording approximate)"

I then thought that Alexa Routines would be the best work around, and found that creating multiple scene routines for each Room with the different settings I wanted was the way forward. i.e. Dinner Kitchen, Night Kitchen, but this quickly became too numerous to remember, and difficult to manage when returning months post creating routines.

It was hard to remember my logic as well as commands for each scene.

I'm sure there are several other approaches I tried, but its all a big mess in my head now.

 

In the end.

In the end I found that keeping most of my configuration within ISY and being more selective on scenes and the naming of scenes in my isy, gave me a more accurate and incremental control on lights via Alexa. 

In ISY

Using the main power switch in all my 3 ways,  I named it after the specific room i.e. "Kitchen lights", then the remaining 3 way switches, Kitchen Lights 2, Kitchen Lights 3. I also created a Scene named after the room i.e. Kitchen.

This setup lets me dim lights by using logical light name i.e. "Alexa, set kitchen lights to 30%", but also control the entire room as a whole i.e. Alexa, turn off kitchen, without any further setup required in Alexa other then syncing devices and scenes via the portal. With this said, it is nice to have a few additional scenes for specific moments. i.e. Alexa, turn on Cooking, Alexa, Dim house. 

Approaching things in this manner, has significantly reduced the number of routines or groupings needed On the Alexa side as Alexa will interact with the ISY scenes as rooms/groups anyway.

I also only introduce the switch with main power to the Alexa list of devices to reduce number of devices to manage and to simplify and increase accuracy of voice commands.

In Alexa

Minimizing configuration in Alexa, ie. very few groups if any, only primary light switches, and no granular routines made for the cleanest and most accurate functionality. It also really simplifies making changes or adding functionality which are primarily done on the ISY.

I've also noticed a significant uptake and understanding of commands throughout my family with this cleaner setup.

My motto now is, Less is More.

 

Not sure if this offers any clarity, and again am happy to delete should this only make things more cloudy for some.

 

PB

 

 

 

[MrBill]

It's really a mindset and it really boils down to which device is considered the "scene controller" or even more broadly which device the "controller".

My mindset is that the ISY is always the center of automation, Alexa is only a voice assistant that lets me operate the automations stored in the "Controller".

In your first scenario you were attempting to make Alexa the controller and let the ISY be the assistant the knows how to turn on and off certain lights.

[larryllix]

I totally agree with the concept put forth by @MrBillabove. I believe ISY has the most power of any device and allow ISY controll all groupings. My ISY is not allowed to control any device directly. By allowing ISY total control over everything it is easy to insert some local lockout, or conditional logic, based on other factors that Alexa will never know about. ISY knows how to combine logic.

As a side note: I mostly control programs in my ISY labelled XXX Lamp.select. Now I can use
...Alexa...turn on/off XXX Lamp.select

My ISY can now decide if it wants to allow it, delay it, operate multiple devices, operate WiFi devices etc.. etc..
The syntax is the same for all devices...so far. Even A/V volumes with
...Alexa...turn on louder
...Alexa turn on softer

My bank of select programs, mostly operates a state variable and another bank of programs does all the dirty work depending on the value injected into that state variable. This makes independence for later modifications very easy. Multiple programs can operate that grouping of 10-30 lights with one variable save.

Now that I am partially moved over to polisy and running two logic systems it has been a blessing as it is easy to transmit a single variable to the slave polisy and have it do all the dirty work for dozens of WiFi bulbs. ISY has all the Insteon stuff and inputs yet while the polisy has all the Ethernet stuff, as a half way point.
 

[PB11]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

As a side note: I mostly control programs in my ISY labelled XXX Lamp.select. Now I can use
...Alexa...turn on/off XXX Lamp.select

My ISY can now decide if it wants to allow it, delay it, operate multiple devices, operate WiFi devices etc.. etc..
The syntax is the same for all devices...so far. Even A/V volumes with
...Alexa...turn on louder
...Alexa turn on softer

My bank of select programs, mostly operates a state variable and another bank of programs does all the dirty work depending on the value injected into that state variable. This makes independence for later modifications very easy. Multiple programs can operate that grouping of 10-30 lights with one variable save.

