Why UPB rocks!

[hucker]

We are planning to move into our new house next week. Electrical final is today/tomorrow and we wanted to add a couple of exterior spots. With UPB (or any of the other PLC systems, zwave, x10, insteon) all we needed to do was get to power with a switch placed anywhere convenient. We were able to easily add the UPB switches in a storage room and reprogram the switches by the entries to make it all work. The cost of this is a fraction of running wires directly to the switch used for control. Sheetrock, paint, lots of wire.... yuck!

For me, the flexibility of reconfiguring and adding is really the deal maker for UPB and it's ilk.

 

[MikeB]

We are planning to move into our new house next week. Electrical final is today/tomorrow and we wanted to add a couple of exterior spots. With UPB (or any of the other PLC systems, zwave, x10, insteon) all we needed to do was get to power with a switch placed anywhere convenient. We were able to easily add the UPB switches in a storage room and reprogram the switches by the entries to make it all work. The cost of this is a fraction of running wires directly to the switch used for control. Sheetrock, paint, lots of wire.... yuck!

For me, the flexibility of reconfiguring and adding is really the deal maker for UPB and it's ilk.

Definitely. We purchased our house 1/2 way through the building process. The great room above our garage by default is lit by a single ceiling fan/light. We didn't want the fan, but wanted recessed lights which the electrician wired up, and located the switch in the room.

However, I didn't think of asking them to wire up a light switch at the bottom of the strairs (6 or 7 stairs down) to enter the room. At that location there's only a single switch, wired to control the ceiling fan light (which we don't even have). It wasn't a huge deal, but an annoying oversight.

With Insteon, I was able to replace that switch and control my recessed lights with it. VERY easy compared to the alternative, and now that switch actually does something!

 

[Digger]

We are planning to move into our new house next week. Electrical final is today/tomorrow and we wanted to add a couple of exterior spots. With UPB (or any of the other PLC systems, zwave, x10, insteon) all we needed to do was get to power with a switch placed anywhere convenient. We were able to easily add the UPB switches in a storage room and reprogram the switches by the entries to make it all work. The cost of this is a fraction of running wires directly to the switch used for control. Sheetrock, paint, lots of wire.... yuck!

For me, the flexibility of reconfiguring and adding is really the deal maker for UPB and it's ilk.

Definitely. We purchased our house 1/2 way through the building process. The great room above our garage by default is lit by a single ceiling fan/light. We didn't want the fan, but wanted recessed lights which the electrician wired up, and located the switch in the room.

However, I didn't think of asking them to wire up a light switch at the bottom of the strairs (6 or 7 stairs down) to enter the room. At that location there's only a single switch, wired to control the ceiling fan light (which we don't even have). It wasn't a huge deal, but an annoying oversight.

With Insteon, I was able to replace that switch and control my recessed lights with it. VERY easy compared to the alternative, and now that switch actually does something!

Virtual Linking is DEFINITELY a major benifet of Insteon. It was one of the reasons I decided on the Insteon in the first place. Every protocal/hardware has its plus's and this is one of Insteons. It provides a lot more flexibility on existing construction.

 

[Event5]

On an UPB install I did last year, the guest house (100ft away from the main house) porch had can lights and carriage lights. I created a scene for the back yard that included those lights. The owners decided that they wanted to control the porch lights separately. I found a switch location in the main house (not used much locally) that had clear view of the guest house and setup that switch to control the 2 loads. On/off, dim and bright. It took about a minute in Upstart to change the switch to control those loads. Didn't have to touch any of the switches to make the changes.

Dave