Lighting Controls

Mike P

Active Member
Hi, Just got my house to the point where I can start my Security/Automation system. Slipped a new ELK M1Gold past my wife, And I am ready to go. I would like to know if anybody has any suggestions on Lighting?(X10,Zwave,Insteon,Ect). My bussiness is security installations but the lighting stuff has me a little confussed. As I have made no investment yet and have not chosen any type yet, I am hoping for a little feeback as what type to choose to go with. Any advice would be great....
 
Welcome to CocoonTech Mike. This has been discussed many times. If it is new construction and you have the budget, then hardwire is always best (either homerun like Centralite w/ low voltage switches, or high voltage wired swithes like EDT). If electrical is done but you can still run Cat5, EDT I-Line is a good choice. Otherwise you would be into PLC like Insteon or UPB, or wireless like ZWave.

My personal order of preference is Hardwire, UPB, Insteon, Zwave. My house was retrofit and I use UPB and love it. Just stay away from x10.
 
For what it's worth, what you've just done is the modern equivalent of asking "What's better, Mac or Windows?" ;)

I'll echo the x10 comment, if only because of signal collisions. There's nothing quite like having two signals collide and turn on an entirely different light.

Tom
 
Pretty much 50% of the posts on the board are on this topic. I'd just do a bit of looking around and you'll find plenty of info. There are at least 10 solutions, and which is "best" varies depending on many factors.
 
Thanks,

The house is already complete. Are any devices better or worse with bigger homes? The My house is about 6000sqft and I have one electric sub-panel about 300' from the house by the pool, Will any signals reach that far?
 
Mike P said:
Thanks,

The house is already complete. Are any devices better or worse with bigger homes? The My house is about 6000sqft and I have one electric sub-panel about 300' from the house by the pool, Will any signals reach that far?
UPB has a very strong signal that in many situations reach a distance like that, but there are all kinds of couplers that you may need to put in depending on the layout and other factors.
 
Insteon or X10 can work too. My setup has much longer runs than that for X10 / Insteon / UPB...they all work.

I am sending X10 across my house and then outside across a few hundred feet to the utility co. transformer, out another 40 feet to my barn another 50 feet in there there, and no problem.

As Steve mentions, UPB has a stronger signal strength design so would probably be the best of the power line varieties
 
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