Recent content by keepersg

On the Chamberlain/Liftmaster you can hack the pushbutton to operate it with a relay of your choice in my case an Insteon I/O Link.

MyQ integrations on ISY and Homeseer were frequently unreliable due to frequent changes Chamberlain made. I went with local control using Insteon quite a while back with an additional sensor that reports to the Elk M1. The phone app is still convenient for notifying me when the door operates.

Thank you, Pete! What a wonderful set of memories for those of us who were young back then.

Yes, they are. They've designed and sold some new gear. I have a rotary dial dimmer and a new dual outlet that are very nice. The Insteon protocol is somewhat augmented in this new gear. The UDI eisy controller, current software version, is compatible. I will be replacing some of the paddle...

I use Amazon fire tablets (cheap during the yearly sale) with HSTouch (Home Seer). They're wall mounted and powered with Makes by Mike mounts.

I have all three wireless Elk receivers due to the characteristics of different sensor and their expense. Works just fine. Here's how it is set up: The main board has temperature sensors and wired smoke alarms. Groups 2 through 5 are the wireless sensors. Group 3 isn't there in the...

Appreciate the dilemma. The Elk M1 is such a solid piece of hardware I expect it will outlast me in this house. I might just install one in a new house and put away a spare board and a keypad or two as insurance for the future. The existing Homeseer plugin works just fine on HS4 even though...

We have a whole house generator to deal with this. Good investment given the number of prolonged power outages we've had. Small UPS units protect equipment sensitive to the few seconds before the generator comes on and from the various power glitches that occur when PGE comes back online. Like...

Yes, they're an improvement over my previous efforts of wiring a 24 VAC transformer and Picker 240 VAC/24 VAC relay together to do the same thing for some heaters in the house. Nice relay but a pain...

Yes, I wondered if that would cause issues. Mounted it that way for the picture and planned on moving it if that problem occurred (you saw the wire coil). However, the transformer only needs to provide minimal power (40 ma to the thermostat, 1.2 VA to the relay) to run the thermostat and...

Found this nifty relay for controlling 240 vac or 120 vac heaters from a low voltage smart thermostat. The devices have built in transformers providing 24 VAC for the thermostat. Available at Supplyhouse.com. I have no connection with the company. As an example, installation of a nest...

I've been using TP-Link devices that are POE powered for several years to cover my large house network. Same network after it's set up correctly and devices switch seamlessly as you walk around the house.

@BraveSirRobbin. Thanks for that tip. I've had that problem with the Elk-960. My set up is a Hikvision video doorbell that activates an old Nutone IM-3303 intercom doorbell chime. A power failure at night will activate the chime continuously until the doorbell is pushed. Annoying.

What would be the situation where the mains failed for a month? Installing a generator might be an option (which is the one I took). There's a discussion about the issues of powering an alarm system from battery power here that provides some background material that might be helpful.

Speaking of playing it safe, the geriatrician in my (medical school) department gives a lecture in which she says that no man over the age of 60 should ever climb higher than the 4 feet on a ladder. Having lost one patient and had another in the ICU for weeks who did not follow that advice, my...