ISY 944i Smarthome Monitor and Integration

So, I’ve deployed Ask Alexa (which is freaking awesome) and I want to be able to issue one command and all my lights turn off as well as arm the security system, lock the doors, etc. Normally this would be easy except that I use INSTEON for all my light switches. (Why? I love Insteon’s switches, the reliability, the feel, the look, the ability to easily change color of LEDs and paddles, etc). So, I had purchased an ISY 944i, which speaks both INSTEON and Z-Wave. It has all my INSTEON and Z-Wave devices in it including the SmartThings hub itself as a device.

So, I have on the INSTEON side a “Alexa, turn off the house” command which I use at night to turn off all the lights in my house. That is just a group inside of the Alexa app for all the switches. Using Ask Alexa, I can say “Alexa, tell smartthings good night” and she’ll arm the security system and lock all the doors, etc. What I would like is for one of these commands to somehow trigger the other.

If the ISY was capable of knowing the ‘good night’ routine was running then it could turn off all the INSTEON lights, but I can’t seem to find a way for the ISY to know that as I don’t think the smartthings hub broadcasts that in any way. So, is there a way either via Ask Alexa or any other way for a Core Piston to see the Alexa command of ‘turn off the house’ or similar so that SmartThings can run it’s side of things?

Just curious if anyone has attempted something like this before.

Thanks!

Can the ISY see the status of a zwave switch?

Yes it can. Unfortunately I don’t have any z wave switches. I have contact sensors, motion sensors, signal repeaters, and door locks in zwave.

Pardon my igorance on ISY, it’s been years since that gadget piqued my curiosity. Is it capable of reacting or doing actions based on the status of a switch?

The reason I’m asking, if it can act based on the status of a switch, maybe you can have it monitor a set of virtual switches that only gets turned off when you initiate your good night routine. Based on that, send the off commands to the insteon devices.

Yes it can do exactly what you say. The only thing I am curious about is, what is a virtual switch? How do I create one of those?

Check the link below, hopefully, this gets you started on what you’re trying to do.

Fantastic thank you I will give it a shot

Can virtual switches be seen/communicated with by other physical z-wave devices in the network? I have a virtual switch now in smartthings hub, but that switch doesn’t seem discoverable by the ISY…

It can be seen by apps, possibly no on other physical devices.

So it can only be seen by apps on the smartthings hub itself? Not by anything else on the zwave network?

Ah, I see where this is not gonna work like I how I imagined it, the ISY cannot see the virtual device. Grrr

Bummer :slight_smile: Thanks for the idea though, I got pretty excited :slight_smile: The smartthings hub should just simulate the behavior of the virtual device physically on the zwave network, that should be completely doable, but apparently something they haven’t done.

Do you have a group of other zwave devices that ISY can monitor and do actions based on that?

The ISY only sees the door locks, my siren, and the smartthings hub. With Insteon it actually pulls in scenes. Is there the same concept as a scene in z-wave/smartthings that the ISY might be able to import/monitor status of?

I am not sure if there is something that can be imported. One other thing that came to mind was if there was an API endpoint that maybe you can trigger via CoRE, a little way over my head but it’s something to explore. I know CoRE can make web requests so all you need is something on the ISY side.

Hmmm interesting, send a web request… Excellent idea, I’ll start looking into that.

Ok, so I’m almost there. If I send this URL then it updates a variable on the ISY and causes the scene to trigger via a program on the ISY. The only problem left is in core I can’t find a way to have a piston do a web call on a then? What am I missing??? I swear I’ve seen that ability in Core before.?

It’s under Locations.

I am under locations, I don’t see anything about a URL. Mind pointing the blind a little bit further? :slight_smile:

Web request is pretty high up…