ISY variables not showing up in HA

[TJF1960]

New to HA, I was able to integrate ISY and Emporia Vue2 into HA. All ISY devices, scenes, PG3 nodes and Emporia show up great in HA Overview tab. However ISY variables and network resources are not shown. I had assumed that they would.

I am looking for HA to monitor the Vue2 and send updated power data to ISY variables. When I try to create an automation script a list of the variables is not available to select from.

Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks!

Tim

[Dub]

To import variables the need to have a prefix of HA. in front of them.

You can run Network Resources, but you need to call the service to do it.  Create a HA Automation and then go to the Actions, For Action Type use "Call Service", then search for isy.  You may need to click the x to delete anything that may show up there first.

Also this thread may be helpful where @MrBilljuggled 3 of us at once.  You can probably pick up some tricks from reading though older Home Assistant posts here and looking for the solutions.  

Take note to where @MrBill suggested changing the Ignore string to ~ instead {IGNORE ME}.  I made the change and it has been great.

Welcome to the club!

[MrBill]

16 minutes ago, Dub aka WHaas said:

ake note to where @MrBill suggested changing the Ignore string to ~ instead {IGNORE ME}.  I made the change and it has been great.

I also suggest that you change the HA. string to .HA and use .HA as the suffix of variable names instead of HA. which tends to be used as a prefix. 

[Dub]

11 minutes ago, MrBill said:

I also suggest that you change the HA. string to .HA and use .HA as the suffix of variable names instead of HA. which tends to be used as a prefix. 

@TJF1960 more great advice from @MrBill.  I will change mine before I get too far with it.  I just started experimenting with variables.

[Geddy]

@TJF1960 & @Dub aka WHaas

One other piece of advice that @MrBill has given (me anyway) is DO NOT CHANGE/ALTER THE OVERVIEW dashboard! Let it remain system controlled. I'll let him expand on that advise, but I know I goofed it up when I started out and ended up re-flashing HA to the device so that the system controlled dashboard remained default. I then created my own dashboard(s) for my own use on phone and tablet. 

 

[MrBill]

Overview will be hidden once you change a users default dashboard.  Overview is a great resource to use when you want to find something...  I've learned many other ways since, but I still like having the system maintained default dashboard around for reference.

[Dub]

2 minutes ago, Geddy said:

DO NOT CHANGE/ALTER THE OVERVIEW dashboard!

 That’s a very good thought too!

And reminds me take some backups as you go.  If it’s lots of changes you may want to download the backup to your laptop/computer etc and not just leave it in HA.

it’s not a difficult platform to work with, but I think we have all stubbed our toes on it before and this should help you.

I did have an issue when I first started HA wouldn’t boot after I had been beating and banging on it.  I decided it was easier to start over than try to work on the boot problem with my limited knowledge of working in the cli of that OS.  That was the day I decided to keep local backups off the HA box.

[Geddy]

@Dub aka WHaas make sure you're using the Google Drive backup add-on! It's sweet!

[Dub]

Just now, Geddy said:

make sure you're using the Google Drive backup add-on! It's sweet!

That may just make me log back into my Google account!  I keep trying to leave them in the review mirror! But I like an automated backup!

[TJF1960]

Thank you all! I have made headway.

This is the automation so far:

id: '1659807355701'
alias: Test1
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.france_123_1min
condition: []
action:
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      type: 1
      address: 68
      value: 185
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      address: 27
      type: 2
      value: 112
mode: single

Where sensor.france_123_1min is a wattage value that I want sent to the variable in ISY. When creating the automation value for the variable in action there is no alternative way to specify that. It will only accept a number value. In another post @MrBillyou helped someone do exactly what I am trying to do but I cannot figure it out how to have the value taken from the sensor and sent to the variable.

This is the other post:  

 

[Geddy]

Just now, Dub aka WHaas said:

That may just make me log back into my Google account!

That's what my "home automation" google account is for. It sends ISY notifications if/when needed and stores my HA backups. Otherwise, I don't use/touch that one. 

