Insteon in a Large Home

Captain Caveman

Active Member
Okay a while back I told you folks I would let you in on my Insteon installation that involved many light switches in a large home.

The house has a pool and is about 6800sf with three electrical panels and a whole house surge suppressor. The outside walls and floors are poured concrete.

The HA equipment involved are a Cortexa Controller, Cortexa Touch Screen, Signalinc enhancers, Powerlinc V2 Controller Serial, Switchlinc V2 Dimmers, Switchlinc V2 Relays, Switchlinc V2 Paddles (to change color to almond), and a Global Cache GC100-06.

Day One -

The Cortexa Controller, Powerlinc V2 Serial Controller, and Signalinc enhancers were installed and as expected no problems.

The first 2 Insteon dimmers to be installed could not fit into the metal junction box, so we had to file the box to accommodate them.

After the dimmers were installed attempts to have the Cortexa auto discover the device failed, so the address of the switches was manually inputted. Then the switches were linked to the Cortexa and vice versa.

From the touch screen the switches turned off, on and dimmed, but they responded slower than expected. Also the switches did not respond to group commands.

Day Two –

A variety of dimmers and switches were installed in a 6 gang box. Besides the mass of wires we had to figure how the electrician had wired one of the previous switches in a 3-way circuit.

After much troubleshooting we came to realize that the 3-way circuit did not have a common wire at the other switch location. So we were forced to leave the regular switch installed at that end, but still used the Insteon dimmer in the 6 gang box. I later instructed the homeowner to not turn off the regular light switch because the Insteon switch would not be able to control the load.

Eight switches were installed. The six mentioned above and 2 others. Communications to these 8 switches were instantaneous and group commands worked flawlessly.

I also have to mention that after my guys installed the above eight switches I went to each and pressed the paddles up and down. It was upsetting to find that some of them had bad paddles. We had more paddles in stock so they were replaced, but it does take a fair amount of time to do this and my guys had already preinstalled them on the whole batch. When you have a million other things to do that stinks.

Day Three –

Three more lights switches were installed and the results were the same, no commands were missed and very responsive!

This led me to troubleshoot the first circuit of switches we installed, why was this circuit having problems, was the common and hot reversed, maybe some signal sucker, perhaps the whole house surge protection or could it be that 3 electrical panels were involved?

Another two Insteon switches were installed on the same problematic circuit and the first two dimmers installed were replaced. Same results slow responses and no response from group commands.

In addition to the original pair of Signalinc Enhancers another pair was installed in a different location of the house and the switches became much more responsive and never missed the on, off , dim commands. Also a couple of the switches started to respond to group commands but often missed.

What I did to troubleshoot the switches that did not respond at all to group commands was to make sure that the links were in the switch database. After multiple rewrites to the switches database all of them finally started to act on the group commands.

Conclusion –

After much research I found the problem to be two fold. First for unknown reasons that particular electrical circuit transmits Insteon signals weakly. Secondly the Insteon protocol will retransmit commands when it does not receive an acknowledgment from the devices, no retransmissions occur with group commands because no acknowledgement is expected.

The fix for the weak signals was made by installing another pair of signal enhancers. The group commands often being missed was remedied by repeating the command within Cortexa events such as “All Lights Off†or “Good Morningâ€.

Now the homeowner has 100% reliability! However we still have about 15 more light switches to install, security cameras and IR hell to go through! Then I’m sure the homeowner will want to add thermostats, more touch screens, etc. to the mix.
 
Captain Caveman said:
The fix for the weak signals was made by installing another pair of signal enhancers. The group commands often being missed was remedied by repeating the command within Cortexa events such as “All Lights Off†or “Good Morningâ€.

Now the homeowner has 100% reliability! However we still have about 15 more light switches to install, security cameras and IR hell to go through! Then I’m sure the homeowner will want to add thermostats, more touch screens, etc. to the mix.
Could you elaborate on this point? Are you saying you just send the group commands out multiple times until it takes? That seems like a serious flaw if I'm reading you correctly.

Thanks for the write up, helps us that can't decide between UPB, Insteon, and Zwave to see how other people's installs go.

--Jamie
 
I think its a good sign that a large installation works well for the homeowner. While I am concerned that there are still problems with signals getting through even on that system at least there is a workaround for now.

On smaller systems like mine I find that noise etc. causes problems. Also my devices were bought early this year and MAYBE some of the quality problems were addressed on the devices used in this install. I only have 3 devices now that work reliably but I dont ave time or the ambition to play with this anymore.

It might also prove Smarthome correct when they say add more devices for reliability.

