Official IRLinc How To Thread

[matt (support)]

Am I missing something though - is it possible to brighten/dim a scene Powerlink links feature?

Not currently. It is a similar problem to what I described above but on the sending side instead of the receiving side. For Indigo to do this it would have to time the start and end dim/brighten commands just right, which it currently isn't capable of doing. I wish there was an INSTEON discrete dim/brighten command for group/scenes, but there isn't.

Regards,
Matt

Thanks Matt, I feel better knowing its a software limitation rather than my limitation!

For now I think I will manage with two scenes - its pretty cool like that anyhow

Jon

i just got the irlinc upgrade from smarthome that comes with the credit card remote. i give smarthome credit for making improvements and also for creating an upgrade path for purchasers of the original (flawed) device. back when i first got the device in march, i made a set of suggestions to smarthome (both here on this forum and on the smarthome site) and i'm happy to say that they made changes to address almost every major problem.

observation: when setting up the device, i first experimented with it "out of the box" with no setup. i observed an oddity in that indigo would recognize bright and dim commands for the scene buttons without having been paired to the device. is it a bug of some kind that the powerlinc sees these commands without being linked to the device? is there a reason why the powerlinc sees the bright/dim commands but not the on/off commands?

quick reminder: the irlinc works differently (e.g. from the remotelinc or keypadlinc) in that you have to manually add the powerlinc as a responder to every scene. you do this by hitting the "add to scene" button on the remote and holding it for about 2 seconds. the blue light on the 2411R will go from solid blue to off. then hit the scene button on the remote. the blue light will start to blink. then hit the "send powerlinc set button pressed" button in the "edit device" dialog in indigo. you need to repeat this for every scene.

a few observations regarding scenes on the credit card remote that comes with the new version of the 2411R remotelinc:

while the remote has 24 discrete buttons each with a unique IR code, the first sixteen buttons are grouped logically in pairs, meaning that there is a single scene associated with a pair of buttons that act like a rocker. one button in the pair always sends on or bright and the other always sends off or dim.

so the credit card can control 12 scenes. 8 of them with full on/off/dim/bright and 4 of them with only on/bright.

in this way, the credit card remote is "special" and exhibits slightly different behavior than is possible with general learned remote codes. using the credit card, you program one button and its paired button is programmed automatically. using learned codes, you have two choices: you use a single button and set it to toggle between sending off and on (not a great option, in my experience, particularly since the irlinc is not a responder, unlike a keypadlinc) or you can manually program two different buttons, one each to send off and on.

like with other insteon controllers, you have a choice of either linking other insteon devices directly to the 2411R or by creating trigger actions in indigo to control the other devices. this is a tradeoff with which most indigo users are quite familiar, and the similar to that faced with any insteon controller.

one issue unique to the 2411R however (at least currently) is that you can't edit links from indigo (why not!?). this is a limitation that will probably steer many towards using indigo to manage the commands attached to different buttons via trigger actions. on the other hand, by adding "add to scene" and "remove to scene" buttons on the remote, smarthome has taken a lot of the pain out of editing links (especially compared to the original model), so you can do it "the old fashioned way" -- i.e. by walking to the responders and pushing and holding their buttons.

one major problem/question:

i linked the scenes on the credit card remote to the powerlinc. i have verified that indigo sees (logs) every remote button when i push it. then i manually linked lamp module L to button 1 (aka "scene A"). so now using the remote, i can brighten/dim/turnon/turnoff the lamp AND indigo sees the commands and logs them. so far so good.

next, i tell indigo to re-sync links. my understanding is that indigo should now know that when it receives a group command from the 2411R corresponding to button 1, that it should update the state of lamp L (at least this is how insteon/indigo work for keypadlincs, remotelincs, etc.). instead, what i see is that indigo does not update the state of lamp L when it is changed from the remote. is this a bug/problem with indigo? or is indigo not only unable to edit irlinc links, but also completely blind to any links that are setup manually, as well?

other symptoms: after syncing links, if i then look at the links for the irlink, i don't see any. if i look at the logs from when i told it to resync, i see:

Code: Select all

  PowerLinc          Linking - initializing remote device "0 IR Sensor" (address 0F.5A.F9, firmware version 4.0)
  PowerLinc          Linking - initialize complete
  PowerLinc          Linking - syncing remote device "0 IR Sensor" (address 0F.5A.F9, firmware version 4.0)
  PowerLinc          Linking - syncing of this device type not possible remotely (skipping)
  PowerLinc          Linking - sync complete
  PowerLinc          Linking - device "0 IR Sensor" links updated


... so the "syncing of this device type not possible" leads me to believe that this is a known issue. if so, it seems like a significant limitation.

[matt (support)]

i observed an oddity in that indigo would recognize bright and dim commands for the scene buttons without having been paired to the device. is it a bug of some kind that the powerlinc sees these commands without being linked to the device?

Once the IRLinc's address is in the PowerLinc, which can occur when you initially enter the INSTEON address for the IRLinc into Indigo, the PowerLinc is capable of seeing all of the broadcast commands coming from it (including start/stop dim/brighten). You can actually get the same behavior with a KeypadLinc, SwitchLinc, etc. The slight difference is those modules do not send the start/stop dim/brighten commands until they are linked with at least one other module; they are just silent. The IRLinc comes out-of-the-box broadcasting commands I believe, which is why you see the commands from it.

one issue unique to the 2411R however (at least currently) is that you can't edit links from indigo (why not!?).

The problem is the IRLinc has to store not only the link but meta data about the IR command associated with the link. I haven't done enough research yet to see if it is possible for Indigo to program the IR code part, so in its current state Indigo would only be able to partially program the links.

