INSTEON questions

[bwzimmerman]

Ok, I have looked around this site and still have some very basic questions.

1) Does the switches have to be on the same circuit as the link? I know with my Slingbox network device that uses the home wiring system it does.. I hope the answer is no.

2) How reliable are the switches now. I know everything has its bugs in the beginning stages and it seems like the 2005-2007 posts have alot of posts on poor reliability and poor quality construction of the switches. I am sure that has changed, so is INSTEON top dog in this race like several sites make it out to be (ie. SmartHome, and some other seemingly biased websites that sell INSTEON and Z-Wave devices.)

3) I still cant figure out. The device that allows you to control the switches, does it allow multiple way to access it. ie. The iPhone link device can also be used to connect and program the device through the internet, and even the serial cable method? (hope this question makes sense I am still learning how this all works)

-Thanks, Brian

 

[applianceman]

Ok, I have looked around this site and still have some very basic questions.

1) Does the switches have to be on the same circuit as the link? I know with my Slingbox network device that uses the home wiring system it does.. I hope the answer is no.

2) How reliable are the switches now. I know everything has its bugs in the beginning stages and it seems like the 2005-2007 posts have alot of posts on poor reliability and poor quality construction of the switches. I am sure that has changed, so is INSTEON top dog in this race like several sites make it out to be (ie. SmartHome, and some other seemingly biased websites that sell INSTEON and Z-Wave devices.)

3) I still cant figure out. The device that allows you to control the switches, does it allow multiple way to access it. ie. The iPhone link device can also be used to connect and program the device through the internet, and even the serial cable method? (hope this question makes sense I am still learning how this all works)

-Thanks, Brian

Here are some answers for you.
Question 1: The answer to question one is no, they do not need to be on the same circuit. The INSTEON control signals travel using the power lines can travel from circuit to circuit. Initially as with all power line technologies you needed to install a "bridge" between the two phases of the home. SmartLabs/INSTEON had a hard-wired phase coupler and also RF coupling. The RF coupling was accomplished using two modules plugged into different phased outlets. They would bridge the INSTEON signals back and forth. Recently Smart Labs/INSTEON has introduced dual-band wall controls. These controls have the ability to communicate via power line or RF creating a true mesh network. In theory if you had a light switch on each phase you would not need to install any phase coupling.

Question 2: INSTEON had some issues in the beginning that are well documented on this and other forums. I currently have over 60 INSTEON devices in my home for over 2 years and have not replaced a single one. A friend of mine a few miles away has over 80 for the last year with no issues at all. There is really no "top dog" since there are advocates for every protocol. What I like with INSTEON is that it was "install and go". I have used Z-Wave and Zigbee and it was not the same story. You can also look at UPB, but it is more expensive. If I were to develop a score based on affordability and reliability using my experience. I would give INSTEON "Top Dog" honors.

Question 3: The device that uses the iPhone link, the SmartLinc allows you to easily access via the internet via your iPhone or computer. It works great and my wife loves it. You can even view your video cameras on it. There are a number of other power line modems that can offer you this functionality, but this worked good for me. I also use the ISY-99 from Universal Devices. I use this in addition to the SmartLinc. The ISY has much more control in developing scenes, scripts and responding to events. I would highly recommend investing in it. It also can be accessed via the internet. The initial interface was a little "industrial" looking but it has come a long way. Universal Devices also has a lot of integrated Energy Management tools worth looking at. There are no monthly fees and it is highly reliable.

I hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Tom

Website: WiFi Home Control Pro

Twitter: http://twitter.com/WiFiHomeControl

 

[wuench]

2.) I have 18 insteon switches in my home along with the ISY99. Insteon is working ok, it is not 100% for me though. I still have lights that don't come on when scheduled, etc. Maybe about once every couple of weeks. You may need filterlincs etc and/or multiple accesspoints to get realiability.

As far as quality control, in the last batch of switchlincs I ordered 4 had a mushy feel, they didn't click. They were version v4.0. I consult this website for info on what versions have issues. I would say make sure you get a recent firmware version or a version with no issues, if anything seems wrong send them back. Insteon has a 1 year warranty.

 

[Digger]

1) No (but distance between devices can be critical as the signal is only 5 Vpp so you may want to get a lot of dual mesh devices to minimize communication issues especially in a small system).

2) While I believe that SH has fixed a whole host of their problems I would read the posts from the past 6 months on the SH and UDI forums to see the latest concerns to see if they would affect you (possibly things you would never care about). Keep in mind that SH moderators tend to be trigger happy deleting anything negative on their forum while over at UDI they do not censor.

3) Look at the ISY from UDI as it has a lot more capabilities than anything SH makes (SH even sells it)

Read for yourself and make your own decision as it is a lot of money to gamble with. unfortunately if you buy just a few and try them it will not be an accurate representatition of that you will have in the end as too small of a "mesh" may not work reliably (not a fair way to judge it) and to large of a system seems to be a problem lately for the PLM according to at least one thread in the SH forum (possibly also described better in UDI forum). Since you only have one PLM in a system it is NOT a huge financial hit to replace it when they fix the problem. Also the more devices you add the more chances of something going wrong yet technically the better chances of minimizing communication failures.

You may want to wait for the latest versions of everything to come out that are true "dual mesh" meaning they are PLC and RF (the way Insteon was advertised for the past 4 or 5 years but that was never true until now for most devices). With Insteon it is still "growing up" and many times when it evolved you had to go out and replace everything again and again as I2 devices did not work correctly with I1 devices for all functions and eventually that was admitted by SH etc.

Lastly if you are going to buy the 1000W dimmers (probably not) verify they fixed the known issue of the lights flickering and purged the bad ones from stock that were from the summer of 2009 (there was a thread on SH forum about it but I cant find it now so it may be buried or deleted). They had kept selling them as recently as the early summer of 2010 even after their customer service admitted to people that all of the units in stock had the problem so they were not replacing them at the time under warranty (why send a bad device to replace a bad device) until they fixed the problem and manufactured new product.

My opinion as you should only buy from SH (I know their Customer Service reputation sucks) because some distributors may have old stock that has problems that you just dont want to deal with. Also SH does not always honor the warranty if you buy elsewhere (I am sure you have seen that many times over in the forums from many people). I am not saying that there arent some great distributors who have stood behind the product even when SH didnt but just be careful.


Insteon has gotten better from what people are saying (and from what I have seen on some replacement devices I have put in on existing systems the past year) but time will tell for sure.

Good Luck!