UPB or Insteon?

[upstatemike]

How many floors will the house be? The answer to that will also tell us how accessable the walls will be later.

Still working on the plans but that is something I am definitely keeping in mind. It will be a 2-story house but not necessarily 2 stories of straight up walls ... more like a 12:12 roof with game room and some bedrooms carved out of the attic space.

But we're early in the planning stages so we'll see how that goes. It's being custom designed from the ground up so we can do whatver we want to.

One clever approach would be to design a split level home with an "equipment floor" sandwiched between the upper and lower levels to simplify wire runs. This would give you plenty of room and the existence of the equipment area would not be immediately obvious. Maybe you could even keep your spouse from finding out about it.

 

[Madcodger]

I have the hardwired Lightolier Multiset Pro system in several rooms - Probably about 20 - 25 circuits in all, installed by the previous owner. I have to say that they are 100% rock solid reliable, but I haven't found a reliable and reasonably cost-effective way to interface them to my Homeseer machine, but less my Elk.

I also had many X10 switchlincs which I've been switching out to Insteon. Martin and I discussed UPB and I know he prefers it, but I still can't justify the price difference. I've been very happy with my Insteon so far, EXCEPT FOR THE MISLABELING THAT OCCURS IN EITHER THE ICON LITERATURE OR ON THE SWITCHES!!! (Sorry about that shouting, but I hope our friend from SmartLabs sees that and does something about the load ratings being wrong in one of those two places...).

Anyway, I looked at pretty much everything out there, including more hard wiring, and decided on Insteon. My next step is probably to switch the Multiset Pro stuff out for Insteon unless Martin and I can think of a reasonable way to interface all those Multiset circuits / switches to my HS machine.

Good luck with building the house. Should be fun.

 

[SmartLabsMike]

I also had many X10 switchlincs which I've been switching out to Insteon. Martin and I discussed UPB and I know he prefers it, but I still can't justify the price difference. I've been very happy with my Insteon so far, EXCEPT FOR THE MISLABELING THAT OCCURS IN EITHER THE ICON LITERATURE OR ON THE SWITCHES!!! (Sorry about that shouting, but I hope our friend from SmartLabs sees that and does something about the load ratings being wrong in one of those two places...).

Glad you have been happy with your INSTEON-Enabled products - we have been happy too.

You are correct that the ICON documentation is slightly different than the labels. Product labels are good in the short term, but manuals and quick start guides are always more accurate in the long run. Lots of smart people on cocoontech have come to good conclusions on why this is.

 

[djeyes]

Hey Randy,
I've been looking at lighting controls over the last several weeks for my new 2400 sf house. Most pros are recommending hardwired systems for new construction due to their reliability. I looked into Lutron HomeWorks, very robust, very flexible and very expensive. For a house my size, I was quoted $8-10 per sf
I was turned on to CentralLite LiteJet and it seems to be similar to HomeWorks but much less in cost. Each individual light switch will be home run with CAT5E to a central brain usually located next to the electric panel. The brain will then control the lights. The system is sold as a 24 load processor, therefore enabling 24 scenes to be created. You may then add 12 loads increments to the system. I am planning a 36-48 load system and I was quoted approx. $8000 max. I'll get my exact proposal next week. Good Luck your land is breathtaking.
John

 

[gregoryx]

I've put in about 48 Insteon switches in my house so far - just a few more to go.

I have used the Dimmers, 1000W Dimmers, KeypadLinc Dimmers, and Icon Relay switches.

I had originally planned to go UPB; the Simply Automated stuff is just TOO cool!

I considered Z-Wave, but the keypad stuff for UPB & Insteon just looks too cool... maybe there are some of those now, but there didn't seem to be when I first looked.

I went with the Insteon over UPB for one reason: states on keypads.

It's true that the programming is a nightmare right now - a time-consuming mess. It's also true that the "LED colors" are rather DIY'er more than the ultra-pro look of the Simply Automated stuff.

Still... being able to have a lighted button on a keypad in the master bedroom accurately reflect the state of a light in the garage or of the coffee-maker is a very nice thing. I do not have a way to link the open/close of the garage door or other such things at this point (waiting for my Elk XSP and the full support on HS ), but I can see where this will be pretty straight-forward to do as these things come into place. I don't see any way to do that with the other similar products.

I have a number of lighting environments I have set up that use this advantage: a keypad light accurately represents the light-state of a light or other device that you may or may not be able to see from the switch location.

Quality-wise, they've been "okay"... I've had two outright failures and one "funky" switch.

Accuracy-wise, they were also "okay"... until I clued in and actually played with the location of my RFLincs. Since that day, they have been 100% accurate as well as VERY fast.

