Test INSTEON now or wait?

dscline,

Even if the cost of manufacturing an Insteon dimmer is the same as manufacturing an X10 dimmer I would not expect the two to be at the same price for several reasons;


  • R&D Cost - SmartHome spent several years developing a completely new protocol from scratch. This is not free. The financed this R&D as a capital investments and theymust recoup this investment in every device that they build. On the other hand, the R&D for development of the X10 protocol paid out decades ago.
  • Marketing Initiative Cost - Driving the advertising for a new protocol costs a lot. You have to build alliances, give training, pay advertising companies. THis is a huge investment. You dont have to do any of this with X10, as most of the DIY public is already aware about it.
  • Value Proposition - This is business. If your product offers a better value, the you have the right of commanding a higer price (to get a higher profit) - even if the production cost is the same. Thats why we pay higher for a\the newest Gillete razor.
The Insteon/Icon dilemma have been seen in the CPU industry for years were Intel would just disable part of the cache of a processor to sell to the price consious market. They say, 'dont buy to my competitor, I can make a cheaper product for you, just dont expect to get the same value that those who are paying full price'.

This dont necessarily justify the price increases. I'm also very annoyed about it. Actually, after seen the SimplyAutomated evaluation package I'm back considering UPB again. I might do a small investment in UPB now and reevaluate all the technologies again in two/three years.
 
OK,

I certainly am not speaking for Smarthome here but, let's make sure we compare apples to apples.

Insteon can't build a switch that is anywhere near price competitive with X10?
Click to expand...
I don't think that this is really a fair statement. What are you comparing it to? X10 manufacturered items? I think we all know the features, functionality, and the look and feel of those switches. I think a fairer comparison would be to compare it to other "2-way" x10 capable switches that have the same features as the Insteon switches.

Insteon switches priced in the $40s are still about $20 cheaper than any previously available X10 2-way switch. That IS a hugh price reduction. Even the Smarthome Version 1 switchlincs were $60+ and the Leviton, Lightolier, and PCS 2-way switches were at least that much if not more.

I'm all for prices going down but let's be fair here in the comparisons.
 
My .02 cents.

First, the price increase may be due to the face that copper has risen substantially, The cost of electrical wire as trippled in the last 4 months.

Second, I don't think Insteon will be ready for the average homeowner. Reason. They are to difficult to setup with all the linking. If the homeowner did get them to work and had a 6 button in wall controller (having a brain fart, can't remember the name of the 6 button devices), aqnd has them linked to switches, and one of thoes switches goes bad. Do you honestly think the average homeowner will want to factory reset all involved devices and then relink them to replace a defective device. I think not.

I am not bashing Insteon, just my opinion.

My experience with Insteon. I have 8 Icon switches and 1 Icon relay. Not a lot, however, I have not had any failed devices. I only control incandesent lights, and a fan (relay). Thing have worked very well for me. There are some timing issues with Insteon that I have experiecned but not a show stopper. If you turn on 2 devices at the same time or very close to the same time, one of thoes devices will not fire, there has to be some delay in between.
 
Yes, I understand there is R&D recoup, additional features compared to X10, etc. etc. etc. But the point is, X10 is 30 year old technology. That is a long LONG time for a tech item. The features shouldn't even be a part of the comparison. If we want to talk about what Intel does, lets look at the speed, features, and cost of today's CPUs compared to 30 years ago. Not a whole lot to compare to... let's half that and go back "only" 15 years. Adjusting for inflation, what was the price/features of a 25" TV 30 years ago compared to today? When new players come on board (AMD, Samsung, etc.), they don't survive by pricing high until they've recouped their R&D.

If we're going to have lower featured versions available, that's what I'd consider the current switches to be: they don't have RF. Adding RF is a legitimate reason for a higher cost version. True, Insteon is similarly priced to 2-way X10 modules, which is a better comparison, but look what a niche product that is.

My point is simply that their current pricing structure is going to limit their sales. I'm ready to move away from X10. Technology certainly should make it possible to build much better devices at similar prices. But personally, I just don't think it will ever become widespread enough at the current prices. I don't want to invest in something that's not going to take off. If they want to recoup their R&D costs, they can do that much easier if they sell many millions of these, not thousands. At the current pricing level, they will never sell enough of them to recoup their costs. They will always be expensive, because they'll always be a low volume product.
 
