Elk - Triggering a rule with an Insteon Switch

[vancek]

Hello Cocooners,

I'm a newbie, so bear with me. I have recently purchased and installed an Elk. I'm also integrated with and using some Insteon stuff. I have several rules to trigger lights and everything is working great.

I'm really hoping theres a way to accomplish the following. I have a single Insteon (Icon) On/Off switch controlling my garage lights. I have another controlling the front lights on my house. I'd love to be able to simply press the garage switch 'on' twice and have it turn on the front lights. Same thing to turn them off. I don't want them linked because I don't want them to do the same thing all the time. I'd also prefer not to install a second switch or a keypadlinc, if possible.

What I *thought* I could do is write a rule in the Elk. One that simply says:

WHENEVER Garage Lights IS Turned On
AND Garage Lights IS ON
THEN TURN Front Lights ON

Unfortunately, this rule never fires. I suspect because the switch that controls the garage light didn't change status and therefore didn't send a command to the Elk.
(I know the rule works because I have another rule that turns on the garage lights when I open the door to the garage. If I open the door twice, the front lights come on ;-)

Is it true that the switch doesn't send any type of message? Is it possible it sends something other than an 'on' command or something that can be triggered as an ASCII string to initiate a rule?

I've got three or four different scenarios that I'd love to control with a simple method like this, just press the On button twice or whatever.

Thanks for any help you can provide!
Vance

 

[upstatemike]

Insteon switches send commands regardless of the state of the local load BUT only if they are linked to something.

Example 1: Your garage light is linked to your porch light. Your porch light is off but the garage light is already on. If you press the top of the garage switch paddle the porch light will go on even though the garage light is already on.

Example 2: The garage light is not linked to anything. You write a rule that triggers from the garage switch being turned on. The rule never fires because the switch does not have any links in its table and assumes there is no need to broadcast the switch press event.

Example 3: You don't need any direct links for the garage light but link it to the PLC on the M1 just to have something in the link table. You write a rule that triggers from the garage switch being turned on and it fires every time the switch is pressed regardless of whether the garage light is already on or not.

 

[vancek]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the response. So, that's great info. In response to your post, this would be example 3. I have the link and this works fine. The *trick* is that I want this rule to only fire to turn the front lights on only in the event the garage light is already on. Likewise, it would only fire to turn the front lights off, only if the garage lights are already off.

So, I would have thought the logic in my first post would have worked, but it doesn't. How can I go about debugging or troubleshooting this?

Thanks!
Vance

 

[Spanky]

Get rid of the AND statement in you first post. The event will be fired when the garage light turns on. The AND garage light is ON is not needed.


Make sure you have linked the switch to the M1 Insteon interface.

Make sure you have downloaded the alternate M1XSP Insteon software into the M1XSP.

 

[vancek]

Hi Spanky,

Ok, so it just looks like two way communication is not working, period. I reduced the rule down to:

WHENEVER Garage Lights (3 (A3)) IS TURNED ON
THEN TURN Front Lights (1 (A1)) ON, FADE RATE=0


The linking is done and works just fine for any commands sent from M1 (rules or keypad). However, it doesn't recognize the On/Off status change from the switch.

These are ICON switches, but my understanding is that they also support 2-way communication.

Any more hints on how to troubleshoot this further?

Thanks,
Vance

 

[dlamb]

The PowerLinc must be linked to the ICON switch in order to receive the local On/Off control from the switch. Place the switch into linking mode (press and holding the paddle for 10 seconds (LED on switch flashes)) then press and hold the "set" button on the PowerLinc for about 3 seconds.
If you do not have an ELK-M1XEP or ELK-RM to view the light status from your computer, then as a troubleshooting aid you could write a rule to toggle Output 3 whenever the switch turns on or off. Output 3 is the relay on board the ELK-M1 and has a LED that turns on for a visual indication with the relay.

 

[WayneW]

WHENEVER Garage Lights (3 (A3)) IS TURNED ON
THEN TURN Front Lights (1 (A1)) ON, FADE RATE=0

The "FADE RATE=0" makes me think that A1 isn't configured for Insteon. I thought the "FADE RATE=0" was only implemented for Leviton Extended codes. Can I now set variable fade rates for Insteon?

 

[vancek]

BINGO!! That was the missing thing. So now I've redone the logic in the rule to only fire if the garage light is already on or off. So, the effect is that if you press the button twice it turns the front lights on or off, but not if you only press it once.

Now I just need to work on the logic so that it won't turn the front lights on every time I open the door to the garage twice within a 10 minute period (another rule turns them on when that door is entered and leaves the lights on for 10 minutes).

I tried setting the option of "command sent by another device" to prevent the rule from triggering based on the M1 changing the garage lighting status, but effectively broke the on/off status of the front lights.

No biggie. I'll try to find some other way to work around this very minor inconvenience.

Thanks,
Vance

 

[dlamb]

The "FADE RATE=0" makes me think that A1 isn't configured for Insteon.

Multiple lighting types fall into the category of "Serial Expander" format when using the M1 rules. Some types support the Fade Rate and others do not. At this time Insteon does not.

 

[WayneW]

Multiple lighting types fall into the category of "Serial Expander" format when using the M1 rules. Some types support the Fade Rate and others do not. At this time Insteon does not.

Please, please, squeak, squeak. I would like to request this be bumped up the priority list please.