All On/Off Not Working

[AnthonyZ]

Just got a OmniIIe system installed for a client who is using H@me to interface. They want to use the All On and All Off commands for the UPB lighting but, it won't activate via H@me or the HAI console. All units have the All On and All Off fields set as enabled and yet, no love. I haven't used the All On/Off stuff...ever. I don't care for the one unit at a time activation but, the client wants what they want and for some reason it's not working. Is there something beyond the per unit enable that needs to be done to get it to work? I feel like a monkey...

 

[JonW]

You mention using UPB, but you don't state if you're using the HLC link matrix for their configuration. If you use the HLC link matrix (or actual HCL switches/HLC mode) then the H@me software can control lights room by room. In addition, when you do the "All On" or "All Off", it will cycle through all rooms issuing the on/off links (it does it room by room, not all at once).

Does the H@me software list switches room by room or does it only list the individual switches in one long list?

 

[Frunple]

It only works for HLC.

 

[AnthonyZ]

It only works for HLC.

So, if I have set these devices up using UpStart (as usual), how do I revert them to HLC? Will I lose the ability to program ramp rates, default on levels, etc? What's the general process to use HLC? After installing many hundreds of UPB devices, I am at a stand still do to not being able to effect the way that H@me exposes the All On, All Off buttons. I would rather use a HAI "Buttons" to execute a UPB Link that controls all the loads at once but, the client wants to use the buttons already on screen.

 

[Frunple]

There are documents on HAI's site explaining how to do it. You have to reprogram all devices using the "on the 8's" approach and set all the HLC links. I never did it because it just seems like more work than the return.
I just checked their site and there actually is another way to use the all on/off.

http://kb.homeauto.com/default.asp?id=801&SID=&Lang=1

Heres the full blown way.

http://kb.homeauto.com/default.asp?id=637&SID=&Lang=1

 

[Desert_AIP]

If you don't want to change all the programming to HLC, you can make an "ALL ON" link in Upstart, program the switches to respond to it and then issue an "Activate" command for all ON and "Deactivate" for all OFF.

 

[JonW]

Anthony - if you're not programming the UPB devices using the HLC link definitions, does any of the devices show the proper status in the H@ME app? HLC will get you full status tracking.

Note that HLC is mostly just a method of allocating rooms & links, which you can do within Upstart just fine. I have a mix of HAI, SAI & PCS switches that I program completely through Upstart, but I do it based off the HLC room/device/link allocation method so that I get full status tracking.

 

[Desert_AIP]

I just stumbled on this simple method in HAIs Knowledge Base while searching for something else:
http://kb.homeauto.com/default.asp?id=801&Lang=1&SID={DBC64BC7-6FE5-47E4-B040-7A3634B3ACB5}

Looks like you only need two lines of code and one link if you don't want to reconfigure to HLC (method 2 below):
<ETA: Looks like this is also the advice in the 3.2 Owner's Manual on page 29 - if I would have read that first. >

As stated in the 2.6 Owner’s Firmware Release notes (and later owner manuals), the All On/Off features in an HAI controller are not supported when the House Codes are defined as UPB.

If the All On/Off features are required, you can do one of the following:

1.) Define the House Codes being used, as HAI Lighting. This option would require you to either use HLC lighting products, or configure 3rd party UPB devices to emulate HLC products.

2.) If UPB is the “desired” lighting control method, you could take the following steps to provide All On/Off functionality:
Connect a UPB PIM to a PC (NOTE: If using the HAI PIM, you can use the 36A05-2 for this procedure).
Open the Upstart software.
If you have an existing network file, open it. If not, bullet “Create a new network file that matches an already installed network”.
Perform a network discovery to display all lighting previously setup.
Open the properties of each switch and add an unused link to the Receive Components (NOTE: To keep from possibly interfering with HAI controller functions, any link 226-240 should be used.).
Set the properties for the new link to 100% (or desired level) for the Lighting Level, and set the Fade Rate to “Snap!”.
After adding the link and properties, click on the Program Switch button to add the link to each switch.
Once complete, close the software and reconnect the PIM to your HAI controller (NOTE: Remember to reset the PIM to Message Mode.).
In the HAI controller, create two lines of programming, similar to:

WHEN ALL ON: LINK X ON
WHEN ALL OFF: LINK X OFF

 

[AnthonyZ]

Alright, I knew I could count on you HA nerds. Lots of good stuff here. Desert, that is what I'm going with. It never crossed my mind to look for All On, All Off as a trigger. Didn't even realize it was there but, it's perfect to trigger an "elegant" link (as opposed to kludgy HLC). Will test this coming weekend. Thanks!