For those who don't know it, these things are so fast and accurate that 3-way switches no longer involve a "traveller" line: they just signal each other and you can not tell which holds the load. No kidding.

I'm pleased.

Sure, it'd have been cool if they were all Switch/Keypad interchangeable, like the Simply Automated stuff... really cool... but I can wire-nut with the best of them at this point.

For the historians, these replaced my Switchlinc X10s, which were really attractive (IMNSHO), but the X10 stuff went to hell with the number of transmitters I had. I'm SO glad they're all gone now. :lol:

I'd encourage anyone considering the Insteon to try a couple out. I've been pleased with them thus far.

 

[wuench]

Randy,
You might want to check the Electrical codes for your area. I don't think your allowed to have low voltage (cat5) and electrical wires in the same jbox.

This is true everywhere that I know of. That CAT5 needs to be outside of the electrical box, or you need a separator in the box itself (if allowed by code).

If you look at a lot of the wired solutions they have various tricky installation methods to get around this.

I actually have one of those micro-voltage switches going to my natural gas fireplace in a double jbox with a 120v switch. Just one loose wire away from disaster. Guess the inspector missed that one (or got paid for it). Haven't figured out what I am going to do with that yet, in the meantime I got in and wrapped the switch with electrical tape....

 

[wuench]

One other point on UPB vs Insteon pricing. If you have a lot of 3-way/mult-way switches then the pricing may actually work out to be close. Because Insteon requires you to buy a full switch in each location and UPB sells slave switches.

That being said, I have started to install Insteon because the UPB slow response issues scared me off. And I like the look of the Insteons better, especially aftering changing the light pipes to blue.

As far as the 2-way issues. The switches are 2-way, it is local notification that is lacking becuase SH decided not to implement those commands in the protocol. This is requiring a lot of extra work for the developers. Powerhome and HS have fixed it. Also, there are some improvements in PLC speed and reliability that need to occur. But these are mostly growing pains for a new product. Utilities like UPStart should be popping up soon.

I would strongly encourage anyone that is considering installing hundreds or thousands of dollars in Insteon switches to get the SDK first. Then you can research the issues on that forum and decide for yourself. Consider it $99 in insurance...

 

[gregoryx]

Other than participating in the SDK forum, is there any value in the SDK toolkit if one is not a programmer?

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Other than participating in the SDK forum, is there any value in the SDK toolkit if one is not a programmer?

Well, the hardware that you get with the SDK alone is worth about $75, so its only costing you an extra $25 to have access to the developer group.

 

[fitzpatri8]

One other point on UPB vs Insteon pricing. If you have a lot of 3-way/mult-way switches then the pricing may actually work out to be close. Because Insteon requires you to buy a full switch in each location and UPB sells slave switches.

If you don't mind mixing LED display types, you can always substitute an Icon dimmer to bring down the price of a 3-way setup.

Even using two Insteon Dimmer switches, what you forgot to mention is that the Insteon price advantage is even better if you want 3-way function in a location not wired for 3-way.

 

[elcano]

Randy,
You might want to check the Electrical codes for your area. I don't think your allowed to have low voltage (cat5) and electrical wires in the same jbox.

So how the CentraLite LiteJet and other hardwired lightning controls overcome this limitation? How do you install a simple AC relay (controlled via low voltage)?

 

[rocco]

With LiteJet, all switches are low voltage, and all lights are 110vac. The low voltage switch wiring goes back to a relay panel, typically near your breaker panel, where the 110vac lighting circuits are switched. In the relay panel, high voltage and low voltage are separated. It's just a modern version of the GE and Touch-Plate low-voltage systems from the 40s, 50s and 60s.

A drawback to the system is that all light wiring has to home-run back to the relay panel, and not to the switch. This can be pretty Romex-intensive in a large house. It also makes it impractical as a retrofit.

The advantage is that the switches can be re-programmed for different lights.

 

[electron]

What about OnQ, how do they work around this?

 

[elcano]

In the relay panel, high voltage and low voltage are separated.

So in summary, the relay has a physical barrier that separates the low voltage contacts from the high voltage contacts.

So how should I install a 12VDC relay rated for controlling 250VAC? What kind of enclosure do you use? Could anybody share how do you do it?

I installed a relay in a PC board and case, with the low voltage entering by one side of the case and the AC lines entering by the other side. I then covered all soldered contacts with epoxy, so the relay module is electrically insulated and permanently wired. Low and high voltage wires going out of the home made module are then connected to junction gang boxes each one dedicated to AC or DC.

Is this compliant? Does the epoxy make the trick of the physical barrier?

 

[RandyKnight]

Ok so I placed another order from AutmatedOutlet for some Insteon stuff. I figured I should get some hands on with both before I make my decision.