Version

This is Version 3.2 (03/02/2008) of the ISY-26 PHP Web interface script. It is Copyright © 2008, P. Lutus. This script is released under the GPL.

Introduction

This page describes a convenient way to control and monitor all your Insteon controls by way of a Web page accessible on your local intranet. The only prerequisites are:

• A PHP-enabled Web server on your desktop machine, something easily accomplished in modern times — especially if you're running Linux.
• An ISY-26 controller, accessible on your local intranet, configured with your Insteon controls, and updated with software revision 2.6.2 or newer.

There are some Web pages served up by the ISY-26, but at the time of writing they're not very polished or useful, so I decided to create a PHP script that takes the ISY-26's HTTP output, processes it, and creates a simpler and more useful Web page.

I created this script because I can display it on my palmtop computer's browser, as a stand-in for a decent (but nonexistent) Insteon remote control — one with a lot of buttons.

By the way — the people who designed the ISY-26 could easily create a built-in Web page like this — a simple, intuitive page that allows a user to easily control his home system. Hint, hint.

Example

The resulting Web page looks like this:

The idea of the page is that you can click any of the control labels to toggle that control's state — the control will be turned on if it's off, off if on, and the label color indicates the control's present state. For scenes, because the ISY-26 doesn't provide state information, there are two buttons per scene, one for on, one for off. By the way, the sample above is live — it won't actually control anyone's lights, but if you click one of the labels, a dialog will appear showing the action that would be taken.

Setup

To use the PHP script, simply follow these setup instructions:

• Download the PHP script — click here for a pretty-printed listing, click here for a plain-text form. Rename the script with a ".php" suffix for server use.
• Edit the values near the top of the script — change the user configuration to suit your requirements:
  • $show_controls: This value enables display of the controls table.
  • $show_scenes: This value enables display of the scenes table.
  • $isy26_address: Edit this value to reflect how you identify your ISY-26 controller locally — by a name or address. Applications like this shows why it's better to assign a fixed address to your ISY-26, rather than allow it to acquire an address dynamically using DHCP.
  • $logon_name: Enter the logon name assigned to the ISY-26. The default is "admin".
  • $password: Edit this value with the password you use to access the ISY-26. The password is not displayed in the browser's address bar (it is passed using a POST HTTP transaction). Nevertheless, if third parties were to gain physical access to your desktop machine, they could read your password in the PHP script. I included it as a variable simply because I am too lazy to type in a password every time I access the ISY-26.
  • $font_size: I use this value to adjust the size of the displayed output, to fit conveniently onto my handheld's browser.
  • $control_row_length: This value selects the number of cells per row in the controls table.
  • $scene_row_length: This value selects the number of cells per row in the scenes table.
  • $refresh_interval: This value specifies the number of seconds between page refreshes.
• Install the script on your local PHP-capable Web server.
• Access it in a local browser.
• Control your devices by clicking on their names.

Miscellaneous Notes

To exclude a particular control or scene from the display, simply prefix its name with a double underscore (like __this). I have a number of scene definitions that only serve to make orphan controls broadcast their changing state to the ISY-26, but they don't need to be displayed in the page.

The reason there are no on/off color cues in the scenes table is because the present ISY-26 Web output doesn't provide this information. This may change in the future. In fact, there is some indication that a future ISY-26 software version will allow users to upload Web pages (or server-side control scripts) onto the controller and be served from there. That change would greatly simplify a project like this. Hint, hint.

The reason this script doesn't support light dimming is because I don't have any dimmable controls or lights (all compact fluorescents at my house). This function would be easy to add if there were a compelling reason.

This script is very simple to set up and use. It shows one of the many advantages of running Linux. One can run a Web server under Windows, but compared to Linux, it's a lot more effort to set up.