Pressure to save 15% on mucho Insteon switches

T

tanstaaf1

Member
As most know, Smarthome has a 15% off sale on, I think, everything until midnight tonight. I will need at least 100 more switches for the house I'm working on and was planning to buy quite a number this week in any case; lucky me I didn't order on Monday ... unlucky me I'm not entirely sure how many of each type to order. Lucky me, I've had a little time to play with a small assortment of various switches ... unlucky me, I haven't put up many lights and no fans, etc. so I'm not really sure how many lights I need/want dimmable vs switched and I haven't really played much with the keypadlinc.

SH's list of insteon compatible switches

A quick run through the house, guessing what switches work best, gives at least:

34 Keypadlincs
24 Insteon Dimmers - do I really want this many dimmable lights?
48 switches - either icon or insteon, I'm not sure?
5 timers - one for each bathroom. I'm not sure about anything else
2 Insteon On/Off switches - I know I want at least two on/offs to have white leds
1 USB controller

A lot of these could be eliminated if there was something like the keypadlinc able to be the primary/master switch for more than one device. However, that's like saying I wouldn't need a cell phone if I had telepathy, I suppose. :)

Things which are hanging me up a bit:

I'm not used to living in a house with a lot of fancy lights with "ambiance" benefitting from dimmable lights. This house is a departure from that, with a lot of open beam ceiling work worthy of dimmable chandeliers and halogen floodlights. I was originally going to *mainly* use compact flourescents for most of the lighting via wall sconces (I'm a frugal guy in an absurdly big house) HOWEVER

(a) I got to thinking that maybe more ambiance would be nice (I've never played with scenes but imagine you need lots of dimming or they don't have the desired effect). How much ambiance is enough? Does anyone worry about being able to dim OUTSIDE lights?
(B) It seems a shame to buy the insteon on/on switches at $40/ea when I could get the insteon dimmers at the same price. And I have a hard time convincing myself to pay $40 for an on/off when I could get an icon switch that is almost as good for $20. Except that dammable green light on the icons. Do I want to pay $20 extra ONLY to switch from green to white?
© I really want to have lots of Keypadlincs because they provide wide control; but they are all dimmers on the primary light. On the other hand, they aren't as nice to stroke as the Insteon dimmers with the light bar and light touch.

So I guess questions are as follows:

(1) How often does SH have this sort of sale? If it is likely to repeat within 6 months or so then I won't worry as much about maximizing the purchase at this moment.

(2) Am I overdoing it with the dimmers? I'm really at a weak spot here, which some of you may not be able to relate to. I want the house to look nice but energy efficiency fits with the "theme" of the property, as it is an urban wilderness area w/well, wood stove heating, and lots of wild life (mountain lions, turkeys, deer, etc.).

(3) Am I overdoing it with the keypadlincs (I thought it would be super convenient to have one at each major doorway exiting the house or transitioning to another wing? Of course, if I knew I was going to buy touchscreens to disburse around the house, I could forego some keypadlincs. This is actually a big deal, as the keypadlincs with multiple buttons seem important, but the keypadlincs are DIMMERS for at least one primary light (as I understand them).

(4) Just how much is a white light worth vs. an alien/70-shag-carpet green light? Those SH folks are devilishly cunning, eh? For the items best left on switches, how tacky would icons be?

(5) Can I control a variable speed fan with a dimmer? (I think the answer is yes)

(6) Anything I'm missing - insteon or not - that I might want to nab in the next..5.5 hours?


Any suggestions are appreciated. These powerful mulitply linked light switches are really playing a bit of a trip with my mind how I think a house "should" be wired/lit.
 
Not enough time left for a detailed answer. They have done this before but there is no way to know for sure if there will be another sale next quarter.

Maybe take your best guess and then return stuff if you change your mind. In any case there must be minimum amounts of some things that you already know for sure you will need. A partial order will at least keep you from feeling you missed the sale.
 
tanstaaf1 said:
"24 Insteon Dimmers - do I really want this many dimmable lights?...."


"I got to thinking that maybe more ambiance would be nice (I've never played with scenes but imagine you need lots of dimming or they don't have the desired effect). How much ambiance is enough? Does anyone worry about being able to dim OUTSIDE lights?"
Click to expand...
tanstaaf1,

I use dimmers on everything except for the flourescent lights in the garage and laundry room (even the outside lights).

We keep the outside lights on from sunset until midnight Sun-Thurs & 1am on Fri and Sat. These lights number quite a few (outside garage (driveway), front courtyard, mater bedroom patio, office patio, 4 along the back of the house, back deck, and low voltage in the front & backyard (dimmable too).

Since these are on for many of hours, dimming allows the benefit of some cost savings (for your frugal side), but also allows for more light by ramping up to full when triggered by motion or us arriving home (RFID). For the majority of the time, they are only on from 20-30%.

Visitors are always intrigued that the outside lights automatically brighten as they are walking of the front path towards the gate.

If you are interested in using scenes, I may caution you from using the ICON switches as the immediate change in brightness can be quite startling. For instance, we use some scenes nightly for cooking, dining, clean-up & TV time. These scenes control a total of 7 different lighting groups spread between the kitchen and living room.

