studioso

thanks for the help. @lilyoyo1 I understand your distinction between automation and control. for me what pulls me is that anyways I'd like an intercom and a video doorbell. and while I will certainly take advantage of isy's automation and keypad's scenes, I'd like ease of control for those times automation doesn't apply. especially for my wife who doesn't own a smartphone (on principle!) and my young kids who I don't want to give a smart phone. automation works for "away" and "nighttime" morningtime" scenes, but with a family of 7 with different ever-changing schedules there are going to be hands on controls for light and music... as per the price, yes it's not cheap. and to take full advantage of it I'd need probably 4 units. I am justifying the expense to myself because of the intercom and video door, which I'd otherwise buy elsewhere, plus the fact that they include a ~40$ lifx with each switch... @carealtor thanks again, good to know about the ecobee, I was just cooming to terms that I will have to start sharing my life's secrets with alexa, now I'm might need to do the same with smartThings! will keep you posted...

HI! I'm renovating my home and am very busy planning my home automation/control before we close up the walls. My first purchase was a case of insteon switches and a 994I+ because I like the dual band and the flexibility of automation the ISY gives. plus it seems to be the one component in every automation system that generally people are most satisfied with and find it reliable. However I was having trouble finding a solution that fits the rest of my needs. Now I discovered Brilliant switches and they basically tick off all of my boxes: 1-a single non-smartphone or cloud dependent controller/touchscreen with a nice GUI 2- the same interface also automatically displays doorbell camera (ring) something even amazon doesn't do with it's own Echo. (don't like ring's cloud dependency, but still seems like best option out there) 3-same single interface allows for audio or even video intercom between units (not a huge mansion but we have 3 floors) But I wonder if it will be possible to also control my insteons/isy through these... I'm planning to install several insteon wall keypads to control scenes, and the scheduling can be kept through isy, but would be nice if I can also control them through Brilliant, additionally, i wonder if I can link automation between the 2 both ways. for example, can I still control thermostats(ecobee?) with both systems? I see brilliant is compatible with smartThings and Alexa, so maybe there is a way to communicate thru that? I haven't had a chance to play with ISY yet, as I said I'm trying to learn all I can about HA within a few weeks... but I would appreciate your input and generally your ideas on how to implement it all together most elegantly... thanks! Alex