lilyoyo1

I don't have the popcorn effect either. Different led bulbs do respond differently to ramping but that's a different situation to me

You're splitting hairs with your argument. The same things stands with any system. There's a huge difference between different factors causing something to happen vs how any particular technology works. This isn't about fine detail which effects everything in life. Im not going to start making long winded posts to cover every detail because someone feels the needs to cover every minute. Detail on any given topic. With all things being equal (for those without issues) insteon devices generally do not turn on 1 at a time while zwave devices will always turn on in some erratic way.

Scenes is the only way to achieve that. Any other way of messaging means you are sending the signal 1 at a time. If all devices are working optimally they would respond at the very first command and would not need subsequent messages. Granted the farther away a device was, the longer it would take the signal to reach. In the end it gets down to nitpicking an argument

If you say so. Call it what you want. I stand by what I say as what you are describing has more to do with the load itself rather than the devices. What you are experiencing happens with all technologies including lutrons (though not to the same degree with bulbs on their compatibility lists)

They discontinued it unfortunately. I loved that little thing. I tried to talk them out of doing it but was unsuccessful

The plm going bad is a different story. This is especially so since everything with the controller starts there. Since links are stored inside individual devices, you can get away with the plm going bad for standard control. Anything your controller handles would be affected though. Any system degradation or swapping of individual devices should not cause any issues since all devices repeat. 1 loss should not take out your entire system. Obviously there can be outliers which can impact things but for the most part you should be ok.

I'm speaking about devices themselves specifically. Not how a load itself behaves. Popcorn describes a very specific occurance which is not what you are describing. With you being an installer you should know that as well. Put 5 insteon light switches into a scene together without a load and all will work simultaneously. Do the same with zwave and each device will turn on 1 at a time in no particular order. How a load (led bulbs for the most part) responds cannot be helped for the most part regardless of technology used. Yes, even with lutron this happens at times. But then again you're comparing technology that costs 5 times that of insteon and zwave. I would expect it to happen at a lesser extent

With a house full of dual band devices, I highly doubt a phase coupler can do what standard insteon devices aren't already doing. Since all insteon devices broadcasts it's messages instead of using routing tables any degredation (if there was some) would be irrelevant since the signal would be repeated by another anyway.

When do you need the switches by? Smarthome's big sales are usually around major holidays

The popcorn effect with zwave is different than how different bulbs (namely led) respond to dimming/ramping which is what you're referring When the popcorn effect is mentioned it's each device turning on 1 at a time without rhyme or reason vs simultaneously.

I agree that using the isy gives a person options that they should know about. Once mentioned, the pros and cons should be discussed/debated. I personally don't take issue with debating the merits of either system. It trips me out though when persons act as if one is better simply due to a bad experience without making the op aware of the shortfalls of another system they push them towards.

We get it, you had a bad experience with Insteon. Obviously the op has not nor have many on here. It is well known that people will voice their complaints much faster than compliments. That's not to say issues haven't plagued some users. It's obvious that it has. However there are many out there with great running systems. While I speak for myself (I'm sure many others would concur), I'd rather buy a new plm every 3 years and have light turn on/off in sync vs zwave popcorn effect

I'm not saying that. My response was specifically towards how you came across. Your statement (as well as other statements from you with your knocks)comes across as saying everyone's plm will fail no matter what in x amount of time in addition to other issues. Just because you interpret my statement one way doesn't change the validity of it. A home can have issues with Insteon just as well as a home can have issues with zwave.

I don't blame you. I'm surprised Eaton's cost so much to be older technology. The build quality is great but not at the expense of where technology stands. If I were building again today, I'd go with the ge myself. Remember, you'll most likely need additional devices since they will loose some signal strength being embedded.

