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News and Noteworthy Items

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The Wait Is Over!

5.3.0 Is Now Official
and
Z-Wave Plus Certified

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” ~ Moliere

We have been working on 5x firmware for about 5 years now while, along the way, we developed Polyglot, Polyglot Cloud, Polisy and – thanks to our fabulous developer community – about 90 node servers. We are extremely happy to announce that 5.3 firmware is now official and it’s Z-Wave Plus certified!

Important Notes:

  • Firmware releases 5.2+ do not work with older versions of the Z-Wave Module (300 series). Please take a look at the back of your ISY. If you see a blue LED next to the Port A jack, then you have an older version of the Z-Wave dongle. Please check upgrade eligibility, discount, and ordering, and assembly instructions. Alternatively, you can upgrade your ISY to ISY994i ZW+ Series.
  • Upgrade from 4.x firmware to 5.x firmware is not automatic and requires manual intervention. If you wish to upgrade to 5.3, please carefully review these instructions

Discount:

As a token of our appreciation for your patience during our journey to 5.3, for a very limited time, we are offering 20% discount on ISY994i ZW+ Series, and Polisy. Please use the following coupon code at checkout:

CK42M79E

 

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What’s Up Poly?

Plex It!

Thanks to our very active, enthusiastic, and ingenious developer community, and as we are now at 84 full featured Polys (Node Servers) including more climate services. In this episode of What’s Up Poly, though, we are going to take a look at Home Theater Light Automation using the newly developed Plex Poly.

Without further ado, let’s let @ch491 and @ralbright, the brains behind this Poly, describe it all:

One of the ambitions I have had for my smart home is automation of room lighting while watching TV Shows and MOVIES at home, especially during the pandemic. There are very few ways to have the ISY know if you are actively watching a TV Show or MOVIE. In the past, you had to (gasp) manually turn lights on/off in the room when you start the movie. (Oh, the humanity!)

If you have a Plex Media Server, then adding the new Plex-Webhook to the ISY994 through your Polisy or PloyglotV2 node server, means your ISY now knows if something is playing in that room.

Examples:

You can create programs that can control the lighting  based on when you start playing something like a movie.

What about monitoring the Content Rating of what the kids are watching? You can write a program to alert you via the ISY’s various methods of doing so.

It also has a special feature called Rapid Trigger.  It can alert you if a user is causing too many events in a given time. i.e. If you have kids that think it is fun to play/pause repeatedly!  You can write a program to alert you via the ISY’s various methods of doing so.

This program sets a state variable that triggers the ISY Portal to have Alexa announce “Please Stop Doing That.”

Prerequisites:

Keep safe and thank you!

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Your Own Energy Expert!

Take a listen to this awesome recording.

We are very excited to announce the launch of Energy Expert, the Alexa Skill and ecosystem of things that will enable you to better understand and optimize your energy usage and costs. Energy Expert uses OpenADR 2.0 standard to manage and process Time of Use prices. Two of the most electrifying features of Energy Expert are Proactive Notifications and Automatic Optimization. Take a listen to this awesome recording.

Automatic Optimization uses your Energy Savings Preferences (low to high), and energy price for that duration, and temporarily automates your things to optimize your energy usage, savings and comfort. For example, Energy Expert may temporarily adjust your thermostat setting to save energy during peak energy times.

Through Alexa as well as SMS/email, Proactive Notifications provide you with helpful energy information and tips. For example, Energy Expert may notify you of the best time to operate your connected appliance(s) to save energy and money based on your current rate. Or, you may be notified of an activity that goes against your Energy Savings preferences.

Energy Expert is trained to help you achieve your energy savings goals. Energy Expert is not there to take over your life nor is it going to force you into doing something you don’t like. As such, you can opt out at any time using Alexa voice commands, manually adjusting the device being optimized, or through the ISY Portal.

 

If you are already a participant in Southern California Edison Smart Speaker Project, to get started, please follow the instructions here.

If you are a Southern California Edison or PG&E customer and wish to be considered for participation in this program with your existing equipment, please contact sales@universal-devices.com.

