INSTEON Link Managment

[matt (support)]

Yes I am running beta 12. I can send you the database if it will help your troubleshooting, but the healing shouldn't be necessary (it's so easy to create links now, it will only take me a few minutes to add the links back in!).

Please do send it to me. I'd like to try to figure how it went bad and I haven't been able to reproduce the steps that cause it yet.

They seem to. I can manually create an internal link. For example, I created a scene on button 7 that includes the local load (button 1).

You learn something new everyday. I thought I remember reading this as a KeypadLinc feature request on another forum. It must have been something different, or at some point they updated the firmware to support it.

Matt

You have always been able to control the local load from a secondary button, but you cannot "move" the local load to another button, if that makes sense?

[matt (support)]

You have always been able to control the local load from a secondary button, but you cannot "move" the local load to another button, if that makes sense?

Gotcha. That must have been what I read. Thanks.

Okay, now that we have Link Management (Thanks again, MATT!!!) This really should've been a paid upgrade! (IMHO)

Anyway, here goes. I thought that what I wanted was link management....but I still have so many steps to do what I want to do!

Something simple first!

I have 1 insteon LampLinc (2456D3). I have a keypad linc. I want to do 2 things:

1) Turn the lamps on and off with the #6 button on the keypadlinc

2) Ensure that when the Load comes on the LampLinc (no matter the reason - another device turning it on OR the local load being turn on manually) that the #6 button is lit. The converse is true as well. If Load goes off, the #6 button should go off too.

Can't get the #2 portion to work.

Please do a step by step for me. I am an Indigo user and a techie but I cannot seem to make this work.

Also, how soon is link management gonna come for the EZX10RF? (pleasepleaseplease)


Jann

Is there a way to make a switch send a group command?

I'm new to this, I've only been putting in Insteon stuff for the past couple of weeks. I only just discovered the 2.5 beta's link management today. I was thinking I was missing something about link management before this.

I have several multiway switches, including one which is 4 switches all controlling the same lights. Those switches also trigger a server action to switch off some other lights. There's a noticible delay between hitting the off and the extra lights going off.

I was thinking, if I can do this with group commands it'd be a lot quicker. So far I've defined a group which switches all 4 switches at once, but all 4 switches are still all linked together. So switching a switch Off sends offs individually to the other 3 switches, then the server sends the group off, then switches off the other lights.

If the switches could send the group command instead of individually sening 3 offs, it'd be a lot quicker.

Basically I was wondering if device's responder could be a group command.

Okay, now that we have Link Management (Thanks again, MATT!!!) This really should've been a paid upgrade! (IMHO)

Anyway, here goes. I thought that what I wanted was link management....but I still have so many steps to do what I want to do!

Something simple first!

I have 1 insteon LampLinc (2456D3). I have a keypad linc. I want to do 2 things:

1) Turn the lamps on and off with the #6 button on the keypadlinc

2) Ensure that when the Load comes on the LampLinc (no matter the reason - another device turning it on OR the local load being turn on manually) that the #6 button is lit. The converse is true as well. If Load goes off, the #6 button should go off too.

Can't get the #2 portion to work.

Please do a step by step for me. I am an Indigo user and a techie but I cannot seem to make this work.

Also, how soon is link management gonna come for the EZX10RF? (pleasepleaseplease)


Jann

#2 isn't straight forward because when turning on/off a Lamplinc locally (manually) it doesn't send out it's status so a normal trigger action (or linking to a secondary button) wont work. You will need to create a date/time action that periodically does a get status of the device and then update the LED.

Is there a way to make a switch send a group command?

I'm new to this, I've only been putting in Insteon stuff for the past couple of weeks. I only just discovered the 2.5 beta's link management today. I was thinking I was missing something about link management before this.

I have several multiway switches, including one which is 4 switches all controlling the same lights. Those switches also trigger a server action to switch off some other lights. There's a noticible delay between hitting the off and the extra lights going off.

I was thinking, if I can do this with group commands it'd be a lot quicker. So far I've defined a group which switches all 4 switches at once, but all 4 switches are still all linked together. So switching a switch Off sends offs individually to the other 3 switches, then the server sends the group off, then switches off the other lights.

If the switches could send the group command instead of individually sening 3 offs, it'd be a lot quicker.

Basically I was wondering if device's responder could be a group command.

Can't you just link the extra lights to the other switches locally?

Or create one group/scene that controls all the switches and lights. Then create 8 trigger actions (two for each switch - on & off) that watch for the status change of each switch and then call that group/scene with either the on or off command.

Can't you just link the extra lights to the other switches locally?

I only want the switches to turn the lights off, not on.

These are the kitchen lights. We have under cabinet counter lights, and overhead lights. Under normal circumstances, the counter lights provide enough lights. The overhead ones are glary but are useful if you're working in there. So the switches switch the counter lights on normally. A double tap on switches on the overheads as well. I use a server action for that. I want the off to switch off all the lights with one touch, so I added the server action as well.

Even if the overheads were put into the normal on/off group, it'd still be sending lots of individual commands to lots of different switches. (Unless the switches are more intelligent than I'm giving them credit for and already use a scene/group command to do this.) If each switch just sent a group on/off command it seems it'd be a lot more efficient.

Or create one group/scene that controls all the switches and lights. Then create 8 trigger actions (two for each switch - on & off) that watch for the status change of each switch and then call that group/scene with either the on or off command.

The other thing I want to do is have the lights work in the absence of the server. I don't want the lights to stop working if we have server trouble. The idea of just triggering server actions is attractive, but then subject to a single point of failure which seems like a bad idea.