Wow. I  have a hard time conceptualizing it. I need to spend more time gaining a deeper understanding about the guts of ISY programming.

 

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

Multiple programs can operate that grouping of 10-30 lights with one variable save.

I like the sound of this. Again, beyond my comprehension at the moment, but I'll keep plugging away at it.

 

@MrBill You are absolutely right about the mindset and that I was using Alexa as the controller. In parallel I was also trying to thoroughly configure my ISY, which was just causing conflict between the two controllers.

I had originally started out with an Insteon controller, which was limited at best, but relied on Stringify for the heavy lifting.

Sadly, once Stringify was shut down I lost most of my automation functionality.

I decided to revisit the ISY I had been using on a very limited bases at another property. I had no understanding of its capacity at this time.

Because of what seemed like ISY's complexity I embraced Alexa for its simplicity and similarity to stringify.

My reasoning for the diatribe above was to maybe prevent any newcomer from going down the path I did and wasting all the learning hours on utilizing Alexa when I could have been focusing on ISY. This is not to take away from what Alexa has added to home automation.

Honestly, if it weren't for this forum, and the power players on this forum, @MrBill @larryllixand several other contributors I can't currently think of, I wouldn't be utilizing ISY the way I currently am.

ISY is powerful, but the real power is in the people who share their experience and knowledge.

Guess I was just trying to contribute and payback all the assistance I've been given.

 

[larryllix]

44 minutes ago, PB11 said:

Wow. I  have a hard time conceptualizing it. I need to spend more time gaining a deeper understanding about the guts of ISY programming.

 

I like the sound of this. Again, beyond my comprehension at the moment, but I'll keep plugging away at it.

 

Maybe I launched a complicated sounding technique on you too soon but basically...

For lights
If
      StateVar = 1 (True)  <------
Then
      turns on an Insteon Scene, some WiFi lights, some Zwave lights etc.
Else
      turns off same as Then

For transfer of control to polisy, I clone critical variables (used in techniques above) if they change. polisy has all duplicate programs for now, based on variable values
ISY event--> changes a state variable-->ISY program detects value change and NR transmits value to clone ISY variable in polisy-->polisy program detects value change and polisy controls lights instead of ISY.

[PB11]

12 hours ago, larryllix said:

For lights
If
      StateVar = 1 (True)  <------
Then
      turns on an Insteon Scene, some WiFi lights, some Zwave lights etc.
Else
      turns off same as Then

@larryllixplease let me know if you really don't want to head down this road, but I've just spent some time trying to understand the above. I'm a little dim over here.

So what command would you give to trigger the StateVar change? It seems like you would need many programs to account for all the "Then's" that you might want. i.e levels of dim

Then

"Turns on an insteon scene to 50%, or 60%."             

Am I not grasping the logic here? and is the "Else"  triggered with the same command.

So if "Turn On Insteon scene" is already on, the "Then" is skipped and the "Else" is triggered which turns it off?

 

For example. I'm with my approach I'm having a difficult time with the following.

In my kitchen I have I have 16 pot lights which are split between 2 main powered switches. This obligates me to group them as a scene if I want to turn the entire kitchen lighting. By grouping I lose the ability to dim. 

I was trying to build a program such that if I turned on

If kitchen light 1 main > off

 Then kitchen light 2 main = kitchen light 1 main. 

I was unable to find a setting that would allow me to have one device mimic another's state.

I'm trying to understand how i could apply a statvar to this problem, but have only used Statvar on a vary basic level.

This really seems like it might be the next level of what ISY is capable of. Maybe its that I just don't have the knowledge of programming logic.

[larryllix]

First I don't use many Insteon Scenes. Insteon Scenes are presets to speed up group changes to devices and give no feedback to ISY. The resultant levels are assumed by ISY. I do use some Insteon Scenes but much of my lighting is now WiFi RGBWW/CW bulbs and strips.

