5 months back, I had stated that I was going to move from Insteon to Z-Wave because Insteon development had been stalled. Well, I decided to wait a few months because I had many other home remodeling projects that needed finishing and decided that this one should be one of the last projects because it requires technology that can change quite rapidly. I figured the extra time would be enough to see where Insteon was going and to see if even more z-wave products came out. Well, in that time, Insteon did come out with the remote, but none of the other promised products. The prices of insteon products have also gone up. The ICON switches are now more than double what they started at and I've had my first ICON failures. On top of that, it seems that the development forum has pretty much died. There's maybe 1 or 2 new messages a week when there used to be dozens a day. I get the impression that developers have fled the Insteon camp. It's really too bad because I love the technology fundamentally.
So moving to z-wave, my first goal is to do what Insteon does. Primarly, linking uni-directionally and bi-directionally groups of switches. Examples:
1) Virtual multi-way switches where one switch controls the load and other switches are cross linked so that any of the switches can be used and all other switches will follow the state and update the status led accordingly.
2) Multiple switches linked to single load controlling switches in one direction only. i.e. an island with 4 overhead pendant lights. Each is dimmable and mapped to a single non load controlling switch under the counter. Each of the switches under counter controls the corresponding light overhead. Each is dimmable. Each load controlling switch is scene capable and can be linked to different groups with different scenes. A separate master switch is linked to all of the overhead load controlling switches so that they can be all turned on or off(in this case, a scene activated to stagger them all on or off at preset ramp rates). With insteon, I'd use a keypad switchlinc. Since there don't appear to be any in-line dimmable z-wave switches, I'll have to hide an actual paddle switch in the ceiling above each light.
3) Why shouldn't I use ZDW120 switches? I don't need the high wattage of the 103s. Is there something the 103s do that the 120s don't?
I asked this way back in February, but got no concrete responses. Maybe after 5 months, there will be more who've moved from Insteon to z-wave. Those are the people I would really like to hear from.
So moving to z-wave, my first goal is to do what Insteon does. Primarly, linking uni-directionally and bi-directionally groups of switches. Examples:
1) Virtual multi-way switches where one switch controls the load and other switches are cross linked so that any of the switches can be used and all other switches will follow the state and update the status led accordingly.
2) Multiple switches linked to single load controlling switches in one direction only. i.e. an island with 4 overhead pendant lights. Each is dimmable and mapped to a single non load controlling switch under the counter. Each of the switches under counter controls the corresponding light overhead. Each is dimmable. Each load controlling switch is scene capable and can be linked to different groups with different scenes. A separate master switch is linked to all of the overhead load controlling switches so that they can be all turned on or off(in this case, a scene activated to stagger them all on or off at preset ramp rates). With insteon, I'd use a keypad switchlinc. Since there don't appear to be any in-line dimmable z-wave switches, I'll have to hide an actual paddle switch in the ceiling above each light.
3) Why shouldn't I use ZDW120 switches? I don't need the high wattage of the 103s. Is there something the 103s do that the 120s don't?
I asked this way back in February, but got no concrete responses. Maybe after 5 months, there will be more who've moved from Insteon to z-wave. Those are the people I would really like to hear from.
