What to do with Polisy after upgrading to eisy?

[jec6613]

Just what's on the label in the title.  I upgraded to an eisy two weeks ago, and am now at the point where holding onto the Polisy as a backup to roll back to no longer makes sense.

That being said, it's still a useful little box that sips power, so any creative ideas as to what to do with it?  Either with UD's software on it, or somehow stripping the software off, or something else.  Just trying to see if there's any options or ideas besides e-waste.

The only idea I've had so far is to take the quite attractive aluminum case and use it to make a nifty enclosure of some sort, even if it's just a giant, oversized ZMatter enclosure.

[paulbates]

In my new house, the iox/ac box is an older windows machine that does the job great, but also not in a convenient location and has some shared duties that my wife has and sometimes I wait.

I would love to have a minimalist headless box to run windows for the sole purpose of RDP in for iox/ac. I know it's possible to run iox/ac on Linux/BSD/ect if a windows license is not available. I tried that on raspbian at my last house and getting it to work was beyond me.

[jec6613]

I actually already have a headless Celeron based Nuc for that already. It's also a jump box for all sorts of network management, and it is indeed very handy. I'm not sure if a VNC connection would be nearly as effective as RDP though, if I could even get it running on Polisy. 

[paulbates]

Vnc is relatively easy to use for iox/ac. An advantage of realvnc is that it's server module now calls out to a secure login service, like eisy with portal are. Secure login, no firewall ports open on my router.... but it doesn't appear to support a lot of less common os variants. 

The version of W10 on the current pc that I vnc into is the home version, so no RDP service enabled. Even if I pay for realvnc subscription for a number of years, it's still cheaper than buying yet another nuc/appliance with the version of w11 that supports RDP. (I've not used RDP for many years, so that may have changed)

[theitprofessor]

I created a mobile test lab out of mine.  I took some 2x4's and framed up a simulated mini house about 2' X 1'.  Added 5 single gang junction boxes to it and 2 round electrical boxes with ceiling light fixtures and LED dimmable bulbs.  In the single gangs I have different Insteon devices and one of them standard outlet with a PLM.  I plugged my blue box Polisy into that.  I got a 6' 14 gauge appliance plug wire and connected that to my mini house frame.  I can test anything without needing to disrupt my existing house config or physically installing it in the house.  All I need is a single standard wall outlet to power the whole thing and a network connection for the Polisy.  I can test things on it in my existing house anywhere in it and it's small and light enough to take on the road.  Even to somewhere which has nothing.  I'm using it for Insteon now but it can be used for ZWave, Wifi, whatever devices you want to test.

[theitprofessor]

@paulbates Not sure if you knew this Paul but you can run the AC via IoX finder local over a site to site VPN tunnel or client VPN to any UD box.  ISY, Polisy, Eisy, works great.  I’ve done it from half way across the country.  You just need to add the proper address line to IoX finder.  You don’t need RDP.  Direct connect without the need of a jump box.

Edited February 6 by theitprofessor

[paulbates]

Thanks @theitprofessor. My routers have included VPN servers and I had one set up before i retired from a full time travel job and had a windows work laptop that would allow me to run java.

Then the ISY portal was released and used that as a (I think the right term is) reverse proxy... I authenticated to the ISY portal and connected through it for ISY for iox/ac remote access from around the country. I continue to have no open firewall ports to my lan or server to run or keep updated. 

Around the time I retired I went through a period of ~5 years of mostly just using the things I automated and rarely logged in to my ISY. Then sold that house, pc & the ISY and all the iot. I switched to an iPad Air as my main device.. It doesn't run java and not wiling to jailbreak it. 

I'm in a new-to-me house and have started all over again (of course 🤪) which is how I ended up on vnc.  In this new world I'm using the eisy as an internet appliance and stepping back from server setup, maint, etc for both my ISY and router.. no more ssh, RPIs, servers for now. Iox and Plugins are getting me where I need to go.

[palayman]

On 2/4/2024 at 1:22 PM, jec6613 said:

The only idea I've had so far is to take the quite attractive aluminum case and use it to make a nifty enclosure of some sort, even if it's just a giant, oversized ZMatter enclosure.

I'm in an even more comical situation.  Built a new house a few years ago just when Polisy was coming out. None were available so I bought an ISY.  Then ISY stop supporting the latest version of nodeservers on a Raspberry Pi, so I bought a Polisy and installed some nodeservers (that would have run on the the RPi) with intention of moving the ISY to Polisy and updating the the new nodeserver version a short time later.  Unfortunately a couple of the nodeservers I needed wern't yet ported so I never moved. Instead I started using Home Assistant on a Small PC and integrated with the ISY to get the functionality I wanted, with the intention of moving everything once the nodeservers were available. 

Well I never did move and found that only two of the five nodeservers were something I needed/used and one of the two I used went away - myQ. So I plan to move the one I use, envisalink, over to Home Assistant and turn off the Polisy. No point in moving to Eisy at this point. Besides it might be superseded before I have time to integrate.

Is there a market for lightly used Polisy's?