Yes, it takes a bank of programs and I keep them in ISY folders. I don't vary levels much as I have found only the levels of 100%, 40%, 20%,  10%, and 2% are useful level differences. Of course Insteon SwitchLinc dimmers cannot do under about 12% with LED devices. WiFi bulbs and strips can do 1% quite nicely.

In a folder of program handlers I would typically have GathRm.fullOn, GathRm.dim, GathRm.TV, GathRm.reading, GathRm.xmas, GathRm.Easter, GathRm.Halloween, GathRm.Canada, GathRm.IndependanceDay, GathRm.blue, GathRm.red, GathRm.sunset, GathRm.automatic, etc, etc, depending on the room I have the lighting in.

Each program in each folder looks likes this:
If
    $sGathRm.mode is $cMODE.DIM <--- $c denotes an Integer var permanently set to a value as a constant for clarity in programming
Then
    set chairPots 40%
    set sidePots 60%
    set TVwallPots 20%
Else
    ---
 

Also you always need a program for off
If
    $sGathRm.mode is $cMODE.OFF
Then
     set chairPots Off
     .... etc
Else
     -----

Once that is done now a trigger program would look like this
If
      SwitchLinc is switch On
Then
      $sGathRm.mode = $cMODE.FULLON
       Wait 4 hours
      $GathRm.mode = $cMODE.OFF
Else
    -----

Now you can save the current settings in a save variable while you "borrow" a light to flash or temporary setting and restore the whole set up by just returning that value to the control variable. I am transmitting these variable over to my polisy and letting it handle all my WiFi stuff now, while the Insteon things are being handled by my ISY because it has the PLM until later developments in polisy.

[MrBill]

@PB11

The reality is that you probably don't need custom voice dimming in the kitchen.   Mostly likely you have multiple light configurations that you repeatedly use over and over again.  For example, in my kitchen there are 5 lighting patterns:

• Daytime Off: all the lights are off
• Daytime On: Overhead on, Table light 50%, undercabinet 50%, overcabinet Off
• Evening Off: Overhead off, Table light off, undercabinet 1%, overcabinet 3%
• Evening On: Overhead On, Table light 50%, undercabinet 50%, overcabinet 80%
• Dinnertime:  Overhead 20%, Table light 30%, undercabinet 1%, overcabinet 40%

Outside of those configurations there might be something unusual, like on Christmas eve when we have a gathering there's one more configuration, but I just do it manually.

(Evening begins at Sunset or "dinnertime" whichever comes first (keep in mind "sunset varies almost 5 hours, so typically "dinnertime" is first in the summer, and "sunest" occurs first in the winter.  "Daytime" starts in the kitchen at "bedtime" the night before, "bedtime" is an arbitrary time that occurs everynight.)

There's also a past reply, where i show how to use programs to Alexa/voice dim specific devices while keeping scenes in sync.  This isn't what you want to do in your kitchen however:

 

[larryllix]

As for @MrBillabove re: kitchen lighting. Totally agree again. People want to vary their lighting colours with all this analogue style lighting levels and concepts, which is mostly a waste of time after getting some experience with it.

eg: At the beginning of the coloured RGB lighting I was, like many others, really concerned about mixing white and RGB colours in the same bulbs. After having this capability I have found when you want colours, you want them rich and deep, no pastels that are hard to even detect. When you want white for a work surface you want a daylight white (5000K to 6500K). When you want lighting for evening relaxing and TV watching you want a warmer white (2500K to 3000K). Those needs never really vary very much.  Same for white levels, you only really need 100%, maybe 40%, about 10-20%, and maybe 1-5% depending on the bulbs. Insteon scenes can do that quite well. Make the presets (in your scenes) and then pick a scene to turn on.

However, I have a Gathering room where my kitchen, dining room, TV area, and hobby area are all in one big room. I don't vary colours on my kitchen counters and bar, but I do dim them down a lot, to fade them into the background (5000K) late at nights while TV watching. With the newer RGBCW bulbs they have two sets of white LEDs inside so you can mix and match white temperatures and I am just learning to use that colour fade for late evenings. It has got people to bed earlier than we formerly did, so it is working.

ISY is my friend and it will be yours also!!  Very capable little box.