Ge zwave plus version https://www.amazon.com/GE-Receptacle-Controllable-SmartThings-14288/dp/B07361JZ2H/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=ge+zwave+plus+outlet&qid=1551046591&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Eaton RFTR9505-TAW Tamper Resistant Z-wave Split Control Duplex Receptacle, 110v /15-Amp, Alpine White Finish https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SC2ZGI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_aDXCCbJH4EHGW

Personally I would wire the house as a dummy house rather than use remote systems such as the din rail. While it can look cool at first glance, reselling can be more difficult as it may be too modern/techie for alot of people. My outlets are Cooper aspire (Eaton). All hardwired zwave devices repeat. My outlets do support beaming which allows you to use with things like door locks and other secure devices. I went with these over other brands because they feel like a high quality product. The plastic on the outlet is much higher quality than found on others such as he and leviton. The button to include/exclude as well as turn on/off also feels much better than other brands. The relay doesn't sound as clunky either. This is why I went with the Cooper over other brands. The attention to detail was much better. With that said, I don't believe they have a zwave plus version out yet. Since this is a new install, I would go with all zwave plus devices. GE has a zwave plus outlet which works well. While it's still short of Cooper's build quality it's not a bad device. I have 1 that I bought to test with and it works really well.

I've never had plm issues. While the plm I use in my house is new (the whole system is), my test ISY uses my old plm that was an old customer return for the plm issue that was given to me to test. Sometimes a person's home simply isn't a good fit for a particular technology

For my lighting loads, I went with all dimmers whether I dim or not. I like the uniformity around the house, the ramping effect, and the fact that there's no click when a light is turned on or off. I like using motion sensors to turn stuff off rather than on. I'm like you in that I don't want to constantly mess with the system and there are times I simply don't need/want the light on. I would recommend using in rooms that you don't frequent alot. That way if a light is left on, you don't find out days later.

I concur with Larryllix in regards to insteon for lighting. Besides familiarity which will help you in the long run, I'm not a fan of the popcorn effect that zwave has when turning on multiple devices. That coupled with the fact that you have to be concerned with different variations of switches from the mfg. (Even from the same one). The ease of use with insteon is much better. With that said, I do use zwave locks and sensors. I prefer their sensors over insteon's. To build out my mesh network, I've installed a bunch of zwave outlets throughout the house. While the range isn't as good as wall worts and it takes using more of them; I didn't want to be concerned with someone unplugging something and the ugliness that comes with wall worts. Zwave to insteon (as it would be the other way around) is slower. However my motion sensors only turn devices off so the delay is not noticed. In cases where they do turn on lights, it's used in area that you walk towards anyway so it's imperceptible as well. I do have a few of the motion sensor ll's. I have not had any trouble out of those so I can't complain.

I think its Isy based. When I removed one of my sensors that was once working with the ISY it no longer works now when I re-add it. The others still work but they were added a long time ago. If it was only the new sensor then it may be their firmware but since im having trouble with existing stuff it may be something in the code.

@Michel Kohanim did something change with the fibaro? I bought a new one and what others are experiencing I am too. I removed 1 from my system that was working and im encountering the same thing with that as well.

With the way UDI operates I would be highly surprised to see a new version released this year. They haven't even had a beta on one yet and 5.0 is still in beta as well (hard to imagine a brand new product shipping with beta software). Historically UDI has also given significant discounts to users who desire to upgrade their systems. So it can be cost effective a year or 2 down the road should you desire to have the latest unit. As Beninsteon said, most likely it'll be a unit with more memory, processing power, nodeserver capabilities all in one vs. needing a secondary device such as a raspberry pi and needing to do the work yourself.

Associations was designed for direct device to device communication. Unfortunately the popcorn effect is how the protocol is at this time rather than it being a controller issue. Hopefully this improves in future revisions of the protocol. There is an all on/off association which I don't know if the ISY supports (not all devices support this association either) which could potentially help. However I'm not sure it would work for multiple rooms since they would all use the same parameters.

Insteon is not zwave based so it cannot control zwave devices. UDI can't create something in a switch that the protocol does not support. The ISY simply acts as a middle man when insteon and zwave devices are in a scene together