To hardwire or not to hardwire

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?
 
If you have the money, hardwired is very tempting! I wonder what it would be like having 100 percent reliability everytime you sent on on signal to a light, not having to worry about what you are plugging into your home's electrical system, etc...
 
I use UPB and to date have never had a missed communication transaction. However, it is tempting to get rid of the switches and use touchscreens - but I imagine that would get very expensive for each room...
 
Even just a multi-button keypad for each room without all the switches would be very cool. The hardwired home run systems are very tempting for that reason alone.
 
bfisher said:
I use UPB and to date have never had a missed communication transaction.  However, it is tempting to get rid of the switches and use touchscreens - but I imagine that would get very expensive for each room...
Yea, I was just waiting for someone to post a reply like this (was actually expecting someone else to post how they "never" missed an X-10 command).

If you have a "perfect" system I envy your luck. You are in the minority and should thank the automation gods for being so "blessed". Please let us know what small animals needed to be sacrificed to achieve such a blessing. :angry:

All kidding aside, power line technology is not perfect and is prone to various conditions that are not the same for each household (noise for instance). If you have the money you might want to investigate wired systems.

I have an X-10 system in my house and it is probably reliable in the 90 percent range, but it was a chore getting there. It required using a signal analyzer, going through the house getting rid of signal sucks, placing filters, getting a good coupler, etc... Plus everytime I plug something new into the house I wonder what influence it will have on my system.

The number ONE problem I have seen people have on this forum is problems with their power line automation systems. Be it UPB, Insteon, X-10, nothing will be as reliable as hard wired.

If I was doing a new build and money was not an object, I would get a hardwired system. It all comes down to how much money you want to spend!
 
BraveSirRobbin said:
If I was doing a new build and money was not an object, I would get a hardwired system. It all comes down to how much money you want to spend!
If I was doing a new build and money was not an object, I would not use hardwired or PLC. I would put mechanical linkages inside of conduit runs and operate the switches via little servo motors.

Nothing says automation like a good old fashioned toggle switch that actually moves up and down by itself.
 
If budget permits, I would hardwire my switches as well, I would probably go with a system which is compatible with either the HAI or Elk M1. You get 100% reliability, and you can't beat the response time. That said, my UPB setup is 100% reliable, and it does respond fast for a PLC technology.
 
RandyKnight said:
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.
While I like the ideal of touchscreens and such, you should consider the reaction of potential buyers of the house in the future. Not everyone will see the elegance in that solution (gasp!). Just a thought.
 
electron said:
If budget permits, I would hardwire my switches as well, I would probably go with a system which is compatible with either the HAI or Elk M1. You get 100% reliability, and you can't beat the response time. That said, my UPB setup is 100% reliable, and it does respond fast for a PLC technology.
My understanding is that the On-Q ALC is native compatible with the Elk. Need to find out for sure. Not sure about Centralite or Lightolier Multiset. I lean towards the ALC because it uses "normal" HV wiring vs. home run. I imagine my electrical bid would go up substantially with home run.

Anybody know about the Elk and compatibility with the above systems?

BTW, in terms of budget, from looking online it looks like I'd be in the neighborhood of $65 - $100 per device, depending on which I go with. So it's not TOO far off of UPB pricing.
 
David (Elk) has told me before that the M1 supports the On-Q system, and that the price per switch was under $100. Hopefully someone else here can confirm this. If you do research this system, I would love to know how much this hardware really costs, since it does look pretty nice.
 
Since I'm still not completely satisfied with either Intsteon or UPB, I went ahead and ordered a few ALC devices to give that a shot. Gratned, I can't retrofit my existing home with them like I did the other two but I'll at least be able to put them on the bench, test the M1 integration, etc.

I ordered my stuff from basshome.com (only online source I could find for it) and the switches were all < $100 each. The total is a bit more than that due to the controller, serial interface, etc. but as the unit count of switches went up that would go down (the per unit price I mean). So I think a complete system would be well under $100 / unit. They've got $35 auxiliary switches like UPB so that bringst he cost down too.

I'll update this thread with my findings.
 
Definitely keep us posted. If retrofitting requires just a cat5 run to the switch area, then I think it isn't too bad of a job, especially if you have access to the attic or unfinished basement.
 
Will do. When I said I wouldn't retrofit, I meant becasue this house is my "lab" for the new house we'll be moving into in 6 months or so. So it wouldn't make sense to do it here.
 
Back
Top