requests - ping, syslog, onewire etc.

[smithnc]

So my first quote is a request, I'm not sorry. The power of the ISY keeps me thinking of new ways I could use it... if only.

 

PING:

I would love to be able to ping a network device in a program to find out if it was running.

 

VARIABLE SUGGESTIONS

When variables arrive, I hope they support being the content of a notification message such as an email.

SPECIAL CALENDAR - maybe this is something achievable with variables - it would be nice to upload a list of special dates that could be used to affect programming. Some holidays (Easter for example) move around.

RSS-being able to subscribe to an RSS feed that would affect programing. Much like the weatherbug plugin works. The ISY could read the feed and based on the content perform an action. RSS might be an easy way to get formatted/controlled information onto the ISY.

 

OneWire Sensors

It would be great if the ISY itself had direct support for things like temperature sensors, pressure sensors, etc. OneWire might be a way to do this. I realize you can do much of this through Insteon, but sometimes it is a bit kludgy. Support for the AAG Electronica weatherstation would be super cool.

 

SYSLOG

Probably possible through the network module, but it would be great to be able to easily log notifications/events in a program to a syslog server.

 

Library of code.

I hope the wiki accumulates lots of code examples. I think some of the things people are doing with the ISY are creative and I love reading about them. Thanks to everyone for sharing.

 

-Nate

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Nate!!!

 

Welcome and thanks so very much for the feedback.

 

Please see my comments below.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

PING:

I would love to be able to ping a network device in a program to find out if it was running.

Already have it on our requirements list and it has medium priority

 

VARIABLE SUGGESTIONS

When variables arrive, I hope they support being the content of a notification message such as an email.

I do not understand this. Are you suggesting parsing an email (and therefore a POP client?)

 

SPECIAL CALENDAR - maybe this is something achievable with variables - it would be nice to upload a list of special dates that could be used to affect programming. Some holidays (Easter for example) move around.

I agree. But, this is doable now. We were working on American and Canadian calendars that could simply be imported to ISY.

 

RSS-being able to subscribe to an RSS feed that would affect programing. Much like the weatherbug plugin works. The ISY could read the feed and based on the content perform an action. RSS might be an easy way to get formatted/controlled information onto the ISY.

The problem with RSS is that it's not easily parsed. We would have to use pattern matching to parse, and for large feeds, this would be impractical. Do you have any examples?

 

 

OneWire Sensors

It would be great if the ISY itself had direct support for things like temperature sensors, pressure sensors, etc. OneWire might be a way to do this. I realize you can do much of this through Insteon, but sometimes it is a bit kludgy. Support for the AAG Electronica weatherstation would be super cool.

Understood ... I have to think about this one a little since it's not in our roadmap and we have never even thought about it before!

 

SYSLOG

Probably possible through the network module, but it would be great to be able to easily log notifications/events in a program to a syslog server.

Already in our requirements with low priority.

 

Library of code.

I hope the wiki accumulates lots of code examples. I think some of the things people are doing with the ISY are creative and I love reading about them.

Agreed!

 

-Nate

[smithnc]

Michel , Thanks for the speedy reply.

 

For my variables comment with email - I hope that if we have the ability to use something like $TVstatus = on

 

That a notification could contain something like $TVstatus in the body so we could say "The TV is" $TVstatus. or IF TVstatus = on send "Turn the TV Off!" to notify. (notification groups might be nice to have too)

 

So this is purely for sending a notification that includes the value of a variable in the body (or subject) of the notification.

 

As for RSS - and I know parsing XML/RSS can be computationally expensive -There are many times where I would like to get external information into the ISY. I would not expect the ISY to be able to read a CNN newsfeed - (that will be the ISY 3000), but if I can publish an RSS feed from another program so that there is an XML field called TVstatus and the value could be on or off, the ISY could read the most recent value and act on that.

If there was pattern matching available that would make things more interesting.

 

My TVstatus variable is a bad example, but I'm looking for easy conduits to get external environmental information into the ISY. If the notification/event log was published via RSS - that might be usefull too.

 

Is there a roadmap for future development on the forums or wiki? I'd like to learn what is being planned with Morning Industry.

 

I should maybe start another thread for this but one thing that would be fantastic is some kind of presence system. I have a motion detector set up to watch for my kid coming home between 3 PM and 5pm and send me notification. I have no idea which kid is home or even that is is really them. or really, how many people actually entered the house.

 

If we could use ISY with 1 wire and ibuttons, bluetooth, or RFID we could assign a key with a unique value to each kid and track them as they enter and leave the house.

 

I don't know what the ISY environment is like (I realize it is tiny) but if there was room for a subset of XMPP services or some kind of state engine or semaphore to track coming and going of IDs.

 

I was thinking about having them press a keypad key to check in and check out as they come home and leave but that seemed onerous and inelegant (and apparently to inexpensive )

 

I just got one of the schlage zwave locks and it supports unique entry codes and notifications but there is no way I am going to subscribe to their service for more than a year.

 

-Nate

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Nate,

 

Ok, so variable for the text notification is outbound. That makes it easier!

 

RSS feeds: I still do not see a good example that cannot already be done with Network Module. If you have one, I would love to see it and think about it.

 

I like the idea of RFID ... it makes perfect sense. Let me think about it.

 

Our roadmap is usually listed in What's in the next release. We try not to make any over ambitions plans since a) we need to keep the base stable and most of the time, we won't be able to meet them.

 

We have no plans for Morning Industry whatsoever!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[wolfepack]

I'd like to second the motion for 1-Wire support. I am doing a lot of work with solar energy and rain-water collection. As part of getting everything working, I need a lot of temperature sensors. Something like 10-15, many of which need to be submersible in water and work outside in freezing temperatures.

 

For example, I currently have an Oregon Scientific WMR968 temperature sensor in my main rain-collection tank. If the tank starts getting to cold, I use a script on a Linux system to invoke a REST command to my isy99i, which in turn activates an ApplianceLinc which in turn activates a submersible heater. This works very nicely. However, I want to do the same with heat tape on the pipe connecting my tank to my pump, as well as for the pump itself, as well as for a roof-washer tank. That is four probes right there. I have a secondary tank where I would like three more probes.

 

I understand there are current Insteon devices I can use for temperature sensing, but they are bulky, expensive, and only handle one or two probes per device. Using one-wire sensors, I can put in 15 sensors for only about $10 each. I working on doing this with my Linux system, but it would be really nice if the isy99i could support these directly.

 

So, one more vote for 1-wire support!