silverton38

I will have to give RA2 a real shot. I have just picked up a house with it. The house does not have any keypads but just the nice Lutron Dimmer style switches and the black hub.

For an Insteon high end house this is how I do it. - I set up an ISY with an ISY and an Elk security system -I use switches over dimmers for halls and any place it is likely not ever going to be dimmed. I only use the dimmers for places that will likely be dimmed. -I buy and engrave screwless plates -I put a Keypadlinc in the Master and the Front door with the ON/OFF on the top and bottom. I engrave the rest of the keypadlinc buttons for different tasks. -I program the all off when the alarm is set to away -I program the outside light dusk to dawn and all lights off at 3AM -I create an email address just for the house (usually streetaddress@gmail.com) so they can hand it off on a sale. I also give them a hand off kit that includes my contact information -I set up their Alexa

I am considering RA2. I am taking over a house with it so I will really have to learn it anyway. Will people be willing to pay more for a house with RA2 or does it come out of my profit; that is the question? They way I make Caseta work in a large house; -I program the Picos locally (not through the hub) except the all ON/OFF ones. -Any half bath I put in Lutron motion switches (not smart) and any other space that it works well with one. -I group up lights in a single room and put in a blank plate as long as the lights are dimmable. For all my homes I also do this including Caseta homes; -I program the outside light dusk to dawn and all lights off at 3AM -I put a black PICO remotes (ALL ON/OFF) at the front switch mounted and the master bedroom by the bed. They see black and they know what it is for. -I create an email address just for the house (usually streetaddress@gmail.com) so they can hand it off on a sale. I also give them a hand off kit that includes my contact information -I set up their Alexa and Homekit

Thank you for the advice. It is still crazy that I have to do it.

That is not fair. I built some homes more than 10 years ago and at that time Insteon with an ISY was an excellent solution....it still is. You have instant on/off and it also works in larger homes because of the wireline backup. The dual mode increased the reliability and all has been well since (until this PLM issue). P.S. I have ISYs that have run for years without reboot with the exception of updates. The only failure that I experienced was the power supply in a couple of cases and the PLM in many more cases. I am now going with Caseta for a new house because of this. I am also exploring Radio RA 2 even though it is an overpriced Caseta system.

I will buy them. It pisses me off that I am recapping so that I can replace a PLM in a high end home. This is crazy.

You are correct. I think the ISY could have a list of "supported" products and then just accept anything else as generic. This would also help us buy the correct products, the pricing is not much different anyway.

Other hubs like Smarthings/Hubitat have config files for each device and with that all feature of the Z-wave device is available and easy to view and program. Again this is not a big deal it is just a "nice to have". If there was a new ISY they would sell a lot of them to existing customers. Something to think about.

I just looked and there is nothing there. I do have a couple of broken PLMs and I am going to try to recap them.

I agree but if a switch was programmed like an Insteon switch it could look similar. Either way this is not a big deal because the final programming is not much different in the end.

Just for example; Z-wave devices show sometimes as multiple devices, the switching parts are sometimes not very clear and you need to experiment to figure that out and sometimes you get multiple switchable devices.

Z-wave is great but it is a little messy compared to Insteon on the ISY. I think Universal devices should make a new device with both Z-wave and Zigbee and program in the top brands of switches so it will look a lot more like it does with Insteon. I think it is time for a new ISY.

Smarthome is making a huge mistake by not supporting and/or working with Universal Devices.

This is scary. I have a lot of customer homes with ISY and serial PLMs. If I have a failure, I will be in real trouble. I will now try to source them out Ebay and such. Scary.

I do wish someone at SmartLabs had some brains and sent the information to Universal Devices considering that they have supported Insteon from well over a decade.

As stated it is definitely Smartlabs that is making the devices. It has not stopped me from pre-ordering and I will use the new Hub if I have to.

I just preordered them from Nokia. I know Smartlabs make them but Nokia is selling them right now. I will try their hub if the ISY does not work but I suspect they will support it fast because there is not much of a stretch between these devices and other Insteon devices. I think the switch and dimmer might work out of the box but the 4 switch (Kepadlinc) style switch will not.

You have made the point exactly. If I need to install a reliable home automation system in a high end house with a user that does not understand anything but pressing a button the last thing on earth I would do would be to hack a bunch of WIFI devices that may or may not kill his WIFI system.

WIFI devices are a bit of a joke. They are almost all Tuya based and they do things like disappear and need to be reinstalled. They kill WIFI networks if you have too many of them. They are also cloud dependent which also adds to the reliability issue.

I will check it out.

That is a shame.

Thank you so much that solved it.

There is a bunch of brand new Insteon devices made by Nokia. They look amazing but are they going to be compatible with the ISY (In particular the 4 button keypadlinc style switch)? Here is the link https://nokia.smartlabsinc.com/collections/nokia

I am trying to program a light to turn on if it is night time (between sunset and sunrise) only when the elk alarm is disarmed. What happens is if the alarm is already disarmed it automatically turns on the light at sunset. I only want it to turn on the light if it is disarmed and the time specified. Does anyone have any advice on how to solve this?

I strongly recommend that you create an email address for the house. I would recommend "streetaddress@gmail.com". Use this for all automation products with the exception of Alexa which you will need your Amazon account for. I would name every device with a room for example - "Kitchen: Light". ISY does a factory reset when you add the device so I would not worry about that. Upgrade to 5.0.14 (you need it for new motions amount other things) I would recommend that you remove any non Dual Band devices. Your reliability goes up considerably without the older devices.