 

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Which Weather Service?

“I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed” ~ Robert Frost

As you may already know, and thankfully, the Climate Module is going away. ‘Thankfully’  because, now you have many other options and services to choose from. But, which option and service is the right one for you? Let’s find out!

ISY Portal, Polisy, MobiLinc, … o my!

The first thing you will have to figure out is which platform to choose. For the new weather services to integrate with your ISY, the following requirements must be met:

If you have already signed up for MobiLinc Connect Module/service, then your choices are restricted to the Network Module + Polisy. The reason is that ISY can only support one proxy service: either ISY Portal or MobiLinc Connect.

The advantage of ISY Portal is that it does not require additional hardware. The advantage of Polisy is that you can integrate your ISY with a lot more things out there. In addition – and if you don’t use MobiLinc Connect – Polisy comes with 2 year subscription to ISY Portal free of charge.

Get to Node Your Weather Service Server

Weather service node servers connect to a specific weather service and query for current weather conditions and daily forecasts. The goal is to make the various node servers similar, but there are differences in the specific data returned by each service and the number days of forecast data available.  Different services use distinct data sources and various algorithms for determining forecasts. You will need to determine which one works best for your region.

Most of the services offer a free subscription plan, along with paid subscriptions. The node server only takes advantage of the data in the cheapest plan, typically the free plan.  In addition to the queried weather data, the node servers attempt to calculate the evapotranspiration–a fancy term for land evaporation combined with plant transpiration–based on the daily forecasts. All of the weather service node servers will work with either ISY Portal Polisy. Node servers are available for the following services: 

  • climacell.co. Climacell offers a free plan and provides up to 15 days of forecast data.
  • AERIS. AERIS does not offer a free plan, but does offer a no-cost plan to people that contribute weather data via a personal weather station using PWSWeather.com. AERIS provides up to 12 days of forecast data. Note that the UDI climate module gets its data from AERIS.
  • OpenWeatherMaps.org. OpenWeatherMaps does offer a free plan and provides up to 5 days of forecast data.
  • DarkSky.net.  DarkSky does offer a free plan and provides up to 7 days of forecast data.  Note that DarkSky is no longer accepting new registrations and will be shutting down this service in 2021.

Let’s Get Personal

Personal weather station node servers get data directly from a personal weather station. The frequency of the updates is typically set by the station and can be as often as once a minute.  These only provide information on the current conditions. Node servers are available for the following weather stations:

  • WeatherFlow. Works with WeatherFlow (www.weatherflow.com) smart weather stations, including the new Tempest. Data from the station is broadcast over your home network and picked up by the node server. The node server will also query the WeatherFlow servers to initialize some of the data (rain accumulation) and get the user’s preferred units measured (e.g., Celsius vs. Fahrenheit).  This only works with Polisy
    • WeatherFlowPGC is a version of the WeatherFlow server that gets all of its data from the WeatherFlow servers in stead of your local network.  The main goal is to provide access to remote stations such as a vacation home. This will work on both ISY Portal and Polisy. 
  • AmbientWeather. Works with Ambient Weather Network-based weather stations. The data comes from the Ambient Weather servers instead of directly from a personal weather station . Note that there are two slightly different versions of this by two different authors. This will work on both ISY Portal and Polisy. 
  • Davis. There are two node servers for Davis weather stations. One for the old, obsolete WeatherLinkIP API and one for the current WeatherLinkLive API.
    • The WeatherLinkLive node server connects directly to the WeatherLinkLive box over your local network. This works only on a Polisy.
    • The WeatherLinkIP node server connects to the Davis server to get data that’s been uploaded to the server.  This node server has not been well tested. This will work on both ISY Portal and Polisy. 
  • MeteoBridge – Works with a MeteoBridge (www.meteobridge.com) weather bridge. Live data is queried from the local MeteoBridge device. This should also work with Ambient’s WeatherBridge. Works only on a Polisy.

