New insteon products ever going to ship?

[jf22]

I am patiently waiting for new products. Seriously Smarthome when are you going to ship something new?

Toggle switches are nothing NEW, Inline modules look like switches without the paddle and the long awaited software doesn't look as good as what Powerhome does. (Dave has had it working for the past 4 months at least).

When are we going to see a WIRELESS REMOTE? How about IR? A themostat maybe? Anything from a different manufacturer?

Don't get me wrong, the stuff I installed works but I have been waiting and waiting and waiting. Seems to me the last new product you guys shipped was last year. What is the deal.

 

[Mike]

I am going to guess (and hope) that the answer to this is that they are performing extensive QA and interoperability testing to ensure that the new products are rock solid.

Not too long ago many were complaining about there being so many revisions and problems with the initial launch. They may very well have taken that feedback and being more cautious on releasing things before they have been run through their paces.

I just took out the last two of my initial insteon switches this weekend and RMA'd them. All the other ones are from later batches. While I went in with the perspective of an early adopter (and understood there very well may be issues) I'd rather they took their time and got it right. Things slip through, sure, but easier to delay a bit than worry about swapping things out later.

To give you an example, one of the switches I had a problem with I called up in March about it, it just came out of the wall recently (obviously there were more mild issues about it, but the point being it is a pain to take them out and have another one on hand if you have links or controllers you are using).

Just my thoughts (I do look forward to the new products though, don't get me wrong).

 

[fitzpatri8]

If Smartlabs was a huge company with boundless financial and staffing resources like Microsoft, I'm sure they'd be able to stay on schedule on new products just like MS can with Windows. Or not.

Tom

 

[Digger]

The real question is why isnt anybody else coming out with Insteon type products??? Wasnt that the idea to have multiple mfg producing all sorts of neat gadgets? Insteon enabled coffee pots, dishwashers, toilets (ok so I am exaggerating a bit).

 

[Rupp]

The real question is why isnt anybody else coming out with Insteon type products??? Wasnt that the idea to have multiple mfg producing all sorts of neat gadgets? Insteon enabled coffee pots, dishwashers, toilets (ok so I am exaggerating a bit).

That's Z-Wave that has multiple manufacturers. Insteon is SmartHomes baby and unless they change will always be. SmartHome is currently struggling to release a stable SDM software package and until they get this I seriously doubt they will release any new hardware. They are getting way behind on the software side of the house when it comes to their SDM staying up and running. It's getting better but still is the weakest link in the Insteon chain. They also have yet to start using the RF side of the hardware (other than bridging the phases) so until this happens I wouldn't look for many new products. Add this to the fact that a lot of X10 traffic kills an Insteon network and they have their hands full.

 

[WayneW]

Insteon is SmartHomes baby and unless they change will always be.

Hmm, SmartHome was demonstrating multiple Insteon equipped products (thermostats, sprinkler controllers, smoke alarms) at EHX. There are a lot of people in the Insteon alliance. So I think that comment is a bit misleading. Granted, talk is one thing and shipping a product is another, as none of these products are actually shipping yet.

And if you use an Elk M1 to control your Insteon, then the SDM issues are irrelevant.

Add this to the fact that a lot of X10 traffic kills an Insteon network and they have their hands full.

Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen or heard this claim before.

 

[Rupp]

WayneW,
I do not have an ELK or a security system for that matter. I've never really seen the need but I'm sure this goes hand in hand on where you live. I checked with my insurance company and a Water Cop gives more of a discount than a security system so I went that route. As far as X10 killing Insteon, I'm simply going on what I read in the Insteon forum on the HomeSeer bulletin board. Jon is in direct contact with the developers at SmartHome and is giving us updates from time to time. In addition, there are several users that have experience problems trying to send both X10 and Insteon signals via the SDM and it basically brings it to it's knees. This should become less of a problem as users shift from X10 to Insteon but none the less is an issue.

 

[Mike]

Out of curiousity, would you be open to sharing the insurance company that gave that discount and the percentage? I looked into this when I noticed one of Elk's partners but consensus seemed to be insurance companies were not sure how to react to this. In hindsight I should have called (and will have to do that now as that would up the priority on that improvement).

 

[Rupp]

Mike,
I use Allstate and my agent is wonderful. Of course I send about half of my earned income to her since I have a 16 year old son who just started driving as well as home owners, and boat insurance.

 

[ericvic]

In addition, there are several users that have experience problems trying to send both X10 and Insteon signals via the SDM and it basically brings it to it's knees. This should become less of a problem as users shift from X10 to Insteon but none the less is an issue.

I think that is more of a problem with the SDM than with Insteon. And even though most developers have gone the SDM route it is not necessary to use Insteon, you can talk directly to the PLC.

Eric

 

[wuench]

They are getting way behind on the software side of the house when it comes to their SDM staying up and running. It's getting better but still is the weakest link in the Insteon chain.

The main reason the SDM is so problematic is the underlying protocol issues and the need to jump through tons of hoops to get around them at a higher layer. SDM isn't going to be reliable until they fix the implementation of the protocol in the switches...

1.) Group communication reliability
2.) Working Extended Messages
3.) Implement Local Status Messages
...

 

[sorka]

Geez, you guys were complaining about no new products 6 months ago. It's now six months later and not only did SH miss every quarterly milestone, but they've been asked in the developer forum to update their targets and there hasn't been one peep from them. In fact, SH reps, have mostly been absent and are no longer commenting on questions directed at SH.

After initial research today, I've decided to make the switch to Z-Wave. Unless someone can give me a good reason not too, but I'm tired of the quality, the bugs, the lack of support, the lack of delivery and the price is no longer too good to excuse that as the ICONS now retail for $35 (on sale for $30). Everytime they raise the price, they swear that was always the price. I guess on the bright side when I sell all of my ICONs, I'll get good resale from them. I got the ambers before the price went up.

 

[TonyNo]

I just came across this little gem...

The RF developers kit was only recently released and apparently all Insteon RF devices will be using a new frequency requiring a new RF receiver. This is what SmartLabs is calling an "Access Point". The older SignaLincs will continue to work but will not receive RF from the new devices because of the differing frequencies. The new "Access Point" will also pass the extended Insteon commands, something that the current SignaLincs do not.

 

[Digger]

The RF developers kit was only recently released and apparently all Insteon RF devices will be using a new frequency requiring a new RF receiver. This is what SmartLabs is calling an "Access Point". The older SignaLincs will continue to work but will not receive RF from the new devices because of the differing frequencies. The new "Access Point" will also pass the extended Insteon commands, something that the current SignaLincs do not.

Sounds like poor planning or a very good one to sell more pieces to the puzzle. Either way not very customer friendly.

 

[sorka]

Yup. I'm really glad I didn't buy the signal links. SH really wanted me to and told me that my insteon network wouldn't be reliable without them. I decided to wait and see. After installing 20 switches(what was going to be the first of a lot more), it was reliable enough that I've never had a single failure after 1.5 years of use.

Apparantly what I should have expected is that all my switches would have busted by now needing replacements. Maybe I got them early enough that they were better quality???

However, the above quote is clearly wrong. Without going into details, anyone who is a member in the insteon development forum and has been following the RF dev kit discussion knows that we're a very long ways off from having a released product.