Transitioning from X10, advice?

[kwilcox]

X10/Insteon and UPB have never interfered with each other in my (extensive) experience btw. They are just way too different in terms of how they modulate the powerline signal. By example, I just installed a TED5000 which trashed my X10 devices (as expected). However, it had no impact whatsoever on my UPB installation. Insteon devices were slightly impacted (status repies sometimes time out).

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

My vote would certainly be for the UPB. No, it's not twice the price of Insteon, it's only about 10-15% more.

Also, a big factor - You have an HAI system.... HAI does not support Insteon.

UPB is the clear winner for this case.

 

[Mr Spock]

Also, a big factor - You have an HAI system.... HAI does not support Insteon.

I did not know this. Does the Elk M1G support Insteon?

 

[pete_c]

I still have a mix on the HAI OPII; with it speaking X10, UPB and Z-Wave today. I have been migrating all of the wall switches over to UPB from Insteon. External appliance modules / lamp modules are mostly all Z-Wave today with now a sprinkle of UPB. I do have the OPII talking X10 to the Insteon switches and the Homeseer software talking Insteon to the same switches. I do have an XTB amplifier on the X10 PIM and UPB repeater. No issues at this time.

 

[apostolakisl]

I did not know this.  Does the Elk M1G support Insteon?

Yes, very well.  With an XSP unit, Elk directly controls and responds to Insteon.  It is a little clunky however.  If you wanted to supercharge your Elk system and have top notch integration, get the ISY unit and the Elk module for it.  The ISY has vastly more programming space and flexibility and the Elk integration module for it is about 99% integrated.  In other words, you could pretty much never write an Elk rule, you could do it all in ISY with a much nicer and vastly more powerful programming ability.
Zones: ISY is aware of status of all zones (normal, violated, bypass, touble, etc).  Voltages by query.
Outputs: ISY has real time status and control of all of them
Keypads: ISY has real time monitoring of all keypad info including button presses and temp (and it can use that temp to set programs which native Elk rules can not).  It also can send messages to the screen and turn function buttons on/off.
System Status: ISY knows the status of the system (ready to arm, force armable, not ready, alarming (burglar/fire/etc), and so forth.
System State: ISY can arm/disarm the system into any state.
Thermostats: I believe they are fully integrated (don't have one to test but the menu items are there)
Sound System: Same story as thermostatsSpeak: ISY can have Elk speak the same as Elk native rules.
What it doesn't do:
Tasks: Can not directly trigger a task.  Requires using a "phantom" output as intermediary.
Counters: ISY has no way of knowing what a counter value might be.  You would use ISY's own "counter" system.
Custom Settings: ISY doesn't know what they are set to.  But you would never need them anyway as ISY has its own set of variables.

 

[bdeshazer]

Thanks again for all the feedback. I learned a few things, but for the most part everyone re-inforced my own thoughts and it appears UPB is in my future. Now it's just a matter of creating a spreadsheet to match up replacements and assign priorities...

One thing kwilcox mentioned above that I hadn't seen discussed was his TED5000 interfering with his X10 devices. I have been considering the Brultech ECM-1240 or their new GreenEye monitor when it is released (depending on the details of it's operation/interface), is this something I should be concerned about with these devices?

 

[batwater]

When you dive in to UPB consider getting 2 Computer Interface Modules. One for your automation system and one to use for programming (and as a spare.) Having the 2nd CIM strictly for programming definitely makes life much easier.

I'm nearly done with eliminating X-10 power line modules (still using x-10 RF) in my home, UPB has been rock solid for me.

As an aside reference for those still using X-10, I found one of the signal gremlins that was "randomly" killing X-10 from working in my home. Turns out that the monitor (remote status console) we have for our LG washer and dryer was killing the X-10 signal. It too utilizes the power line to send the info from the washer and dryer to the console hence the random work / not work. Wasn't really random, just wasn't noticing the correlation of laundry activity and X-10 not working, drove me nuts for many months, enough to finally trip the trigger to move on (wife was getting pretty upset that her closet light wouldn't turn on when it was supposed to.)

