Tinkering

Thank you all for your help and guidance. I feel better about purchasing 700 series devices for the future and dealing with the speed of my ISY's 500 series speed and distance until I can upgrade to the Policy. Hopefully I will have time to migrate my Insteon system over before the PLM dies again.

Thank you for your response. As i said, I have just started looking into replacements for Insteon and I kept running into phrases such as " backward compatible" and " to use the benefits of the higher series the devices need to be 100% of that series or it defaults to the lowest device". I was concerned that my ISY with a series 500 controller would not be able to control series 700 devices, and if I bought series 500 devices to replace failing Insteon devices now, when I eventual migrate to Policy with a higher series controller I would be stuck with a bunch of series 500 devices in my network that would inhibit the full functionality of future series 700 devices. Kind of one of those catch 22 scenarios you hear about. What i think I understand you to say is that a series 500 controller will control series 700 devices but only within the series 500 protocols and when I upgrade to series 700 controller I will gain the benefits of the series 700 protocols. Do I have that right? Thank you again for your help and response.

I have had my ISY for about two years and it is working fine. I purchased the ISY with a Z-wave board installed and have determined it to be a series 500 but have never done anything with Z-wave. I am very happy with the control it gives me over my Insteon devices; however, barring someone picking up the Insteon line, I like everyone else need to find something else to migrate to before the inevitable failure of the PLM. I have started looking into Z-wave the more information and the responses above have been helpful but lead me to more questions. From what I'm hearing about Z-wave: There are several generations of devices: series 300, 500, 700 and in development 800. Each series has some added features and updates. The series are backwards compatible with each other, however you loose the added benefits in you mix the series devices. I hear the there is no plan to make a series 700 board for the ISY 994i. My questions are: As I said, my ISY is fairly new and working fine performing all the functions I currently need and I am not in a position to purchase a Policy at this time. With my 500 series ISY Is it possible to control series 500 devices with all their functions but control 700 series devices in a basic mode without bells and whistles, such as turning switch on and off or dim a light up and down? When you say that if you mix series you loose the benefits of the later series does that mean even with a series 700 control board having a mixture of 500 and 700 devices you could not use any of the 700 series upgrades unless you replaced all the 500 devices with 700? And then again when the 800 series is released you would have to replace the older devices with new in you wanted to use the newer functions? I want to try to future proof my system and continue to expand as time goes on without having to backup and replace devices every time there is a new update. From what I have read the Policy seems to be a good way to go but as I said I am not in a position to get one at this time and I have a lot more to learn about it as well. I still have to deal with the fact that everything is currently based on Insteon and the single point of failure of the notorious PLC. As there is no 700 series board for the ISY is there any other way to for the ISY to control 700 series Z-wave at this time? I really do not want to have to purchase 500 devices now to keep the system running just to replace them down the road Thanks for any help you can give.