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        | patrickm Senior Member
 
  
 
 Joined: February 22 2007
 Location: United States
 Online Status: Offline
 Posts: 188
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          Hello,
           | Posted: November 08 2010 at 11:55 | IP Logged |   |  
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 |  I am trying to understand what the capabilities of Virtual Insteon Devices.
 
 Can a Virtual Insteon Device be linked to a group of real devices and respond to normal traffic between devices?
 
 I am trying to simplify some triggers for large groups of devices.  For example, during the day I would like the exterior lights to be disabled.  So what I have done is created triggers for each exterior light device and send a fast off to a Insteon group based on those individual triggers.  Doesn't seem very efficent having 10+ individual triggers for the same macro.  If I could link the Virtual Insteon Device with those devices it seems I could just have one trigger.
 
 Am I understanding virtual Insteon devices correctly?
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        | grif091 Super User
 
  
 
 Joined: March 26 2008
 Location: United States
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 Posts: 1357
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          Since no one else has jumped in, virtual addresses cannot be part off a Group.  The letter V is not a valid hex character which all Insteon devices require.  This is a Powerhome unique construct.
           | Posted: November 10 2010 at 15:25 | IP Logged |   |  
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 __________________
 Lee G
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        | MrGibbage Super User
 
  
  
 Joined: October 23 2006
 Location: United States
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 Posts: 513
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          Letter V?  Is this something that is working now?  Last I heard, Virtual Insteon Devices were a
           | Posted: November 10 2010 at 16:05 | IP Logged |   |  
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 |  part of the upcoming release.  I didn't know the details of the implementation were released
 yet.  Do you know some of the details of the way VIDs are going to work, and what they will be
 capable of, and what problems they solve?
 
 __________________
 Skip
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        | grif091 Super User
 
  
 
 Joined: March 26 2008
 Location: United States
 Online Status: Offline
 Posts: 1357
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          2.1B allows a device address of Vx.xx.xx.  Beyond that I have no information on how one would use them in PH2.  Those Virtual addresses cannot be used outside of PH2.
           | Posted: November 10 2010 at 19:21 | IP Logged |   |  
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 Lee G
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        | GadgetGuy Super User
 
  
  
 Joined: June 01 2008
 Location: United States
 Online Status: Offline
 Posts: 942
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          This subject could use an update.
           | Posted: June 10 2013 at 13:35 | IP Logged |   |  
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 Dave, perhaps a brief overview of capabilities here?
 
 I too, have just tried to use this approach, but am
 discovering they don't seem to work like I thought they
 would.
 
 I can send Insteon Commands (eg, ph_insteon("VIRT
 DVC",17,200) to a virtual device and it accordingly shows
 its state in the Device Status window, and can be read
 back with a ph_getinsteonlevel("VIRT DVC") command, but
 other than that I can't get any inter-device interaction.
 
   
 __________________
 Ken B - Live every day like it's your last.  Eventually, you'll get it right!
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        | GadgetGuy Super User
 
  
  
 Joined: June 01 2008
 Location: United States
 Online Status: Offline
 Posts: 942
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          Dave -
           | Posted: June 16 2015 at 09:25 | IP Logged |   |  
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 I find multiple posts in the Forum asking about Virtual devices and NONE of them are answered.  I just ran into these issues again, trying to set a Virtual Dvc that I could link to multiple other devices (via the Devices window Links Tab)  The links seem to be created but turning on/off the Virtual Device does nothing to the linked devices.
 
 Can you enlighten us all on the "care and feeding" of Virtual Devices?
 
   
 __________________
 Ken B - Live every day like it's your last.  Eventually, you'll get it right!
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