Insteon Hub2 actions?

[ptaaron 8]

Just curious if anyone has worked on setting up cvaction files to control the Insteon Hub2? 

I looked at the previous thread about Insteon control and found the example files for using the ISY994 controller for Insteon things - but those files don't appear to use the same commands as the new Insteon hub based on what I can see in the API.  I tried following along with the guide to see if it would work anyway - but it doesn't appear to be the same.

Don't let my mentioning the API fool you - I have no clue what I'm doing with programming or coding, I was just hoping to find someone that had done it so I could learn how to set it up myself.  Ideally I just want to be able to set up scenes on my hub and control them with cvaction files.  Seems like it should be easy enough - but reading the API documentation didn't clarify anything for me.  I mean I know that commands do what, but I don't know how to create a string to use them or what to do with the string.

[Ragnarok 197]

11 hours ago, ptaaron said:

Just curious if anyone has worked on setting up cvaction files to control the Insteon Hub2? 

I looked at the previous thread about Insteon control and found the example files for using the ISY994 controller for Insteon things - but those files don't appear to use the same commands as the new Insteon hub based on what I can see in the API.  I tried following along with the guide to see if it would work anyway - but it doesn't appear to be the same.

Don't let my mentioning the API fool you - I have no clue what I'm doing with programming or coding, I was just hoping to find someone that had done it so I could learn how to set it up myself.  Ideally I just want to be able to set up scenes on my hub and control them with cvaction files.  Seems like it should be easy enough - but reading the API documentation didn't clarify anything for me.  I mean I know that commands do what, but I don't know how to create a string to use them or what to do with the string.

To my knowledge, nobody has yet. Do you have access to the new API documentation? We can absolutely assist in creating working Actions, and a Guide to help others set up the platform. Let me know if you're interested in helping us put that together.  The only API documentation I've been able to find is this, and that's what we used to build the ISY Actions.

[ptaaron 8]

6 hours ago, Ragnarok said:

To my knowledge, nobody has yet. Do you have access to the new API documentation? We can absolutely assist in creating working Actions, and a Guide to help others set up the platform. Let me know if you're interested in helping us put that together.  The only API documentation I've been able to find is this, and that's what we used to build the ISY Actions.

Thats the same one I was looking at - the commands used in it are different than the commands in the ISY cvaction files, that's where I was getting confused. 

Reading through the Apairy is like trying to read Japanese for me to be honest - I 'm a medical guy, so coding confuses me but I'm a pretty fast learner.

It seems like that link is is what is needed for the Hub 2 - they mention the Hub 2 in the commands area.

 

I could help out - but keep in mind it will be like having a kindergartner helping   LOL!

[ptaaron 8]

If I'm understanding the information in that link - I need an API Key to be able to send commands to the hub? 

I sent a request to get an API Key... if I am able to get that maybe it is possible to make this work.

[Ragnarok 197]

9 hours ago, ptaaron said:

If I'm understanding the information in that link - I need an API Key to be able to send commands to the hub? 

I sent a request to get an API Key... if I am able to get that maybe it is possible to make this work.

I think that's the case, but the documentation isn't 100% clear on that. In most cases, you only need a key if you're an application developer trying to integrate with Insteon. In this case, we just want to send commands to the API. I reached out to our developer yesterday to see if he could make sense of what was required. As soon as I hear from him I'll let you know what he says.

[ptaaron 8]

Thanks!
I tried to make it sound like I know what I'm doing in my request for a key... so we'll see

The examples on the API show the commands being sent to insteon website - which makes no sense so I'm assuming that's just an example. I've tried putting in the address of my hub and using Postman to send out commands and the hub doesn't respond to the request. I tried with some of the requests that should list scenes and things and it just doesn't connect.
Tried the same with the ISY action examples, those didn't do anything either - but those commands look like they are specific to the ISY device. The on and off commands aren't the same as what is listed on the Insteon site, and the link structure doesn't follow the same format (/rest/nodes/etc)

I also installed Wireshark thinking maybe I could see where commands were being sent when I used the Insteon app on my laptop - but I realized 2 things:
1) I have no idea what I'm looking at but nothing seemed to be going from my laptop to the hub's address
2) the app clearly relies on a connection to Insteon servers so I'm not likely to see anything anyway!

[ptaaron 8]

Been doing more research... I found an article about "Insteon Direct Commands" - playing with those on Postman is now letting me turn to control Insteon scenes and also individual devices. 

Just did a quick test and I was able to turn on my living room lamp by running the cvaction file. 

Apparently I was trying to make this harder than it needed to be.

Explanation of direct commands for device control: http://www.richstevenson.com/2014/01/06/insteon-direct-commands/

Explanation of direct commands for scenes: http://www.richstevenson.com/2014/01/07/insteon-direct-command-part-2/

I can try putting together a guide ... it's pretty darn easy - once you get the basic format of the links the missing info comes from those articles and the iPhone/Android apps that control the Hub.

[ptaaron 8]

Also just found this link generator for hub commands: http://www.smarthome.com.au/smarthome-blog/cat/insteon/post/insteon-hub-http-commands/