ELK M1 / ISY-99i capability confirmation

[r.burger]

I have spent most of this holiday weekend researching the perfect alarm system / home automation platform and everything keeps coming up Elk M1 Gold and ISY-99i PRO/IR for my ultimate needs. I suspect this is more of an Elk question than an ISY-99i question but I also think the ISY-99i may enable these things if the Elk can't do them. And I think they are all possible. But, I've read so many forum posts and articles that I am not certain that the "only thing" my wife cares about is absolutely covered. And I'll never hear the end of it if I get all of these cool toys and it doesn't fill her "simple" requirements:

 

• 
  [*:2ju8sonz]She must be able to recieve an e-mail message whenever the alarm is armed or disarmed, indicating who did it, preferrably by name, but by code would work
  [*:2ju8sonz]She must be able to define (or programmatically create and delete within the timeframe) an alarm access code that can only be used within a scheduled timeframe, basically every other Tuesday afternoon (for the housekeeper)
  [*:2ju8sonz]She would like to recieve an e-mail message whenever the alarm is tripped indicating the condition and zone
  [*:2ju8sonz]She would like to receive an e-mail message when a door is opened and again when it is closed

 

Thank you so much to whoever can answer these questions,

 

Robert Burger

[Plats]

Robert, I have the Elk M1 Gold and the ISY99i and feel its a great solution. I am not sure I can answer all your questions but will try:

 

•She must be able to recieve an e-mail message whenever the alarm is armed or disarmed, indicating who did it, preferrably by name, but by code would work [ Yes, I have the Elk M1 send me a message when armed "Away" , this way as you are driving away from the house, you can be confident the system is armed. I also have the system send me a "All is OK, system armed and no alarms" message once a day when I am away just for peace of mind. You can have the system report in whenever you want, very 5 min if thats what you want! I do not have the system report WHO armed the system, as default for the Elk keypad does not require you to identify with a code. I think you could do this, but would have to research.•She must be able to define (or programmatically create and delete within the timeframe) an alarm access code that can only be used within a scheduled timeframe, basically every other Tuesday afternoon (for the housekeeper) [ Do not know - check with Elk?]•She would like to recieve an e-mail message whenever the alarm is tripped indicating the condition and zone (Yes , I have the system send me a message along with the local police number for easy reference. I do not have the alarm zone included in the message, not sure you can do this, again question for ELK]

•She would like to receive an e-mail message when a door is opened and again when it is closed [ You could trigger on an event, but again not sure the message can identify exacty which door opened or closed, only that one of the monitored doors triggered}

[apostolakisl]

Everything you want is possible within the Elk itself. The only caveat is that Elk has only 16 unique emails it can send. So if you have lots of people with codes you may run out of unique messages for each code. For example, if you have 4 people with unique codes, you will need 8 email messages if you want a name plus arm/disarm.

 

The emails can say whatever you want. Like "susie armed the system to away mode". Emails can't get status info plugged into them, they are defined by you and then they are sent per Elk rules. So the more unique detail you want to know, the more unique emails you would need. Like "susie armed the system to away mode from the back door keypad". If you wanted a unique email for every door in your house or window, you would need a lot of emails. This is certainly possible using ISY, but frankly this seems a little odd to me. You would get bombarded with emails.

 

ISY is not directly capable of knowing who armed/disarmed the system, but it can send you emails regarding all the other stuff natively. ISY has more or less limitless unique emails. There is a workaround which can tell ISY to send unique emails based on who armed/disarmed. If you get to that point, just ask and folks here will tell you how.

[apostolakisl]

I have just started looking at what ISY can do with emails and plugging alarm system variables into them. Elk itself can not plug anything into an email, it is strictly what you put in there.

 

ISY has the ability to plug variables into emails. I have not played with this function. Perhaps Michel or someone at UD can help me out a little on what all the titles mean.

 

Like "alert type" what does that mean? or "alert name". What does ISY plug into those? Some stuff is obvious, but others (like those 2) baffle me.