On the circuit that has a weak signal are there any other device or appliances on that circuit that are not on others in the house (GFCI's, CFL's, Surge Suppresors, UPS's, etc)?
 
royalj7 said:
Could you elaborate on this point? Are you saying you just send the group commands out multiple times until it takes? That seems like a serious flaw if I'm reading you correctly.
Yes, that is what I'm saying x2 for broadcast messages, in case the first time it did not make it through.

Serious flaw, I don't think so. If I'm only having problems with one circuit I'm sure it's an environmental issue.

And your welcome. :unsure:
 
Digger said:
On the circuit that has a weak signal are there any other device or appliances on that circuit that are not on others in the house (GFCI's, CFL's, Surge Suppresors, UPS's, etc)?
I could not find anything on that circuit, it feeds 2 light switches in the kitchen then the dining room chandlier and accent spots.

My hunch is the problem maybe within the 3 panels. Perhaps one of the wires on the circuit may not be tight enough in the panel or it could be the whole house surge suppressor.
 
I also have a whole house surge suppressor and also individual UPS/Surge Suppressors around the house (I am always buying more to protect my electronics etc). I suspect that may be a part of my problems. SH didnt seem to think so but I think they may be mistaken.
 
Captain Caveman said:
The HA equipment involved are a Cortexa Controller, Cortexa Touch Screen,
How is the Cortexa controller? Not much has been written about it and I'm curious.

Thanks.
 
Herdfan said:
How is the Cortexa controller? Not much has been written about it and I'm curious.
First and foremost it's easily configured. I think CQC and Main Lobby have great front ends but I don't quite get it as far as configuring them goes. My needs are simple - get in the clients home then get out. Also since the Cortexa is more like an appliance the homeowner can't make it unstable by using it.

The front and back ends are one product and you don't ever have to pay for software upgrades. When they write drivers for a device there is no extra charge.

Insteon works great with the Cortexa. Linking is easily done through a web browser with buttons and drop down menus. If you wan't to replace a switch, no problem just delete it and add a new one. Program a button on the KeypadLinc to not just control lighting but also to play a DVD.

Built-In Video support saves a lot of money compared to buying networked cameras.

Infrared is done through Global Cache and you can create a simple GUI remote that the clients can use. But Main Lobby and CQC wins in the GUI department.

They support a good handful of security panels and hopefully will add Ademco to the mix in the near future.

Support for Nuvo Essentia and Concerto. The homeowner can walk to the touchscreen and tell it to play different audio sources in different rooms.

HAI thermostats tie in with it very nicely.

There are many other features that I can explain but the best thing for you to do is check out there website.

Bottom line - The Cortexa excels at most of your HA needs, bridges a lot of products together and is simple to setup and use.
 
royalj7 said:
Could you elaborate on this point?  Are you saying you just send the group commands out multiple times until it takes?  That seems like a serious flaw if I'm reading you correctly.
It sounds like the Cortexa may not be "cleaning up" the group commands correctly. When an Insteon switch, like a SwitchLinc, sends a group command, it does follow-up checks with each device in the group to make sure it came on. The initial broadcast is fast and not verified (to get all the lights coming on quickly 98% of the time), then the individual commands are sent and verified (slower, but 99.9%+ reliable).

Check here for a little more discussion: http://perceptiveautomation.com/phpBB2/vie...php?t=1724#8890
 
Digger said:
It might also prove Smarthome correct when they say add more devices for reliability.
I know it is frustrating to hear them say 'buy more', but the one thing I remember was that my issues went away once I went above about 16 switches or so.

I'm not using group commands at this point and am only contolling a half dozen lights via the elk at the moment though.
 
Mike said:
Digger said:
It might also prove Smarthome correct when they say add more devices for reliability.
I know it is frustrating to hear them say 'buy more', but the one thing I remember was that my issues went away once I went above about 16 switches or so.

I'm not using group commands at this point and am only contolling a half dozen lights via the elk at the moment though.
I'm sure it varies somewhat, but my experience was exactly the same as Mike's. Switch #17 was where things started to work reliably.

BTW, I'm still finding some DOA switches. Just received 7 new ones, and finished installing 5. One was dead and never turned on at all. So... if you're installing this as part of a job, you might want to make sure you have a spare or two of each type in stock to avoid a time-consuming return visit. About 10% of my now 70 switches have arrived inoperable, even after a reset.
 
Also remember in a mix of X10 and Insteon Devices. More Insteon; many times makes the X10 ones less reliable. The Insteon devices are two way and the transmitter part; if not the one sending. Can absorbe the powerline signals, just like a two way X10 or X10 compatible from another manufacturer can.
 
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