So I've programmed the switches for basic operation, supplemented with server actions. I'd like to stick with that idea. Currently, if the server goes down, the counter lights will still work, just the double tap on won't work, and the all off won't work with a single tap.

The alternative to that is can you link a device just to the on or the off of a switch? As far as I can see, devices only respond to on/off, not individually to on and off.

[matt (support)]

2. On the KPL, how do I define the local load to be linked to a button?

Bummer. I tried allowing internal self links, but it didn't work. Apparently, there are some additional bytes that have to be properly masked for this to work. I'll add it to the ToDo list, but I was hoping to slip it into the next build which isn't likely now.

Matt

Ack. Matt, there is something I'm just not getting.

If I have two lamplinks, A and B, and switch C.

If I create a classic link (either manual or using the new link management, I can get switch C to control A and B). On switch C, A and B would show up as responders. On A and B, switch C shows up as a controller.

Alternatively, I can go and create a new Action Group to hold my scene, with an action to send an INSTEON group / scene. I pick a new (empty theme), and name it (AB).

I add A and B to the scene. When I test it, A and B go on and off.

How do I link switch C to that scene? The only thing I see is that I have to add Trigger Actions for switch C (on and off) which fires the insteon group AB. Is there no way to link C directly to the group?

[matt (support)]

Is there a way to make a switch send a group command?

Actually, that is all that switches (and KeypadLincs, RemoteLincs, ControLincs) ever send. They only send group On/Off commands and never send direct On/Off commands. However, after a switch sends a group on/off command it follows up with direct clean-up commands to each device. Those are to make sure the device received the group/scene command.

I have several multiway switches, including one which is 4 switches all controlling the same lights. Those switches also trigger a server action to switch off some other lights. There's a noticible delay between hitting the off and the extra lights going off.

So all 4 switches are linked to control the same lights?

I was thinking, if I can do this with group commands it'd be a lot quicker. So far I've defined a group which switches all 4 switches at once, but all 4 switches are still all linked together. So switching a switch Off sends offs individually to the other 3 switches, then the server sends the group off, then switches off the other lights.

I think the delay you are seeing is probably because of those group clean-up commands to each device. Indigo has to wait until there is no traffic on the power line before it sends out a new command, which would explain the pause.

But to answer what I think is your main question, all responding links respond to both the ON and OFF group commands. There is no way to create a link that tells the responding device to only occur on the OFF but not the ON.

You can do this with a Trigger Action, but then you'll have to wait for the group cleanup commands to finish which causes the delay. If you remove the individual links between all of the devices and just let Indigo send out the Group Off command then it will be much faster. You will, of course, then have the problem that if Indigo isn't running or your PowerLinc isn't working that the switches won't work at all. I don't beleive you can have the best of both worlds (fast and not dependent on Indigo/PowerLinc) in this case.

Regards,
Matt

[matt (support)]

How do I link switch C to that scene? The only thing I see is that I have to add Trigger Actions for switch C (on and off) which fires the insteon group AB. Is there no way to link C directly to the group?

Correct. The scene you created is stored inside the PowerLinc (we'll call it D). So you now have a scene in D that turns AB ON and OFF, and it sounds like you also have a scene in switch C that turns AB ON and OFF.

So what you have are two different approaches that give the same basic result. In one you manually program switch C to control AB directly. In the other approach you program the PowerLinc to control AB and use a Trigger Action on C to fire AB. There is no way in INSTEON for switch C to run the scene inside PowerLinc D, at least not without the additional logic of a Trigger Action.

Regards,
Matt

Oh, I think I get it!

I was looking at the documentation of the LampLinc V2 Dimmer...

An insteon scene is just linking one or more modules to an insteon controller. Something that we could always do with the manual linking methods on the switches, and now can easily do with the link manager in 2.5.

What is extra new in 3.0 is the ability for Indigo to send a scene command. Previously, it was only able to send individual commands during an action group -- now it can batch them all together. So my commands like all lights off or all downstairs lights off can execute much faster.

But if I want a switch to directly control a scene, I should just set up the links directly!

[matt (support)]

Oh, I think I get it!

Yes, you got it exactly.

But if I want a switch to directly control a scene, I should just set up the links directly!

I directly link (via the Link Management dialog) 3 way switch circuits together, and cases where a SwitchLinc or specific KeypadLinc button is linked directly to a LampLinc module. But I use Trigger Actions and PowerLinc group/scenes for the lighting scenes. This makes it easy if I want the exact same scene to be run from different modules (a Remotelinc, KeypadLinc, etc.). Then, if I need to edit the scene there is only 1 place I have to make the change. You can also then have conditional logic. So pressing RemoteLinc button 1 ON executes PowerLinc scene #2, unless some conditional is set in which case I want a different scene to execute (via another Trigger Action).

But use whatever approach works best for you.

Regards,
Matt

Is there a way to make a switch send a group command?

Actually, that is all that switches (and KeypadLincs, RemoteLincs, ControLincs) ever send. They only send group On/Off commands and never send direct On/Off commands. However, after a switch sends a group on/off command it follows up with direct clean-up commands to each device. Those are to make sure the device received the group/scene command.

OK, so the switches are more intelligent than I gave them credit for (send the group command, I was wondering about that), but also just as dumb (they send commends to each device).

I assume they're sending the clean up commands to ensure reliability. I think I could be quite happy without the clean up commands (or at least have the option not to send them). Most of them are just insuring the indicators are in sync on all 4 switches, it doesn't matter that much if one is missed.

You could do that if the secondary switchs were in the other device's controller list, but not in the controlling device's responder list. (If I'm not getting this all backward.) But I thought I'd read your software always makes controller-responders in pairs.

It might be good to ensure reliability to the device with the actual load, so the switch could follow up with that device, and only that device.