I'm just in the infancy (actually waiting for stock) in transitioning to eISY from a very reliable 994. Can anyone direct me to the best path to start and accomplish this transition? Also, I guess Mobilinc will go to the sidelines when 994 does. How will I be able to use the new eISY with my iPhone when away? Is this what the "Portal" is for, or is there another purpose for that? My 994 was just a local unit that I either accessed by the Admin console, or Mobilinc.

Thanks

UD Mobile is the free phone app that goes with the eisy. It has many features. Do you have only Insteon or do you also have zwave devices on your isy994i?

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Guy Lavoie

Schlage locks as well

If your isy994i has a 500 zwave board in it (not a 300) there is a migration procedure for it, though that doesn't always go smoothly. Otherwise if you only have a few locks it might not be so bad to just recreate them, and their related programs. Is your isy994i running a release 5.x x of IoX?

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by Guy Lavoie

3 hours ago, aLf said:

Also, I guess Mobilinc will go to the sidelines when 994 does

Actually you can still use Mobilinc as long as you're using a direct connection to the eisy or through the UD Portal. I use Mobilinc Pro and it works just fine. I never did their connection method, but the app itself will connect and show anything that is showing on the ISY. The main things that DO NOT work with Mobilinc will be anything you add to the system through a plugin. You'll see them (possibly), but more than likely will not be able to control them. If you never setup Mobilinc to use the UD Portal you can follow the directions in the wiki: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/ISY_Portal_MobiLinc_Configuration. It's not required to have an active portal license/subscription to run the eisy, but it does provide you the easier (more secure) method of connecting to the device while remote. Otherwise, you have to open a port on your home router and that's a possible security vulnerability. I don't run any z-wave or zigbee devices that I need to control with an app so I'm not 100% sure if/how Mobilinc works with those on eisy. I know my Insteon devices 100% work with Mobilinc and eisy.

For any plugins you end up running you'll want to get UD Mobile from UDI. That's being developed to work better with the eisy and plugins and requires UD Portal license/subscription for remote access.

30 minutes ago, Guy Lavoie said:

If your isy994i has a 500 zwave board in it (not a 300) there is a migration procedure for it, though that doesn't always go smoothly. Otherwise if you only have a few locks it might not be so bad to just recreate them, and their related programs. Is your isy994i running a release 5.x x of IoX?

Not sure how to tell what board it is?

Can you explain the "Portal" thing to me?

ON another thread some talked about UDMobile, is that a better option. I simply want to lock/unlock and monitor/change lighting when away. I used to have a network communication that would turn on/off motion detectors on AXIS cameras, but AXIS ruined that a couple years ago. I'd love to be able to get that back, but have had no luck.

I'm still on 4.7.3. Was told I should upgrade to 4.9.0, but am hesitant knowing I'm moving to eISY.

I'm ope to any help and comments, Thanks

4 minutes ago, aLf said:

Not sure how to tell what board it is?

"The immediate physical differences between the 2 boards is that the 300 series card has a blue light in the back of the isy while the 500 does not." (Source)

4 minutes ago, aLf said:

Can you explain the "Portal" thing to me?

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/ISY_Portal_Installation_Instructions

The UD Portal has long been what UD offered for remote access as well as Amazon/Google connection for 3rd party voice commands. You can learn more about it on the wiki link (above). There's also mention of it on the UD Website (look for "Cloud").

6 minutes ago, aLf said:

I'm still on 4.7.3. Was told I should upgrade to 4.9.0,

I think going to 4.9.0 would be okay. I'm not 100% sure if there is a good migration option from 4.7.3, but it might work okay. How many total devices (Insteon & Z-Wave) do you think you have? Are all your Insteon devices "easy" to access? (i.e. no devices that are in sealed off walls or very high locations that you don't feel comfortable reaching?). Do you have any/many Insteon battery devices?

If the answer to total number of devices is relatively small then it might just be "easy" to setup up as a new system. If you've got a lot of programs that you can't live without then that will need to be addressed differently.

The biggest issue is you're going from 4.x system to 6.x system. There were MAJOR changes in the 5.x firmware line that will still potentially impact your system/setup. Those will be around how scenes are made and controlled (too much to really go into here...go find posts about the upgrades/changes in 4.x to 5.x and possibly review scenes on the wiki).

I'm not familiar with AXIS devices and doesn't appear that there's a plugin. So doubtful that you would get to add that back into the system unless you could find a developer to make a plugin for those devices (if it's even possible).

12 minutes ago, aLf said:

ON another thread some talked about UDMobile, is that a better option. I simply want to lock/unlock and monitor/change lighting when away.

"better option" is in the eye of the user. I like UD Mobile and can use it, but I have not gotten deeply entrenched with how you can set it up. Mostly because I don't use a mobile app for my home "automation". I don't need to know (monitor) when lights come on or go off and don't need to turn things on/off while I'm away (most times). For simple tasks like that I rely on Mobilinc more than I do UD Mobile because it's what I used in my ISY994 days and it just works simple enough and quick enough for a simple task of turning an Insteon device on/off.

Just to be sure: the components you need to get for a full functionality are the eisy itself, the ZMatter board for zwave (or a Zooz 700 series dongle if you don't ever think you'll need or want zigbee) ZMatter is the better option, and a serial to USB adapter for your Insteon PLM if you're keeping your existing PLM.

I've got 68 Insteon various switches, 4 keypads, 2 Schlage locks, 2 Sirens that bridge the locks. I have 39 programs. I have 30 scenes. Everything is easy to get to. The scenes are somewhat complex.

42 minutes ago, aLf said:

The scenes are somewhat complex.

There was a BIG change in how scenes were handled from 4.x to 5.x. So much so there was this portion added to the wiki:

While the ISY Cookbook was written in the days of ISY994 Firmware v4.x, many fundamentals still apply to ISY/IoX Firmware 5.x+. The major change from 4.x to 5.x is handling of scenes due to adding Z-Wave implementation.
Please review the UD Forums for more information and to get assistance with scene setup and control in ISY/IoX 5.x+.

It's been a long time since I updated from 4.x to 5.x on the ISY994 and I don't use a lot of scenes so I can't really give you the details about it. But I think for the most part the scene should at least migrate over correctly, but the biggest issue was if you have programs that use "adjust scene" they would need to be re-worked.

I strongly suggest you make a digital text backup of all your programs before doing anything!

• Right click on the root folder in the programs tab (usually called "My Programs").

• Select "Copy Folder to Clipboard" - BE SURE YOU USE COPY

• Paste into a TEXT editor (for Windows use Notepad) - don't use a word processing app - you want to keep the formatting and text as raw text!

• SAVE this file somewhere you'll know where it is.

Doing this will save a text copy of all your programs. After you migrate if you have any broken programs you can search the text file to find what nodes were being referenced and/or what your settings were. Easier to do this from a text file than from memory. Trust me!

If you used to setup scenes with "copy" option know that process was removed in 5.x due to how z-wave certification needed to be handled. This is the biggest change many have complained about going away in the 4.x to 5.x upgrade. It's suggested if you have to create scenes now to add all the responders and setup their properties then add the controllers. I'm not familiar enough with the process to know what this achieves, but I've seen it commented on here previously.