Personal Weather Station Software Node Server

The WeatherPoly node server is designed to work with existing weather software that is locally installed.  Most weather software can be configured to export data to a URL.  By pointing the export URL at the WeatherPoly node server, the data can be parsed and forwarded to an ISY. This currently works with MeteoBridge, Cumulus, and AcuParse. It is also possible to make this work with WEEWX via a modified extension. This allows access to data from personal weather stations that don’t have a network-accessible API. This only works on a Polisy.

The choice is yours

It’s always good to have choices, and with all the different weather related node servers, there’s something for everyone.

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Alexa and Google Home Enhancements

Alexa, Raise/Lower. Hey Google, Lock/Unlock

You can now use Raise, Lower, Open, and Close with Alexa.

To enable this feature:

— On ISY Portal, go to Select Tools | Connectivity | Amazon Echo

— Edit one of your “spokens”

— In the Alexa Category, choose one of these new options:
    Device with Open/Close syntax
    Device with Set/Lower/Raise syntax

— Save your “spoken”

— After changing the Alexa Category, ask “Alexa, discover my devices”

When you use “Device with Open/Close syntax”

In addition to the regular turn on/turn off, you will now be able to say:

  • Alexa, open <device>
  • Alexa, close <device>

When you use “Device with Set/Lower/Raise syntax”

In addition to the regular turn on/turn off, you will now be able to say:

  • Alexa, open <device> 
  • Alexa, close <device> 
  • Alexa, set <device> to <close | low | medium | high | maximum | open>
  • Alexa, set <device> to <any number from 1 to 100>
  • Alexa, raise <device>
  • Alexa, raise <device> by <number>
  • Alexa, lower <device> 
  • Alexa, lower <device>  by <number>

Please note that this Alexa category is available for devices and state variables only. In the case of variables, when setting up your spoken, it is recommended to use a turn off value of 0, and turn on value of 100.

You can now control your locks using Google Home.

To enable this feature:

— On ISY Portal, go to Select Tools | Connectivity | Google Home

— Add a lock to your device list, then save

— Ask “Ok Google, sync my devices”

 

Things you can ask:

  • Ok Google, lock <spoken>
  • Ok Google, unlock <spoken>
  • Ok Google, is <spoken> locked?

Enjoy and stay safe!

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Bye Bye Climate Module!

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” ~ Semisonic

The first Climate Module was installed on 11/21/2008 on an ISY99! Since then, we brought to life such gems as ISY Portal, Polyglot, Polyglot Cloud, and Polisy. And, more importantly, we’ve been blessed with a community of genius developers, who develop bleeding edge integration of things, including an assortment of Weather Services, with advanced functionality and features.

So, although we are sad to say farewell to our beloved Climate Module on 03/31/2020*, but we are excited to offer you more choices and enhanced features through Polyglot Cloud.

And just to make this transition a little easier for you:

  • If you purchased your Climate Module in 2019, you can request for a $49.00 store credit, 4 years subscription to ISY Portal, or a prorated refund on a 4 year usage basis
  • If you purchased your Climate Module in 2018, you can request for a $35.00 store credit or 3 years subscription to ISY Portal
  • If you purchased your Climate Module in 2017, you can request for a $23.00 store credit or 2 years subscription to ISY Portal
  • If you purchased your Climate Module in 2016, you can request for $15.00 store credit or 1 year subscription to ISY Portal

Please send your UUID to our sales department. 

Say hello to the future!

* Please note that on 03/31/2020, your climate module will stop functioning.

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To Polisy and Beyond!

The long wait is finally over: Polisy is now shipping! Polisy is ISY’s companion that extends your automation wishes to infinity and beyond. Click a couple of buttons and integrate with weather services, Philips Hue, LiFX, Ecobee, Roomba, Sonos, Tesla, SolarEdge, and a growing list of other things.

Polisy PRO With Dual Band WiFi and Bluetooth (4.0)

Polisy is powerful. It boasts 1Ghz Quad Core AMD CPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB 3D NAND SSD, 3 x 1 GB Ethernet ports, and extensive I/O features. Its prowess is assured by a lean fine-tuned version of BSD Unix. Its security hardened by TPM boot. Its reliability, viability, and support is guaranteed by the same team that brought you the ISY.

