Ready to give up on Insteon Thermostats- Alternatives?

[relay]

I am getting a bit frustrated with my Insteon thermostats. I have 3 of them and I have them mostly locally programmed for day/nite changes but I like to use my iPhone with eKeypad to remotely control them some times. Pretty much since day one, after some number of days has passed, the thermostats stop responding to any Insteon commands, either by my iPhone or the ISY99i that controls the Ineteon network. I have the go around and physically unplug the Insteon modules from the thermostats and then plug them back in to get them working again.
Unfortunatly, it seems that every time I really need the control, it's just not there.
I have seen other reports that indicate that this happens quite a bit with these thermostats.
My Insteon lighting is fairly stable and works well with the ISY99i. The thermostats continue to work fine as basic programmable thermostats when this happens.

Is this how it goes with these? If so, what direction should I take to replace these?
Currently I have an Elk M1 with M1XEP for alarm use, ISY99i for Insteon, about a dozen Insteon switches and eKeypad Pro tying it together for me on my phone.
I also have a relative recent version of Homeseer Pro that I have not gotten around to playing with.

Based on what I have and want, any ideas what direction for thermostat control I should head in?
Price is a concern and I really don't want to spend $1000 for 3 thermostats if I don't have to.
I can easily get under my house and wire for serial to new thermostats but the serial ones are really expensive, although I could wire them directly to the Elk using the Elk module but how to control for iPhone?

How about zwave using Homeseer Pro as control?

Other options?

Thanks for all your help!!!!!!!

 

[az1324]

Do you have v1 or v2? This happened with v1 but v2 is very reliable in my experience.

 

[BLH]

There are threads in the UDI forums on V2 adapters locking up and sometimes killing the network.
There is a Smarthome Engineer doing tests and has verified the adapters have a problem. A new beta firmware for the adapter is now in testing.

 

[az1324]

Interesting. I haven't had them (3) lock up ever and they've been installed over a year. I guess whatever the cause it's not part of my network/firmware. I do have the humidity sensor pads soldered together since there is no sensor in the model I have.

 

[bbruck]

I've had a v1 and now a v2 for years with nary a problem, but YMMV and obviously did! Unfortunately when my attic unit went out and I replaced it with a Carrier ultra, they threw out one of my venstars (sigh), and it would cost about $1,000 to get the carrier home automation interface. Bummer.

If you're looking for alternatives, have you seen the new venstar models? I think they are out now but am not positive.

 

[relay]

I have had them less than a year. When did V.2 come out? I will pull one off the wall and take a look.

Bill, my Carrier had a propritary control board on the unit. I smooth talked the local distributor into selling me a new control board that allowed my to use regular thermostats. It was only about $100.

 

[relay]

All 3 are v 2.0 adapters.

 

[chedemefedeme]

I'm using an Elk M1G and have a virtually perfect thermostat control setup.

I'm using a HAI Omnistat (version 1 cause it was cheaper but the new V2 looks awesome). It is an intelligent termostat with RS-232 serial control ability. I'm using a serial port expander for the Elk to address it. This is an officially supported configuration by Elk and it works 98% flawlessly. Since it has nothing to do with my Insteon lighting (which works great cause I keep my Insteon network STRICTLY for lighting) the lighting works great and the termostat work great..and on the rare occasion one fails it doesn't take out the other.

The only issue I have that causes me to knock off 2% of the reliability is that 2% of the time the thermostat simply fails to get a command from the Elk. I don't know if the Elk fails to send it in the fury of things I have it do upon arm/disarm or if the thermostat misses the command. This could very well be a slightly bad connection I wired up to it also. I've 100% solved this by writing a rule that causes the Elk to simply repeat the command to the thermostat 30 seconds after issuing it the first time.

It's a reasonably affordable setup and works totally reliably. I'd certainly use this compared to the issues I've heard with Insteon thermos. I love insteon but I wouldn't use it for any sensing/advanced-control capabilities. I use it strictly for lighting and dumb appliance control and it works perfect. Anything beyond that is probably a bit beyond its capability and something 232 or 485 serial controllable will be 200% more reliable.

 

[jaysonc]

I am also personally a fan of serially connected thermostats.

For my personal use I use two RCS RS-485 thermostats connected to an Elk M1 XSP. This setup has worked without issue for over 4 years now. The only issue I have encountered was a controller board failure that RCS replaced under warranty.

With this level of reliability I have not even been tempted to consider changing them. Even though I have a Venstar thermostat for eKeypad testing.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

I like the hardwired best too but I am starting to play with the ZigBee tstats in my house.