ISY994 help

[Tobias Tobin]

I have my own ISY994i now, and some stuff to work with 4 motion sensor, 2 door open/close sensors, 1 light.  I've read https://home-assistant.io/components/isy994.html and I've looked through the scripts.  There are still some elements that I am not clear on.  BTW - the ISY is added to HA and working.  The lights and sensors are there.

I want to use a motion sensor to turn on a light that is in HA but is a Hue bridged light.  I'm not clear on referencing different items in the ISY Programs folders and status and actions items.  I'm also not clear on how I go about setting things up in the configuration.yaml file.  Say I want to turn on a light that is a Hue light on motion detected on one of the sensors connected to the ISY.  And say it should stay on for 5 minutes.  It would seem that all the logic would be done through HomeAssistant since it is what is allowing me to tie ISY connected devices and Hue bridge devices together.

If anyone has examples I can look at that would be great.  

[Tobias Tobin]

To be more specific:

In the example for the sensor, where did $Ryan_iPhone_home come from?

On the switch example it says - the folder you create for the switch will be the name of the switch and then he creates the folder Landscape Lights

For the status to check if the switch is on or off is says $Landscape_Lighting is 1

I would have thought if the switch is named Landscape Lights that to check the status of the switch it would be $landscape_lights

In addition, I don't really understand where the variables are coming from.  As I understand, if these were devices in the ISY they would not need $ prefix.  So I assume these are variables that have been created possibly referencing items in Home Assistant?  

I wish I could answer this myself but I cannot find the answers.

If someone wants to send me copies of their configs you can email me at aamjohns at gmail dot com.

Thanks.

[Ryan Kraus]

I'll first answer your questions about the Custom Switches. All of those variables are inside the ISY. The folder contains all the switch logic and its name is what Home Assistant will use as the Switches name. The status program is parsed to determine the status of the switch. The Landscape Lights example does this by checking a variable on the ISY called Landscape_Lighting. The actions program is what Home Assistant uses to attach events to the script. The commands under Then are evaluated to turn the switch on and Else turns the switch off. This feature does not actually allow the ISY to do anything that it couldn't do before, it really is just setting up a nice way to represent things in Home Assistant. In this example, we created a switch to control an X10 component on the network. I also have another custom switch to control my garage door using an IOLinc.

In the Custom Sensor example, Ryan_iPhone_home is also a variable set in the ISY and is actually set by an app called MobiLinc.

In your example, to control Hue lights, that logic will all have to take place inside of Home Assistant using the Automation component.

[Tobias Tobin]

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for the help.  Regarding using a motion sensor on the ISY to control Hue lights, I need help with this.  Matter of fact, my entire time with HA, this has probably been the most confusing thing for me.  I don't understand how I am supposed to know what I can do in automations and such.  Formatting is always important, aside from indention, some things start with -, some things need a quote, and my biggest issue is know what I can 'say':

take the below items for example:

platform: state
	alias: Sun starts shining
	state_entity_id: sun.sun
	# Next two are optional, omit to match all
	state_from: below_horizon
	state_to: above_horizon
	execute_service: light.turn_off
	service_entity_id: group.living_room
	automation 2:
	platform: time
	alias: Beer o Clock
	time_hours: 16
	time_minutes: 0
	time_seconds: 0
	execute_service: notify.notify
	service_data:

Is there a guide, or legend or something?  I'd imagine many of you this is self evident.  But many of these items I wouldn't even know I could use if they were not in the example config.  How do I get past this and know what all is available?  Can i execute more than on service in an automation?  How do I know what format to put the service data in?  What automation settings are out there that I don't even know about?

It is not your job to answer this.  If you want to point me to something so I can answer myself that would be awesome.  Sorry if this is a weird request.  Usually when i create something that can take options or parameters in a file, I document them and offer format examples, rules if there are any, and requirements.  But I haven't found that in HA.

Regarding the ISY I understand what you are saying and I will take what you have told me and go from there.  Although, back to my previous point, I would not know the syntax to use in the automation to turn on certain hue lights when a motion sensor is on, for a particular duration, etc.  I guess that is my hurdle.

I know you are busy and have a life so respond if you want or ignore.

Thanks,

Aaron.

[Ryan Kraus]

Yeah.... The biggest problem you are running into is one of documentation. I also have a reasonably wrong track record of wanting to revamp automation in HA. (I just like causing trouble though, lol) I, for one, think that yaml is not a format that can easily support free flowing instructions. It is an issue that will be addressed eventually, however.

In the meantime, it is not terribly intuitive what you can do unless you read it from the source code... which I guess is the opposite of intuitive... Oh well.  For lights, you can execute the services light.turn_on and light.turn_off. You cannot give any parameters to those using the automation component. Instead, you will have to create a scene that gets triggered by your automation script. Scenes accept the services scene.turn_on and scene.turn_off. You'll want your automation piece to track the state of your switch from off to on and then another from on to off. Do not use caps in the states, they must be on and off. Lower case. Nothing fancy.

Hopefully this helps steer you in the right direction.

[Tobias Tobin]

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for the response.  What you said helps.  I'll look at the source code and see what I can figure out from that.  

Something I have been thinking about regarding doing configuration... Maybe web forms where selections can be made and then appropriate field and selections are presented, allowing one to not worry about formatting mistakes or invalid values.  I could make things simpler.  How the information is then stored on the back-end would be less of an issue. 

Regardless, back to work :)