mControl now available for purchase & INSTEON

[electron]

Embedded Automation announced the commercial release of mHome (review), while also announcing the support for the SmartHome INSTEON product line. They will be selling a stand alone version (MCON-HE-10) for $59 (introductory price), and a starter kit (MKIT-XT-01, X10 based) for $149.99. Introductory pricing is available until September 15, 2005.

Press release
Purchase online

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Wow, the first official software support for Insteon correct?

Some other notable info I found on their site:

• All upgrades until, but not including, mControl v2 (Home Edition), are available at no charge as downloads from www.embeddedautomation.com
• This includes all bug fixes and new features/enhancements in the v1.x life cycle
• Introductory pricing offer will expire on September 15, 2005

 

[The Pod]

Embedded Automation announced the commercial release of mHome (review), while also announcing the support for the SmartHome INSTEON product line. They will be selling a stand alone version (MCON-HE-10) for $59 (introductary price), and a starter kit (MKIT-XT-01) for $149.99. Introductory pricing is available until September 15, 2005.

Press release
Purchase online

Great find!

Except the starter kit is for X-10 support. You'll need to order a developers kit from SmartHome to get the PowerLinc V2 interface.

Might be worth checking out.

The Pod

 

[electron]

I was actually going to mention that the starter kit was only X10 based, but I got sidetracked and totally forgot. The mHome software is indeed the first application which supports INSTEON, pretty cool!

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Yes, we should keep our eye on Embedded Automation as they may indeed become a major player in the home automation field. They seem to "embrace" the Windows MCE operating system AND support the latest hardware out there! Can't wait to see what additions and improvements they are going to come up with next!

I love being able to dim my lights from my (MCE) TV remote and wish I could do a lot more automation tasks such as view my front door camera and have caller ID available (from my NetCallerID device). Plus I hope they are going to come up with more "Icons".

 

[The Pod]

The mHome software is indeed the first application which supports INSTEON, pretty cool!

Well I downloaded the software and have been reading through the user manual. The section for adding devices (page 19) states that the protocol option is disabled because only X-10 is supported at this time. I have sent an e-mail request to their tech support to verify this statement and/or send me the information on how I can add an INSTEON device without using the X-10 address as the only option. Waiting to hear back from them.

I will try installing the software to my MCE setup to play around with it, but since I do not have the PowerLinc V2 USB interface yet (back ordered) , I don't think I will really be able to test this software with INSTEON thorough enough.

The Pod

 

[electron]

If you have trouble with tech support, let me know, I can get in touch with my contact at EA, he is pretty fast when it comes to responding to emails. I also sent out a seperate email asking if he could confirm if the INSTEON functionality is actually supported right now in the latest release, and he did confirm that.

 

[The Pod]

If you have trouble with tech support, let me know, I can get in touch with my contact at EA, he is pretty fast when it comes to responding to emails. I also sent out a seperate email asking if he could confirm if the INSTEON functionality is actually supported right now in the latest release, and he did confirm that.

Electron, see if your contact can supply information on how to add a INSTEON device into the setup? Right now I just going by what I've read on the website and in the users manual PDF file with the downloaded software. I also read that the USB interface needs to be installed on the pc prior to starting the system/software or it ends up being disabled.

Thanks,

The Pod

 

[electron]

I sent him an email about this. He did let me know right before I sent out my email that he saw your posts, and that the "X10 only" statement was an error . He also mentioned that INSTEON should work without having to do any configuring.

edit: I just got a response already! He wanted to make sure you downloaded the latest build, since no other build supports the INSTEON protocol.

 

[The Pod]

Sorry, this line in the manual was missed in the editing process from a previous version of mControl. This area I no longer “disabled†and the current version is ready to go for both X10 and INSTEON as is, nothing is required to be done to enjoy one, the other, or both.

Well I got a reply from their tech support also. Looks like it was just a miss in last editing of the manual.

The Pod

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Hehe, can't complain about their response time!

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Hey guys, check this out. I have mControl running on my MCE machine in my family room (IP: 192.168.1.105). I went into my Den PC, opened up Internet Explorer and entered http://192.168.1.105:29990/Default.aspx and opened up mControl on my MCE machine and was able to control my lighting. (Of course you all probably already knew this ).

Edit: The above link is an example of what I entered in my Internet Explorer, you would enter you own IP where mControl was installed in place of the 192.168.1.105.

 

[electron]

I believe I even mentioned this in the review But that does make me wonder how well it would look on my touchscreen, I will have to give that a try again.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

I got a timeout when I tried to connect

 

[WayneW]

Do you have it installed locally? Or were you trying to get to BSR's? BSR's isn't open to the public, he is using a non-public IP and I bet he is firewalled too.