[Chris Jahn]

Hi Guys,

 

Alert Type is the general source of the event, values are "Area", "Zone", "Output", "Keypad"

Alert Name is more specific, showing the name of the source of the event (e.g. the name of a specific zone, output, area, etc.)

[apostolakisl]

Ahh, great. So I think the OP would definitely want to use ISY's email capacity since those can be plugged in as variables instead of creating unique emails for every zone etc.

 

As far as I can tell, ISY doesn't have a "last user". Am I just missing it or does it not exist?

[Chris Jahn]

As far as I can tell, ISY doesn't have a "last user". Am I just missing it or does it not exist?

You can't do that directly with ISY, but you could set up rules in ELK that set/clear outputs based on last user (e.g. output 200 = Joe, output 201 = Jill, etc.). You could then do custom logic, emails, etc. in the ISY using the values of those outputs.

[apostolakisl]

As far as I can tell, ISY doesn't have a "last user". Am I just missing it or does it not exist?

You can't do that directly with ISY, but you could set up rules in ELK that set/clear outputs based on last user (e.g. output 200 = Joe, output 201 = Jill, etc.). You could then do custom logic, emails, etc. in the ISY using the values of those outputs.

 

Yes, thanks. I have been using phantom outputs to relay the siren chirp and task execution as well. It just gets more complex and if it were there and I was missing it, I would like to know.

 

By the way, do you have any plans to respond to tasks or execute tasks out of ISY? It certainly would be nice to be able to respond to tasks since tasks can be run directly from Elk keypads.

[Chris Jahn]

By the way, do you have any plans to respond to tasks or execute tasks out of ISY? It certainly would be nice to be able to respond to tasks since tasks can be run directly from Elk keypads.

Hi apostolakisl,

 

Nothing in the plans right now, but you could again use the Outputs as a work around.

[gatchel]

If that isn't going to be added soon, would it be possible to add a "Notes" function to the ISY interface? Just a simple text editor that would store the notes page within the ISY module.

 

Workarounds are nice but after a while it get hard to keep track of all the different phantom outputs, etc. Writing them down on paper would seem counter intuitive...

[Scottmichaelj]

Hi Guys,

 

• Alert Type is the general source of the event, values are "Area", "Zone", "Output", "Keypad"

• Alert Name is more specific, showing the name of the source of the event (e.g. the name of a specific zone, output, area, etc.)

 

I cant find anything in the Wiki but I am trying to do the same thing. For example - If the Alarm is triggered let me know what zone (motion, front door, garage etc.) via a prowl notification. I have tried a few of these but its a tedious process. It would be helpful to know what the correct zone variable is.

 

Right now I have "ELK Alarm ${alert.control} Triggered ${alert.date} at ${alert.time}" however it comes up blank. Any advise here to what to use so I can do what I need?

[JSchumann]

Huddadudda, Where did you find reference to ${alert.control} and how to use it?

 

Thanks,

John

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi John,

 

Here you go:

http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i_Series_INSTEON:Custom_Email_Substitution_Variables

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[JSchumann]

Hi John,

 

Here you go:

http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i_Series_INSTEON:Custom_Email_Substitution_Variables

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Hi Michael, All the variables and uses are not listed on the WIKI.  I just went through all the options on the Configuration page of the ISY and there are a lot without documentation.  Can we update the WIKI to reflect these?

 

Examples:

 

alert.action alert.body alert.category alert.compactbody alert.compactsubject alert.control alert.date alert.details alert.event alert.subject alert.subject.nopgm alert.time alert.time12 alert.time24 alert.type

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi John,

 

Wiki has those that are not already in the UI/Admin Console. What you have listed is already in the Admin Console.

 

Yes, we should certainly update the Wiki and make it more comprehensive.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[JSchumann]

Hi John,

 

Wiki has those that are not already in the UI/Admin Console. What you have listed is already in the Admin Console.

 

Yes, we should certainly update the Wiki and make it more comprehensive.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Michael, OK, Thanks.  Would be good to have more info how each works....

 

Regards,

John