Vista Ulitmate

[RonC]

 

I have Vista Ultimate and I cant for the life of me get AHP to run a macro correct.  If I add daytime as one of the conditions, it simply ignores it, if I add nighttime it will run the macro but it does it all the time day or night, its real confusing. Can someone help me?  I like the program but it doesnt seem to work right, and I can never connect to Myhouse.

[PajamaGuy]

Calm down
I also have Vista Ultimate - I have many macros and use MyHouse some of the time.

Please explain your setup - Vista, CM15a attached all the time, AHP with all 4 modules, DS7000, etc.

Please explain a bit more about what you want a macro to do.  I have macros turning lights on and off at 30 minutes before dusk and 30 minutes after dawn.

X10 & AHP will be an "adventure" - It won't always work, but the guys here will help you.  If you are a person with little patience, or if you need to bet a paycheck on whether or not a light turns on/off at exactly 7:26 every day - you're not going to have fun with x10.  If you (and whomever you're living with) can be sitting watching TV and all of a sudden the light goes out for no reason, or your bedside lamps come on at 3 a.m. - AND YOU CAN LAUGH ABOUT IT - welcome to the crowd!

A good place to start reading is: http://www.x10community.com/forums/index.php?topic=7951.0

[steven r]

Welcome to the forum, RonC!
With the possible exception of video drivers, you should be able to do what you want. I'm not using Vista yet but there are plenty of folks here that are. With enough information, someone should be be able to help you.

...X10 & AHP will be an "adventure" - It won't always work, but the guys here will help you.  If you are a person with little patience, or if you need to bet a paycheck on whether or not a light turns on/off at exactly 7:26 every day - you're not going to have fun with x10.  If you (and whomever you're living with) can be sitting watching TV and all of a sudden the light goes out for no reason, or your bedside lamps come on at 3 a.m. - AND YOU CAN LAUGH ABOUT IT - welcome to the crowd! ...

Well put!

Enough years back to date me as an oldtimer when the X10 protocol was first introduced and home computers weren't around, X10 might of been "plug & play". With more features and more hardware out there to interfere, you need to take the attitude of setup being "Plug & play & play & play..." sometimes. As long as you laugh about finding new ways to to keep tossing Murphy out of the house, it can be fun and rewarding.

[RonC]

OK I'm running Windows Vista ultimate, the CM15A is always attached because I can't seem to make it store the data, I have AHP with all modules, which was installed without antivirus and firewalls being on.

I was trying to basic macros

One to turn the porch light on at dusk and off at dawn

One to turn on the living room light when the alarm was disarmed via remote, but only if it's nighttime, but it kept turning it on no matter what time it was

I also made a macro which flashed the front porch light when the alarm was armed and then turned off all the other lights in the house, but left the porch light on, I however could not get it to turn the porch light off also if it was daytime.

If I could just get these three simple macros to work for no i would be ecstatic, lol.

I will be making the macro that Puck made which arms the alarm automatic if we  I haven't grasped the  leave the house and forget to arm it, if I could incorporate the lights on or off during the daytime somehow that would also be awesome.  I haven't grasped phantoms and flags yet but maybe in time.  I do know that daytime and nighttime conditions do not work in supermacros, well daytime doesn't and nighttime works all day and all night, hahahahaha

Well hope that works....  Hit me with some good suggestions fellows I spent three days trying to make just a simple macro work.  My GF thinks I'm crazy now lol

[PajamaGuy]

Ron,

Might not get all of this in one shot - but:
1. Some macros work better (or at all) when run from the PC.
2. "Daytime" as a conditional is either unreliable, or doesn't work.
3. Use FLAGS:

Write a macro that SETS Flag #1 ON  (call it a "DAYTIME" flag.  then you're condition, "IF FLAG #1 is set" = true if daytime)
------------------------------
SET DAY FLAG ON (MacroName)
Set Flag #1
-------------------------------
SET DAY FLAG OFF
Clear Flag #1
-----------------
Then use a TIMER on each.
"Start at DAWN DAILY"  for the ON macro.  (I use DAWN + 30 Min)
"Start at DUSK DAILY" for the OFF macro

Just for grins (and Mr. Murphy) - I have 3 additional timers for the ON macro and they run at 9 am, noon, and 3 p.m. - Just to make sure the day flag is set all day)

Now your conditionals, "IF FLAG #1 IS SET" work.

Use a TIMER to turn the PORCH LIGHT on & off, not a macro.

Modify your living room light and light-flash-on-arm macros with conditional and ELSE.
IF FLAG#1 IS SET (daytime)
     do this stuff
ELSE IF FLAG#1 is CLEAR (nighttime)
    do this stuff


ALWAYS include the conditions in the ELSE (yeah, I know you shouldn't need them, but with X10, you do)

If that's not enough to get the 3 macros workin' - we'll get a tad more detailed....

[RonC]

Thanks

I used the phantom switch as instructed by Puck and set my flags, and then added the ELSE like you stated for my daytime porchlight to turn off in 20 seconds if flag 9 was off, and it worked great, it however will not work if the computer is off so i guess my computer will always have to be on, lol...

Can you macro geniuses send me some more excellent macros which you find useful.