insteon
Insteon, A Year Later.
Submitted by Steve on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 12:01am
Last year, I was struggling with upgrading my home automation hardware from fickle X10 to the latest/greatest, Insteon. While cleaning up the blog today I ran across a comment I'd made promising to write about my experience with Insteon after a year of living with it. That was like 18 months ago so I'm a bit late.
The summary? It's been flawless. About the best thing I can say about a technology is that it works so well you forget that it's technology. You turn on a conventional light switch; you expect it to work. It's been pretty much the same with Insteon.
The problems I had with Insteon initially reduced to two things: a very noisy powerline LAN for my Slingbox and I didn't have enough Insteon devices in my network to provide a reliable communications cloud. After retiring the problematic Slingbox (the Worst Customer Support Ever) and adding more Insteon switches, my problems disappeared.
The summary? It's been flawless. About the best thing I can say about a technology is that it works so well you forget that it's technology. You turn on a conventional light switch; you expect it to work. It's been pretty much the same with Insteon.
The problems I had with Insteon initially reduced to two things: a very noisy powerline LAN for my Slingbox and I didn't have enough Insteon devices in my network to provide a reliable communications cloud. After retiring the problematic Slingbox (the Worst Customer Support Ever) and adding more Insteon switches, my problems disappeared.
Robot, robot
Submitted by Steve on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 12:31pm
There was a song by a Chicago band called The Flock that I used to love during my trippy teen days:
Sitting on my dining room table since last Thanksgiving was a small pile of boxes containing Insteon controllers, in-wall dimmers, relays and the like that have been waiting patiently for me to complete the master bedroom renovation. I was intending to do client work over the Fourth but after sixteen consecutive days of building database stored procedures I needed a break! So I assembled my tools and got busy making that pile smaller.
Anyone who has read the X10 primer I posted here knows that I'm a nut for home automation gear. And anyone who has read my blog knows that I've been very faithful with renovating and reproducing the original assets in this old house. But you can keep your Chicago Electric rotary and push button switches and your old pull chain fixtures. I want my electrical system state-of-the-art!
Robot, robot arms and legs Teeth, bones, hair, its all there Robot, robot arms and legs Battery's dead, head's dead. (Mechanical man, mechanical man!)Whenever I muck with my home automation hardware this song plays over and over again in my head. It's pretty maddening.
Sitting on my dining room table since last Thanksgiving was a small pile of boxes containing Insteon controllers, in-wall dimmers, relays and the like that have been waiting patiently for me to complete the master bedroom renovation. I was intending to do client work over the Fourth but after sixteen consecutive days of building database stored procedures I needed a break! So I assembled my tools and got busy making that pile smaller.
Anyone who has read the X10 primer I posted here knows that I'm a nut for home automation gear. And anyone who has read my blog knows that I've been very faithful with renovating and reproducing the original assets in this old house. But you can keep your Chicago Electric rotary and push button switches and your old pull chain fixtures. I want my electrical system state-of-the-art!
Add new commentInsteon Rides Again
Submitted by Steve on Sun, 12/10/2006 - 12:10pm
I thought I'd post an update on my trials and tribulations with the Insteon home automation network here. A couple of months ago I posted an X10 and Insteon home automation primer. At that point I was just getting into upgrading my problematic X10 stuff here with the newer, wireless Insteon hardware from SmartHome and didn't know how well this stuff would work or what problems I'd find. However I was fed up with X10's flakiness and Insteon looked like an improvement, at least on paper.
I ran into problems with Insteon from the git-go, mostly devices that either didn't work or worked only part-time. I was ready to go back to the toggle switch world. But I decided to forge ahead with the upgrade anyway. I'm glad I did because things magically started working.
I ran into problems with Insteon from the git-go, mostly devices that either didn't work or worked only part-time. I was ready to go back to the toggle switch world. But I decided to forge ahead with the upgrade anyway. I'm glad I did because things magically started working.
8 commentsWhen Robots Attack
Submitted by Steve on Sat, 10/21/2006 - 10:00am
Being the gadget freak I am, I'm of course a big fan of home automation. 90% of my house is under X10 control and the command of a FreeBSD server running some perl scripts I hacked together. I've already written some articles about X10 and my trials and tribs with it so I won't repeat them here.
I love having my house turn its own lights on/off. I like setting up whole-house lighting schemes, available at the touch of a button. But truthfully, X10 is a lot like owning a 1970s-vintage Triumph motorcycle. You run it for a while, then you spend a whole lot of time fixing it. X10 devices will work fine for years only to suddenly stop responding to commands. After hours of sleuthing you find that it's because the battery charger for your new camera is generating a noise storm on your household wiring.
I love having my house turn its own lights on/off. I like setting up whole-house lighting schemes, available at the touch of a button. But truthfully, X10 is a lot like owning a 1970s-vintage Triumph motorcycle. You run it for a while, then you spend a whole lot of time fixing it. X10 devices will work fine for years only to suddenly stop responding to commands. After hours of sleuthing you find that it's because the battery charger for your new camera is generating a noise storm on your household wiring.
Insteon - The Next Generation
Submitted by Steve on Thu, 08/24/2006 - 7:34pm
There have been times when I've been so fed up with an annoying X10 glitch that I've wanted to chuck it all and move back to the toggle switch world. But I'm so used to the convenience of X10 that this Luddite rebelliousness lasts about three seconds.
In the past few years new technologies challenging X10's low cost and DIY-ability have become available. With the exception of dark horses like UPB, HomePlug, CeBus and a couple of others, and of course the hyper-expensive dedicated control line stuff, most newer home automation devices have abandoned problematic powerline protocols and adopted short-range wireless. The latter group includes Insteon, ZigBee, Z-Wave and Bluetooth. Wireless has become so reliable, pervasive and the hardware has gotten small enough that wireless is a natural for home automation.
In the past few years new technologies challenging X10's low cost and DIY-ability have become available. With the exception of dark horses like UPB, HomePlug, CeBus and a couple of others, and of course the hyper-expensive dedicated control line stuff, most newer home automation devices have abandoned problematic powerline protocols and adopted short-range wireless. The latter group includes Insteon, ZigBee, Z-Wave and Bluetooth. Wireless has become so reliable, pervasive and the hardware has gotten small enough that wireless is a natural for home automation.
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