(2) ISY's walk into a bar...

[aLf]

My first house is up and working well now for many years.

 

I'm about to convert the other house (250 miles away) to an ISY 99 as well. I got to thinking the other day??? Is there a way for one ISY to talk to the other. A simple question would be for instance, could you have a KPL at house #1 turn on if house #2 SWL ABC was on, or even nicer, could you trigger a light from house to house. I have cameras at both houses and many times I turn on lights at night to look around. I currently shrink the AC down, then enter the other cameras and then return to AC to turn lights on and off (really freaks the neighbors out when they think you are not home). When done inspecting I simply close out of AC. It would be nice to be able to just control the other house via KPL or even a RemoteLinc.

 

Michel, any comments?

 

aLf

[oberkc]

This question sounds similar to one that I asked a while back regarding an insteon ISY talking to a UPB (or was it Z-wave?) ISY. I recall being told that they could communicate via network module. More details I do not have, but cannot help but suspect that answer would apply to two insteon versions as well.

[sperok]

You could implement a psuedo-reliable communication using Network Resources:

 

*** At house 1 ***

 

if

repeat every 1 minute

use network resource to send rest command to set House2-StateVariable = 17 (any arbitrary value)

 

*** At house 2 ***

 

if

do something at house 2

use network resource to send a rest command back to house 1 setting House1-ACK-state-variable = FALSE

 

Something along these lines would repeatedly send a command from House1 to House2 until House2 tells it to stop. Lots of details need to be filled in.

[aLf]

So do you mean using the IP Address for house 1 or 2 as the "when houe1", etc.

 

Anyone actually done it that can explain the way to set it up?

 

Thanks

[sperok]

Sorry if my earlier post was not clear. I actually do use code like this between two properties that are 100 miles apart to do exactly what you desire: Turn on lights, check cameras and make sure the house is really in "vacant" mode.

 

There are ISY-99's at both properties. The first thing I did was to learn about using the REST interface that allows you to send HTTP Get commands that look like:

 

"/rest/nodes//cmd/DOF" - turn off a device or a scene

 

The next step was to create a network resource that would issue the appropriate Rest command. From the admin UI Network Resources are found under "Configuration" -> "Networking" -> "Network Resources". Under Protocol Information the setting should be http GET, the host is the address of the remote ISY and the Path contains the complete Rest command.

 

The next step was to create a program that used the network resources when a control was activated:

 

If control SonomaHouse is switched On

Then

Resource 'SonomaLights'

Resource 'SonomaHeat'

 

This would work semi-reliably. The ISY does not automatically retry if the HTTP Get command issued by the Network Resource does not make it to the destination. After discovering this I decided to implement "reliability" by sending the rest command to the remote house repeatedly, until the remote house says stop. This takes a couple of programs, and my implementation is based on using state variables. My programs are actually much more complex, but the basic code is something like this:

 

if control SonomaHouse is switched On

and SonomaAck = False

 

Then

Repeat Every 1 minute

Resource 'SonomaVacant'

 

At the remote property (in Sonoma) there is a program that looks for the state variable to be changed. It then runs local programs based on the value of the variable and sends the "Ack"

 

If $REMOTE.COMMAND is 1

 

Then

Resource 'RemoteACK'

Run Program 'SecurityLightsOn'

$REMOTE.COMMAND = 0

 

The Resource 'RemoteACK' sends a Rest command back to the original ISY which resets the state variable and stops the loop. If for some reason the ACK does not make it back to the original ISY then the original ISY will repeat the command and this will get triggered again. That is why this is "psuedo-reliable" and not "reliable".