 

[Dub]

10 minutes ago, TJF1960 said:

It will only accept a number value.

@TJF1960 I’m only about 2 months into ISY and HA.  Got deeper in HA about 2 weeks ago and will be following along for the answer….but am curious.  I think of watts as a number value.  I am thinking the variables on the ISY only accept numbers but like I say I’m not advanced there…What type of value are you wanting to put into the variable if it’s not a number?

[TJF1960]

Hi @Dub aka WHaasThe wattage specified by the sensor is a number value.  So the sensor may report 1058, I want HA to send that number value the sensor reports to a variable in the ISY. But when setting up the automation you can only "hard code" a number value into it that will get sent to the variable.

Reading further, it looks like I can change it in jaml file but I haven't been able to locate how to edit it yet, still reading...

 

[Dub]

OK I understand.  Yes I see what you mean there.  I am going the reverse direction with my variable.  I read the temperature from a sensor and write that value to a variable in Polisy to be used by HA.  I may poke around and see if I can find a way to do this, but Im sure one of the other will know for sure if its possible and how to do it.

[MrBill]

21 hours ago, TJF1960 said:

Thank you all! I have made headway.

This is the automation so far:

id: '1659807355701'
alias: Test1
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.france_123_1min
condition: []
action:
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      type: 1
      address: 68
      value: 185
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      address: 27
      type: 2
      value: 112
mode: single

Where sensor.france_123_1min is a wattage value that I want sent to the variable in ISY. When creating the automation value for the variable in action there is no alternative way to specify that. It will only accept a number value. In another post @MrBillyou helped someone do exactly what I am trying to do but I cannot figure it out how to have the value taken from the sensor and sent to the variable.

This is the other post: 

what's the value of sensor.france_123_1min normally?  or possible value?

A limitation here is there doesn't seem to be a way to send a decimal value from HA to ISY.  It must be an integer value.   There's a couple ways to accomplish that if the decimal value is not important:

{{ states('sensor.france_123_1min') | int }} will simply truncate it.

or you could multiply it by 10 or 100 then truncate the rest:

{{ int(states('sensor.france_123_1min') | float * 10 ) }}

but then your left with using remainder division to recreate the decimal value in isy... or just deal with values that are 10 or 100 times inflated.

The fact that you can only pass integers to the ISY is holdover, originally neither integer nor state variables accepted decimal places.  Decimal values for ISY variables were an after thought.

You can use the Developer > Templates tab to work out the syntax:

---

back to @TJF1960's automation:

action:
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      type: 1
      address: 68
      value: {{ states('sensor.france_123_1min') | int }}
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      name: france_123_1min
      value: {{ int(states('sensor.france_123_1min') | float * 10 ) }}
mode: single

Are a couple of things that you could try.

Note that I switched one of them to Name.  Yes, name's work and they don't need to be variables with HA. or .HA  Here are the things to remeber when setting variables by ISY name.  1) the variable name MUST BE unique (there's no way to specify a path, the  first variable it finds with that name will get the value.) 2) Case Counts  3) Spaces a problematic, you're better off with _ or . in the name instead.  (Spaces should work fine if the name is in quotes but there's a bug in the HA front end and " get changed to ' and then doubled as you edit.  You can avoid the issue by not using spaces in the name).

Here's an automation that truncates the decimal on outdoor temperature and places it in an ISY variable:

alias: 'AAA Weatherflow: Air Temp -> ISY'
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.weatherflow_air_temperature
condition: []
action:
  - service: isy994.set_variable
    data:
      name: sWeatherFlow.OutdoorAirTemp
      value: '{{ states(''sensor.weatherflow_air_temperature'') | int  }}'
mode: single

If a decimal value is important to you, it's probably easiest to deal with by multiply by 10 or 100 and just take that into account when creating ISY automations.   Or create a different automation on the HA side and just simply it to an action for the ISY.

[TJF1960]

@MrBill, works perfectly. I am dealing with whole numbers from Vue2.  I was having trouble specifying the value syntax.

Thank you so much!

-Tim