 

 

Polisy is preconfigured with our revolutionary Polyglot framework that allows integration of anything into ISY. These things show up just like any other device, can be included in scenes, and available in programs.

For instance, our Tesla Poly enables you to use battery range, state of charge, and your own preferencees – such as price of electricity – as conditions to automate when to charge/discharge. Or use an INSTEON / Z-Wave motion sensor on the ouside of your home as a trigger for your Tesla to honk the horn and flash the lights to thwart off intruders.

For your reading pleasure:
– Polisy Quick Start Page
– Polisy User Guide

Lest we forget, if you are a geek like us, you would want to know that we value your geekiness so much so that:

  • If you have already published a Poly in our Polyglot store, you get Polisy for free
  • Verified developers get 50% discounts on all our products, modules, and bundles including the preorder for Polisy
  • You get all products and modules in your hands before the general availability
    If you have not signed up as a developer yet, well, what are you waiting for? 

Order Now!

Let Polisy take your home to where no home has gone before!

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Introducing Polisy

Your gateway to integrating everything and anything with your ISY with a single button click! Such awesome things as Audio Video controllers, Tesla, Ring, Ecobee, Roomba, Weather Stations, Rachio, LiFX, SolarEdge, ….

Polisy is your plug & play Polyglot in a beautiful shiny box. Your ISY’s sidekick now and its destiny in the future.

Polisy is powerful. It boasts 1Ghz Quad Core AMD CPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB 3D NAND SSD, 3 x 1 GB Ethernet ports, and extensive I/O features. Its prowess is assured by a lean fine-tuned version of BSD Unix. Its security hardened by TPM boot. Its reliability, viability, and support is guaranteed by the same team that brought you the ISY.

For those not familiar with Polyglot, it’s our revolutionary framework that allows integration of anything into ISY with a single button click. These things show up just like any other device, can be included in scenes, and available in programs.

For instance, our Tesla Poly enables you to use battery range, state of charge, and your own preferencees – such as price of electricity – as conditions to automate when to charge/discharge. Or use an INSTEON / Z-Wave motion sensor on the ouside of your home as a trigger for your Tesla to honk the horn and flash the lights to thwart off intruders.

Polisy PRO With Dual Band WiFi and Bluetooth (4.0)

Polisy not only comes with Polyglot already configured and running, but also it automatically finds and commissions your ISY when attached. From thereon, you command/control both Polisy and ISY through one interface. 

Native support for 3G/4G modems gives you the ability to go off the grid. Literally! And, if you are one of those maximum-connectivity types, get the Polisy PRO model which comes standard with Dual Band WiFi and Bluetooth (4.0).

And, by the way, Polisy comes with 2 year subscription to ISY Portal free of charge.

Lest we forget, if you are a geek like us, you would want to know that we value your geekiness so much so that:

  • If you have already published a Poly in our Polyglot store, you get Polisy for free
  • Verified developers get 50% discounts on all our products, modules, and bundles including the preorder for Polisy
  • You get Polisy in your hands before the general availability
    If you have not signed up as a developer yet, well, what are you waiting for? 

Polisy will be available to the public in December of 2019. But …. [finale_countdown_timer campaign_id=”26313″ skip_rules= “yes”]

Preorder Now!

Let Polisy take your home to where no home has gone before!

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The Importance of IoT and Transactive Energy for the Smart Grid

When: June 12, 2019 3:30 PM PDT
Where: International OpenADR Symposium at PG&E Pacific Energy Center 

Services for IoT and Transactive Energy (TE) will be required to enable a truly smart grid. Michel Kohanim discusses UD\’s existing research, framework, complementing products/ecosystem that have seamlessly integrated IoT technologies and Smart Grid standards including Transactive Energy. OpenADR is a perfect fit for bringing all these services under one standardized umbrella.

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