Hello all!, I am new to the home automation arena and I am interested in how some of you guys are organizing your devices, scenes and programs. Any other tips would be appreciated as well!

 

Thanks in Advance!

 

Mark

Hi Mark,

 

Well, I am no expert but have been at this for about a year and a half, and I am usually pretty good at organization, but…

 

I have all devices, scenes and programs organized by location (area or rooms). But you will run into situations where a device, scene or program in one location directly controls another device or program in another area so it can get complicated fast, at times. So with some devices like the EZIO6 which for me controls many different things I set up its own folder for programs etc., again I'm no expert and I would love to hear tips on how others have set theirs up as well.

 

Tim

I'm with Tim, try to organize by where device is located, but things do go down hill from there.

Thanks Guys!

I'm new to the ISY but have an extensive X10 installation. Just getting started with Insteon. I had no grouping capability in my previous controller. The ISY99i is new to me so I am just getting my feet wet.

 

In the ISY I have Garage and House. Under House I have interior and exterior folders. Under interior I have 1st floor, 2nd floor and basement. I just added Theater as well. So I am beginning to stray a bit from the floors format. As others have said there are programs and devices that aren't exclusive to one area of the house and I just leave them on their own for now. The problem I am seeing with so many groupings is that I have a lot of buttons to press on my iPhone (using Mobilinc). I'll see how it goes from here. I may try to back off on the folders.

 

Curious to hear about other methods.

Hello Mark,

 

I like to name my folders by location. I experimented with many ideas but landed with this way because its easiest to find stuff when things get sophisticated. Ultimately I would love to see both the device and program folder trees be merged into one section so when programming you don't have to jump back and forth between device and program tabs but that's another topic.

 

Device Folders

 

Program Folders

 

Thanks,

I organize my devices generally by room. I don't organize scenes in folers. The only folders I use in programs are dicated by functional purpose, where folders have conditions (dusk-to-dawn, April-through-September, etc).

Thanks everyone for your responses. I guess then I was doing the "right" way by organizing them by Floor and Room.