I am a Homeseer user. I am in the middle of converting about 70 - X-10 Devices over to Insteon. So far I have replaced about 20 switches. It is pretty time consuming linking, setting ramp rates, and on levels from the swithches and Key pads. So, I am in search of a device / software that will make it easier to do this. The two options I have found is Insteon Explorer and SH's ISY99. I have the PLM already. Explorer is a Beta Program and I can't seem to find any documentation. Will the ISY-99 Allow me to link, crosslink, set ramp rates, on levels, create groups and scenes from a PC? If yes, can I then use Homeseer to take over from there, that is to say, use Homeseer as the master controller of all events in the House? I have many events tied to Alarm panel triggers and Homeseer does that nicely. I am concerned about what Upstatemike said about over 50 Devices and the system becoming unstable. Any fix here? Also, I have already started to Link and crosslink switches. In Topic "ISY99 How do I spiderlinks?" again, Upstatemike warns about clearing the existing links and reprogramming. If ISY99, PLM and Homeseer are the way to go for me, Would it be better to wait to get the ISY99, factory reset my installed devices and PLM, delete all Insteon devices in Homeseer and start fresh? Sound like a lot of work but better to do it with 20 devices thean 70.
Thanks
MV
[topic="11136"]ISY99 - How do I spider for links?[/topic]
MV-
I want to be sure the points you are referring to are kept in context so there is no confusion.
First- Insteon systems do not become unstable with more than fifty devices. My point in that post was that the nature of the Insteon protocol is such that controllers write links that modify a link table within each individual switch or module. When you have more than one controller writing links to a device there is a chance that one controller will overwrite something set by another controller. These kinds of problems are hard to troubleshoot and as the number of devices increases, so does the chance that a problem will occur if you have multiple controllers. A complex environment of more than 50 devices would certainly have problems in a multi-conroller environment but in reality you should not have more than one controller progamming and tracking all of your links in any size installation.
Conclusion: In any Insteon installation there should be one central controller that edits the links on devices, maintains the master table of all of the links (so they can be easily restored if a device is replaced), and should act as the interface to external equipment that wants to communicate with Insteon devices. (If other devices are allowed to communicate directly they would have to write links to the device link tables which is a problem as noted above).
Second: Yes the ISY will allow you to do all programming of your Insteon devices from a PC. It also has a network interface that allows it to be the primary controller for Homeseer, Elk M1, IES touch screens, etc. Yes you can certainly use Homeseer as your master controller and have it operate Insteon through the ISY plugin. You should NOT use the old Homeseer plugin for Insteon because it does not provide link management except for links specific to Homeseer. This produces the issue where links created by manual tap-tapping or by other link management software will overwrite each other in individual device link tables. Some folks with very small installations have gotten away with editing device tables by two different methods but it always goes wrong eventually and the results are ugly.
Third: Yes, you will want to factory reset your devices and start fresh. It is a pain but I didn't do it originally and paid a high cost in troubleshooting time and eventually had to do it anyway. (Fortunately crosslinking etc. is 1000 times faster using an ISY than it is doing it manually so don't worry too much about doing it all over). I don't want to tell you how to do your migration, but if it was me I would follow these steps:
1- Get an ISY99 and get it installed.
2- Remove any existing Insteon plugins from Homeseer and get Homeseer completely out of the picture temporarily.
3- Factory reset all of your Insteon devices to ensure there are no stray links or X-10 addresses in the link tables.
4- Add the devices to the ISY choosing the option to delete any existing links it finds in the devices (this ensures ISY database image of the device link table doesn't try to preserve any junk links)
5- Use the ISY to reprogram all your ramp rates, dim levels, links between controllers and switches, etc.
6- I would also use ISY to set up some basic programs such as timers and dusk to dawn stuff that doesn't really need to run from Homeseer.
7- Install the ISY plugin into Homeseer and let it create your devices from the ISY.
8- Use Homeseer to program motion based control of Insteon devices etc.