 

[JonW]

Anthony, I did UPB with my HomeVision for years and then switched to HAI. I also liked all the flexibility with being able to do UPB via Upstart (I started with UPB as a beta tester). However, after spending the time to understand HLC and then implementing it, I can say without a doubt that it works quite well for status tracking and room control. I also use the H@me app on my iPhone and it is a huge benefit to see what rooms have lights on and to be able to control things either by room or by light and to have accurate status tracking.

I wouldn't call setting it up via HLC kludgy - it's just different. It does make the H@me app more usable.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Anthony, I did UPB with my HomeVision for years and then switched to HAI. I also liked all the flexibility with being able to do UPB via Upstart (I started with UPB as a beta tester). However, after spending the time to understand HLC and then implementing it, I can say without a doubt that it works quite well for status tracking and room control. I also use the H@me app on my iPhone and it is a huge benefit to see what rooms have lights on and to be able to control things either by room or by light and to have accurate status tracking.

I wouldn't call setting it up via HLC kludgy - it's just different. It does make the H@me app more usable.

Well, I still disagree on the kludgy thing. All Off or All On that effects a room and/or device at a time is lame. Effecting scenes a device at a time sucks. It's no where near as elegant as effecting all devices at once. Now, if I can use HLC (for status tracking) AND Links AND adjust ramp rates and default paddle action levels AND effect groups of devices simultaneously, great. If not, HLC is meh.

 

[JonW]

Well, I still disagree on the kludgy thing. All Off or All On that effects a room and/or device at a time is lame. Effecting scenes a device at a time sucks. It's no where near as elegant as effecting all devices at once. Now, if I can use HLC (for status tracking) AND Links AND adjust ramp rates and default paddle action levels AND effect groups of devices simultaneously, great. If not, HLC is meh.

I think you've not read the HLC documentation (and understood it) thoroughly. With the exception of ALL OFF doing a room at a time, I do eveything you just listed. HLC is very scene driven. All my rooms work on scenes (with switches reacting simultaneously). HLC is just a matter of pre-allocating what links you are going to use in a room. I also adjust ramp rates, default actions and many other things. For some people, HLC is only what the default actions are set to do, but for others (like me), you can use Upstart and fine tune exactly what you want the HLC links to do. Also, I could set mine up to do the single ALL ON / ALL OFF, but chose not to.

For the H@ME interface, having your devices broken up by room is a much more elegant way to control devices than to have a single long list of lights.

 

[fcwilt]

I think you've not read the HLC documentation (and understood it) thoroughly.

The biggest problems I have with the approach is that it is inflexible and can be wasteful of UPD device IDs. It allocates 8 per room but often that is too many or too few. I recently configured by daughters new home using the HLC approach and nearly ran out of device IDs.

There are a few (not very good) reasons for the approach. An allocation of 8 per room limits the number of devices that need to be polled to determine the device status for a given link. It also simplifies what links need to be tracked and what device IDs need to be checked since knowing what room is being affected tells you what IDs and links are involved.

The problems with the HLC approach could all be avoided if HAI would simply accept as input the export file from UPStart or scan the UPStart network, and save all the needed information in memory.

For example, my HomeLogic system scans the entire UPB network and makes up a in-memory list of what devices are installed, how they are configured and what links affect what devices. So keeping track of device status is based on polling just those devices that are actually supposed to respond to a given link. Yet you have complete flexibility to assign devices IDs as works best.

While my daughters HAI system does (mostly) work my HomeLogic system is faster and more accurate.

I don't know why HAI does what they do - the "better" approach is really very simple to implement.

 

[JonW]

Frederick - I agree with the approach you are suggesting as that would give the most flexible system. However, you're comparing a Windows OS based solution to an embedded controller solution. The processor and memory are severely limited in an embedded system compared to a Windows OS. Heck, just look at how limited HAI is on string storage of labels. There is no way they could do the UPB link associations in memory.

 

[fcwilt]

Frederick - I agree with the approach you are suggesting as that would give the most flexible system. However, you're comparing a Windows OS based solution to an embedded controller solution. The processor and memory are severely limited in an embedded system compared to a Windows OS. Heck, just look at how limited HAI is on string storage of labels. There is no way they could do the UPB link associations in memory.

Perhaps with the current HAI hardware yes. Yet the UPB export file for my current home is 81KB - not really that much when you consider how cheap memory is these days.

And then consider something like this:

http://store.viatech.com/protected/product/frontProductDetail.action?id=9262

a lot of capability for the price.

So I think that if HAI wanted to, the OmniPro3 (there must be one coming) could allow 100-200KB of memory for the UPB configuration data.