RandyKnight
Active Member
That is the question with which I am faced. I need to decide how to do my lighting control for my new house post haste. My current home is a mixture of Insteon and UPB (mostly Insteon) and it works fine. But with new construction it's awfully tempting to go for the extra reliability of a hardwired solution like ALC or CentraLite, etc.
The main reason I'd like to do this is so that I could really put the loads out of the way and get rid of the wall acne once and for all, controlling everything with keypads, touchscreens, etc. While I could do that with PLC, those few times they don't work make me a bit nervous. At least now, with Insteon, if a command doesn't work, you can always walk over to the real switch and hit it. Not an option if you place switches out of the way in closets, etc.
With hardwired, the question then becomes, do I go with home run or standard topology for the HV. What about LV to the switches. One though I had was to run Cat5 to the switches regardless (or at least in the vicinity), go ahead and put in Insteon but have an upgrade path for the future.
Or what about putting a bank of Insteon load controlling switches in closets, etc. in each room. So you don't have them all over the place, but they're accessible if a keypad doesn't work.
Decisions, decisions.
I realize most people here use PLC of one type or another. But is that mainly due to retrofit or have you consciously chosen that over hardwired. If so, why?
The main reason I'd like to do this is so that I could really put the loads out of the way and get rid of the wall acne once and for all, controlling everything with keypads, touchscreens, etc. While I could do that with PLC, those few times they don't work make me a bit nervous. At least now, with Insteon, if a command doesn't work, you can always walk over to the real switch and hit it. Not an option if you place switches out of the way in closets, etc.
With hardwired, the question then becomes, do I go with home run or standard topology for the HV. What about LV to the switches. One though I had was to run Cat5 to the switches regardless (or at least in the vicinity), go ahead and put in Insteon but have an upgrade path for the future.
Or what about putting a bank of Insteon load controlling switches in closets, etc. in each room. So you don't have them all over the place, but they're accessible if a keypad doesn't work.
Decisions, decisions.
I realize most people here use PLC of one type or another. But is that mainly due to retrofit or have you consciously chosen that over hardwired. If so, why?