TCassio said:
Do you honestly think the average homeowner will want to factory reset all involved devices and then relink them to replace a defective device. I think not.
Click to expand...
You do not need to do a factory reset if you use PowerHome. Anybody who has more than 6 Insteon devices should be using PowerHome. Smarthome says you need to purchase a pair of SignaLincs for every Insteon installation but they are not as important as installing PowerHome.

If you are paying $25 per switch and you buy PowerHome you are still better off than if you had to pay $45 dollars a switch and got a free setup utility.

Stop complaining about the linking process and just get PowerHome.
 
Thanks for some good feedback guys! It really helps to see opinions from people with real-world experience.

My issue is this:
In the next 1-2 months we are going to have to put in some type of switches. Whether this is a regular dimmer switch(non automated), INSTEON, or UPB, it has to be something. It seems as though the general concensus is INSTEON is not ready for large applications. (This could all change with the new PowerHome ELK interface)
The issue with UPB is the price. So I am stuck in a bad situation. Do I get regular dimmers ($20-30 each) and upgrade over time? The downside to this is that once I upgrade all of them, I lost a significant investment in those dimmers.

Do I go with INSTEON and hope the problems are resolved on the software/management side?

Do I kill the budget and spend 4x more on switches then we planned?
 
Why not get Icon dimmers at $25 and use them as stand-alone dimmers for now? If you decide to go with Insteon you are done. If you decide to go with something else, you don't lose any more than you would have buying non-automated dimmers.
 
Mike,
I was not complaining about the linking. I was refering to the "Average Homeowner". Do you really think the "Average Homeowner" is going to learn Powerhome?
 
If you are just using the Insteon menus it is a lot easier than trying to operate say a digital cable box. Definitely a lot easier than tap-tap linking.
 
ph0n33z said:
Thanks for some good feedback guys! It really helps to see opinions from people with real-world experience.

My issue is this:
In the next 1-2 months we are going to have to put in some type of switches. Whether this is a regular dimmer switch(non automated), INSTEON, or UPB, it has to be something. It seems as though the general concensus is INSTEON is not ready for large applications. (This could all change with the new PowerHome ELK interface)
The issue with UPB is the price. So I am stuck in a bad situation. Do I get regular dimmers ($20-30 each) and upgrade over time? The downside to this is that once I upgrade all of them, I lost a significant investment in those dimmers.

Do I go with INSTEON and hope the problems are resolved on the software/management side?

Do I kill the budget and spend 4x more on switches then we planned?
Click to expand...
I am not unhappy with my decision. If I were to do it over, I would still go with Insteon. I was, and still am patient on the software/management side. I got the basic automation working and will expand upon that later. For now, I like the switches, and they are reliable for control once I got it tweaked.

The prices are still cheap. You can hold out and hope they have a 25% off sale coming up (end of the quarter is drawing near....).

If you have issues with the switches, they will swap them out, although it seems that the later ones are holding out (at least from my limited experience). I would not get regular dimmers and upgrade, you then throw away the initial investment. Spend a little more and try Insteon, then if you decide you really need something better, then at least you have tried the cost effective option and if you choose to throw away the initial investment, you know what you want/need.

My two cents... Off to call smarthome and RMA what I hope to be my last returned insteon switch (from my initial batch near the beginning).
 
upstatemike said:
Why not get Icon dimmers at $25 and use them as stand-alone dimmers for now? If you decide to go with Insteon you are done. If you decide to go with something else, you don't lose any more than you would have buying non-automated dimmers.
Click to expand...
That sounds like the most logical solution yet! Since the ICONS work just fine as dimmers, there is no real reason not to do it. I like the look of them, and they are the same price.

I have researched on smarthome's site, and I am trying to figure out the differences between the ICONS and the Switchlinc's. I see that the ICON's handle only 300watts. compared to the 600w. I have also heard something about them being delayed in turning on the lights? Also have heard that they cannot do as many scenes. I just want to makre sure I know the limitations of them.
 
of course the cheap HAL UPB switches are still a viable option. They are priced at $35 each, so its not a huge step up from the ICONS. It all just depends on the budget.
 
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