With the Switchlinc switches and a 2-2.5sec fade... the transition of these lighting scenes is nice and soothing. As an experiment, I set all these switches to the .1 sec ramp rate which is default on the ICON line. Without the fading, the scene changes were startling and actually made some visitors jump as they tried to figure out what was happening!

Cheers,
Paul
 
I have a few cases where relays are next to dimmers. I also have a few icon's but am using them in the garage and basement.

There is a consistency in the full versions. Frankly the icon design (light on switch is off when the light is on) and the green light is very different I would not consider using them side by side (or frankly in the primary areas). I do not have your issue of an insanely large house.

The ramp rate is a good point, as the quick transition is among the first things I change.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm doing my ordering now...at this moment trying to decide how many alien-green icons to buy (hey, has anyone explored what it would take to swap out that green led for something different...I'm sure it would take a willingness to void a warranty, but what else?)

I'm going to get a USB "Powerlinc" interface so I can use powerhome to link the switches. It took a while to find these things, as for some perverse reason they aren't organized with other Insteon devices - almost as though they are being hidden on purpose? Then it took a while to figure out the different pricing (the 2814 UB is 49.99 and has no auxilliary plug; the 2414U at $59.99 DOES - otherwise I think they are the same?)

I'm considering paying the $99 for the developers kit which I guess includes the 2414U + a lamplinc + ACCESS TO A WEBSITE. If I'm not likely to be doing any development is the additional information and access worth $10? Any thoughts here?
 
Mike said:
I also have a few icon's but am using them in the garage and basement.

There is a consistency in the full versions. Frankly the icon design (light on switch is off when the light is on) and the green light is very different I would not consider using them side by side (or frankly in the primary areas).
Click to expand...
I have a few ICON as well, but I am using them in places they can't be seen such as the furnace room, attic, crawlspace etc. And the reason I am using ICON vs. regular switches is so I can have an ALL OFF button and not have to worry about them getting left on.

And now the ICON's are going to have 2 different LED colors. Don't understand that one a bit. :)
 
tanstaaf1 said:
I'm considering paying the $99 for the developers kit which I guess includes the 2414U + a lamplinc + ACCESS TO A WEBSITE. If I'm not likely to be doing any development is the additional information and access worth $10? Any thoughts here?
Click to expand...

The developer's kit is mostly to gain "official" access to the forum and support channels (you can ask questions to the Smartlabs people although with some of them participating here, this might be less of an exclusive advantage). It also allows you to create a product that you could share/sell with their official blessing in calling it "Insteon compatible". I ordered the kit mainly to play around and learn, even though I'm not really considering changing my own home to Insteon technology. X10 is working just fine for me and I'm also of a frugal nature...

I ordered a couple of Icon dimmers along with the kit and from examining them, I don't think you could replace the LED very easily. The switch is well assembled but it looks like you would risk breaking the leads to the triac (which is riveted in) by removing the circuit board.
 
Guy Lavoie said:
I ordered a couple of Icon dimmers along with the kit and from examining them, I don't think you could replace the LED very easily. The switch is well assembled but it looks like you would risk breaking the leads to the triac (which is riveted in) by removing the circuit board.
Click to expand...
Hehe, this is (one of many) reasons you are my idol. I was wondering how long it would take you to tear into these things!! :)
 
Ok, so since you also seem interested in my poking around...:) The triac in an Icon is a BTA12-600, which is rated at 12 amps! so the triac itself would not be a constraint for the 300 watt rating of an Icon switch. With proper heatsinking and ventilation, this triac could switch 1000 watts. The nominal 600 watt rating of most switch brands is probably due to the small heat sinking area available and the rather confined space that a wall switch is installed in, hence the de-rating when you have many of them in a multi-gang box.
 
Herdfan said:
And now the ICON's are going to have 2 different LED colors. Don't understand that one a bit. :)
Click to expand...
Uh. Seriously? Or is one color "dark" and one green?

Anyway, I placed my order and got, I think, 46 icons. MY plan is to replace those ugly white LED lightbars on the Insteon switches and put in some "alien green" ones. Of course, I won't call them "alien green", I'll call them "amber". B)
 
Just to confuse theing. I have early Icon relay and dimmer switches. Both have green leds. Smarthome changed the relays to Amber.
 
Here some random thoughts on the Icon line:

I have been using Icon modules exclusively and am very happy with them. I just ordered my first V2 dimmer (1000W), and really wish I could have stuck with Icons. I prefer the "simpler" look due to fewer LEDs.

I expected to hate the reversed LED logic (night light), but I quickly grew to like it.

I am able to set ramp rates/local levels on the dimmers, even though they say they don't have this feature.

The dimmers look to be 600W, the same as V2.

My first batch of Relays had the same green LED as the dimmer, but my last relay is yellow/amber (yuck!)

Overall, I think the Icon line is fantastic. The price point really brings home automation to a reasonable level. And the functionality for that price is way higher than my old X10 junk switches. Two thumbs up for Insteon!

Chris
 
Yeah, I just got off the phone with them. They are also changing the dimmers to amber but greens are still available....

At this point, I guess I need to see which ones we have in stock. I suspect a mixture of the two.

What's everyone's preference on the color?
 
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