...i tell indigo to re-sync links. my understanding is that indigo should now know that when it receives a group command from the 2411R corresponding to button 1, that it should update the state of lamp L (at least this is how insteon/indigo work for keypadlincs, remotelincs, etc.).

This will work, you just need to Re-Sync the links for the Lamp module. Indigo will then see the ON broadcast command from the IRLinc and know that the LampLinc responds to that module and will update its state correctly.

Once the IRLinc's address is in the PowerLinc, which can occur when you initially enter the INSTEON address for the IRLinc into Indigo, the PowerLinc is capable of seeing all of the broadcast commands coming from it (including start/stop dim/brighten).

ok, so can you take this explanation a step further? how/why is it that dim/bright are treated differently than on/off?

You can actually get the same behavior with a KeypadLinc, SwitchLinc, etc. The slight difference is those modules do not send the start/stop dim/brighten commands until they are linked with at least one other module; they are just silent. The IRLinc comes out-of-the-box broadcasting commands I believe, which is why you see the commands from it.

that may be true, but it seems sort of a moot, though, since as soon as you introduce a switchlinc or keypadlinc device to indigo, it adds the powerlinc as a responder for all the device's groups, and thus indigo can instantly recognize, log, and attach trigger actions to any event (including both on/off commands and also dim/bright). correct?

This will work, you just need to Re-Sync the links for the Lamp module. Indigo will then see the ON broadcast command from the IRLinc and know that the LampLinc responds to that module and will update its state correctly.

ahhh. yes, of course. i'm very relieved to know that this works "normally".

conceptually, i have a tendency to think of links as being associated with the controller, and i forget sometimes that they are stored on the responders.

thanks.

Just got 2 new IRLincs with remote.

I went through and programmed the IRlinc Remote buttons and associated them with Indigo Trigger actions. All seemed good; IRLinc Remote buttons Scene A-L associated with IRLinc buttons 1-12 in Indigo, with 1-8 having discreet on/brighten from off/dim and buttons 9-12 being on/brighten only, as advertised with the IRLinc.

I then started to set up my Harmony 880, trying to associate buttons with the ones programmed on the IRLinc Remote. Based on the following post, I thought I could associate buttons on the Harmony with the same as Scenes A-L on the IRLinc Remote:

Syncing to Indigo is a little tedious as you need to sync each button separately. But since you don't need to actually use the Set button on the 2411R it's merely sitting and pushing buttons.

Then I had to go back and set up the Harmony One to mimic the remote. I've got mine set so that:

Vol+ is Scene A On and Vol- is Scene A Off
Ch+ is Scene B On and Ch- is Scene B Off

Those are the two Scenes that I would be using most frequently the way I have it set up in Indigo.

1 through 4 are Scene I through L

+ is Add to Scene
E is Remove from Scene
ArrowUp is All On
ArrowDown is All Off

And the rest are in the Extra buttons.

Bill W

I found that any button programmed on the Harmony was in fact a "new" button (and therefore presumably a different IR code) than any on the IRLinc Remote, such that the Harmony buttons I programmed became IRLinc buttons 13, 14, etc., not the 1-12 programmed with the IRLinc Remote.

Is it possible to have Harmony remote buttons send the same IR codes as the IRLinc remote? If not, I'll just reset the IRLinc and program it with the Harmony and put the IRLinc remote in the drawer with all the other remotes.

Thanks,
Jim

[matt (support)]

ok, so can you take this explanation a step further? how/why is it that dim/bright are treated differently than on/off?

I suspect it is different because dim/brighten commands never send INSTEON group clean up commands. But I don't know why Smarthome decided to have the logic be different. It probably wasn't intentional, but I don't know if I would call it a bug since I do not see how it is causing any problem one way or the other.

that may be true, but it seems sort of a moot, though, since as soon as you introduce a switchlinc or keypadlinc device to indigo, it adds the powerlinc as a responder for all the device's groups, and thus indigo can instantly recognize, log, and attach trigger actions to any event (including both on/off commands and also dim/bright). correct?

I'm just describing why you see the messages in the Event Log for start/stop dim/brighten but not the other buttons for a new IRLinc. I guess I'm not understanding what problem you are having. I thought you were just asking why the PowerLinc can see messages in this case, which I offered my guess as to why the transmitting module behaves that way. Is something not working correctly?

[matt (support)]

Is it possible to have Harmony remote buttons send the same IR codes as the IRLinc remote?

I suspect that ctgreybeard just used the learning capability of the Harmony remote so that it is sending out the exact same IR codes as the IRLinc's remote.

Yeah, I guess?

I would have thought that if Logitech included the IRLinc w/ remote as a supported device for the Harmony, it would have had the same codes as the included remote. Guess not?

I did note after the fact that ctgreybeard was referring to a Harmony One remote, while I am programming a Harmony 880 at this point. Maybe there was a differential there? I'm hope to get to work on my second IRLinc today, which will be paired with a Harmony One, so we'll see.

Jim

I'm trying to link a Sony Universal Remote (RM-VL-610) to an IR Linc but I can't even get the green LED to blink. Earlier in this thread pwfletcher indicated he used a Sony and it worked fine. What's my problem?

Thanks,

Just a quick question! I'm quadriplegic and unable to use my TV's remote. (Which most of the time is fine, as I have helpers for such things.) However, I typically fall asleep at night with one channel on, but I don't really want that channel on all night. (But my helper goes to bed before I fall asleep.) So I would like to set up Indigo (I have 5 Pro) to tell my DVR to switch to given channel at midnight every night.

From what I've read, this just requires an IRLinc 2411T (plus my already-setup home Insteon doodads, the PowerLinc and whatnot). Am I on the right track? Any reason to believe this won't work? (I've never so much as used an universal remote before, so all this IR stuff is new!)

Thanks as always...