Using Vera Lite/Altsteon with keypadlinc and fanlinc questions

Other Devices & Integrations More Home Control
#1

I added a 6 button on/off keypadlinc and fanlinc to my bedroom fan over the weekend, programmed them so the fanlinc is controlled by the keypadlinc, and got everything working wonderfully (much better than having to turn on the wall switch and then pull the chains to set the fan/light state). I then installed a PLM and the Altsteon plugin (not to bad really, other than having to upload all those files through the web interface. It would be much nicer if I could simply scp them to the correct location, but I don’t know what that is. But I digress.), and was able to add both devices to my Vera lite. However, I have a few issues still I’m hoping to get help with.

  1. With the keypad link, it shows up as both a scene controller and an on/off switch (which is good) and I can control the on/off switch state from vera. However, while the on/off LED’s on the keypadlinc change in response to the vera commands (and I suspect if I had any directly connect loads those would switch as well), the lights controlled by the keypadlinc via the fanlinc do not turn on. That is, pushing the on/off buttons on the keypad link turns the light on/off, however doing the same through the Vera interface does not.

I can, of course, control the lights/fan directly from vera via the fanlinc, it just seems odd to me that toggling the keypadlinc buttons (which do toggle the lights) has no effect.

  1. The communication appears to be largely one-way. That is, while Vera can turn on (or off) the fan via the fanlinc, turning the fan on or off via the keypadlinc does not update the status of the fan controller in Vera. Similarly, pushing buttons on the keypadlinc does not register in the Vera. That said, if I click the “poll now” button in any of the devices, it DOES get the correct current state of the device, so I know it is talking (along with the fact I can control the insteon devices). I THOUGHT I had everything linked up properly, so if not I don’t know what I missed.

  2. Is there any way to control the state of the scene buttons on the keypadlinc from vera? The altsteon read me for the dimmer keypadlinc seems to indicate the scenes should show up as a bunch of switches, but that isn’t happening for me with my on/off keypadlinc.

#2

I know there are other people using these devices here - I’ve read posts about them. Am I the only one with these issues? Or is it simply that there is no solution? How about a way to adjust the polling interval? Even if I could just say “update every 30 seconds” or so, rather than whatever the default is, that would be good enough to solve #2 at least.

#3

What you are looking at is not a feature of Altsteon directly. You can create what you want with the use of scenes however.

  1. Commanding different KPL LEDs to turn on/off from Vera is not the same as pushing those buttons yourself. All you are telling the device to do is turn on (or off) a single button. You would need the scene to turn a KPL button on and set the related devices accordingly.

  2. Altsteon/Vera know the button was pressed, but they have no idea what that button press actually does. You could set up a scene that says “when button pressed” as a trigger, then poll all related devices via LUUP. It would take a little bit, but the FanLinc would be correct. Or, you could have the scene set the devices as desired. This would cause extra insteon traffic, but not a lot.

  3. KPLs will always show as just 2 devices. 1 switch (or dimmer) and 1 scene controller.