-Ben

 

[kwilcox]

...One thing kwilcox mentioned above that I hadn't seen discussed was his TED5000 interfering with his X10 devices. I have been considering the Brultech ECM-1240 or their new GreenEye monitor when it is released (depending on the details of it's operation/interface), is this something I should be concerned about with these devices?

TED uses the powerline to transmit data from the MTU which sits in the panel out to the gateway. Since mtu is enclosed by metal, it can't use wireless. The idea here was to make installation simple/flexible but the downside is X10 interference. It doesn't look like Brultech uses this strategy. Installation may be more complicated however since it appears that you will be hardwiring from the CTs.

 

[bdeshazer]

TED uses the powerline to transmit data from the MTU which sits in the panel out to the gateway. Since mtu is enclosed by metal, it can't use wireless. The idea here was to make installation simple/flexible but the downside is X10 interference. It doesn't look like Brultech uses this strategy. Installation may be more complicated however since it appears that you will be hardwiring from the CTs.

Great, sounds like I'll be ok then, thanks for the follow-up! The extra complications from the installation are not a concern.

 

[Mr Spock]

The Brultech ECM-1240 uses either a 2.4GHz Zigbee link or hardwired RS232 serial between your PC and the data collection unit. Depends on the model you order. I've had the Zigbee unit for about 2 years and its worked great. I love the fact it has a pulse counter on the AUX5 input for my water meter.

Getting the data integrated into your HA system could be the difficult part. As I currently use HomeSeer there is a HS plug-in from TenHolder (TenECMserver) that works pretty good. Gives me a graph of my usage over the last 24 hours. However it appears Brultech's integration with other HA systems is non existent.

 

[batwater]

CQC has a driver for the Brultech

-Ben

 

[kwilcox]

One if the reasons I went with the TED was its built-in logging/history and the ability to communicate with third party sites like myEnerSave. FWIW, I did a pretty complete writeup on my blog as a part of this post:

Smart Meters and the Smart Grid

 

[bdeshazer]

One if the reasons I went with the TED was its built-in logging/history and the ability to communicate with third party sites like myEnerSave. FWIW, I did a pretty complete writeup on my blog as a part of this post:

Smart Meters and the Smart Grid

Cool write-up, well done and good info.

I am a totally anti-cloud/anti-service kind of guy, I want my HA systems self-contained and the data as raw as possible and I'll either use existing open-source tools or create my own interfaces to store, access and view the data.

Not arguing with anyone whose philosophy differs (at least not in this thread anyway, lol), just stating my personal preferences.

 

[bdeshazer]

The Brultech ECM-1240 uses either a 2.4GHz Zigbee link or hardwired RS232 serial between your PC and the data collection unit. Depends on the model you order. I've had the Zigbee unit for about 2 years and its worked great. I love the fact it has a pulse counter on the AUX5 input for my water meter.

Getting the data integrated into your HA system could be the difficult part. As I currently use HomeSeer there is a HS plug-in from TenHolder (TenECMserver) that works pretty good. Gives me a graph of my usage over the last 24 hours. However it appears Brultech's integration with other HA systems is non existent.

I'll probably go with the serial-connected version myself... I have a 16-port serial board on my HA server that connects most of my devices.

I'm an old hand at disecting data streams and integrating them, either by directly communicating with the devices when possible or (less desirable) screen-scraping html or other interface pages as needed, shouldn't be a problem...

I plan on installing a water meter with pulse-output myself, although whether I use the counter built in to the Brultech, use a counter device on my 1-wire network or something more custom will be something I'll decide after playing around with it a bit...

 

[kwilcox]

...I am a totally anti-cloud/anti-service kind of guy, I want my HA systems self-contained and the data as raw as possible and I'll either use existing open-source tools or create my own interfaces to store, access and view the data...

Well I can certainly understand that. Have fun with it!