Can't add inline dimmer as controller

[mlennox]

Hello, I have a set of lights controlled by an inline linc dimmer module and a secondary physical dimmer switch. I had to use the inline linc because the physical switch location did not have a separate neutral wire.

 

I'm trying to now create a virtual 3-way scene with the inline and physical dimmer but for some reason ISY does not give me the option to add the inline as a controller, only a responder.

 

For n-way virtual wiring I understand all switches need to be added as controllers to the scene.

 

What gives?

[oberkc]

I don't believe inlinlinc dimmers can be controllers, since there is no physical way to turn one off or on. A switch, on the other hand, has toggles or rockers used to turn the device on. The inline linc device only controls a load, and activates only inresponse to an insteon signal.

 

Install it as a responder, with your actual switches as controllers, and you should be ready to go.

[mlennox]

I don't believe inlinlinc dimmers can be controllers, since there is no physical way to turn one off or on. A switch, on the other hand, has toggles or rockers used to turn the device on. The inline linc device only controls a load, and activates only inresponse to an insteon signal.

 

Install it as a responder, with your actual switches as controllers, and you should be ready to go.

 

I tried that but was not able to get the correct behaviour from the physical switch that I was looking for.

 

I disagree that inlinc dimmers can't be controllers since they actually do have physical on/off switches that behave exactly the same as the switchlinc dimmer paddes.

 

At any rate, I was able to work around the problem by manually adding the inline dimmers to ISY masquerading as regular SwitchLinc dimmers. ISY sees them as regular SLs, and allows them to be controllers, so they now behave as I would expect.

 

Since I was able to add them as controllers to a scene, I'm assuming this is a bug in ISY.

[oberkc]

I disagree that inlinc dimmers can't be controllers since they actually do have physical on/off switches that behave exactly the same as the switchlinc dimmer paddes.

 

I was not sure, but it made sense in my mind that it would not be used as a controller. Regardless, it makes no sense to me why you could not define a scene with several swithes as controller and the inline linc as a responder and have the scene behave as you desire.

 

Assuming that the physical behaviour you are looking for is nothing unusual, the only thing that I can think of would be that on and off levels for the various controllers were set wrong. Or it could be a bug, as you suggest, or a software update to the inline linc not yet recognized by the ISY.

 

Hopefully, others can respond with confirmation.

[mlennox]

Regardless, it makes no sense to me why you could not define a scene with several swithes as controller and the inline linc as a responder and have the scene behave as you desire.

 

You are correct. I was able to get it to work as a responder in the scene. I think I had the switch settings set incorrectly in the scene.

 

I'm finding the virtual n-way setup to be a little confusing and tedious, since you have to set the on level and ramp rates exactly the same on all switches if you want them to "behave" the same.

 

For multi-way switches I would prefer if you could simply "slave" switches to the main switch such that the slaves would mimic the main switch on level and ramp rate.

[oberkc]

I'm finding the virtual n-way setup to be a little confusing and tedious, since you have to set the on level and ramp rates exactly the same on all switches if you want them to "behave" the same.

 

I agree that the flexibility offered with different on levels and ramp rates adds a degree of complication. That seems to be a common problem with technology (I can't help but think of the windows mobile vs iPhone analogy). Some have a great deal of flexibility at the expense of an up-front learning curve. Others are less up-front effort, but at the expense of having limits on what one can do. I think, however, that the ISY interface offers a reasonable solution.

 

I am thinking that when you set up a scene and have it selected in your device list, you will see the scene properties (on-levels, ramp rates, etc). I think there is a check-box available that causes scene properties to be applied to all controlling devices within the scene. This sounds like what you are looking for. Perhaps that will help.

 

As an additional thought, I think the ability to create different levels and rates to be a basic insteon capability....one could do this with the manual tap-linc process as well. One could reasonably argue that the ISY simply gives an easier method to achieve this inherent insteon capability. I have no doubt there would be more complaints if the ISY limited this capability for the purpose of making things simpler to learn.

[mlennox]

I am thinking that when you set up a scene and have it selected in your device list, you will see the scene properties (on-levels, ramp rates, etc). I think there is a check-box available that causes scene properties to be applied to all controlling devices within the scene. This sounds like what you are looking for. Perhaps that will help.

 

Actually, I think this is what got me into trouble in the first place. I believe this "check box" to apply settings to all devices has a bug. For me it didn't apply the settings to all devices, though immediately afterwards it did appear so. When I went back to each individual device I noticed it wasn't set properly and had to revert to setting each one individually.

 

As an additional thought, I think the ability to create different levels and rates to be a basic insteon capability....one could do this with the manual tap-linc process as well. One could reasonably argue that the ISY simply gives an easier method to achieve this inherent insteon capability. I have no doubt there would be more complaints if the ISY limited this capability for the purpose of making things simpler to learn.

 

Agreed. There are a lot of options for sure, and I would be the last one to complain about having too much flexibility. I'm only 2 weeks into this so perhaps this is just a learning curve issue.