paulbates

Thanks for that clarification Xathros. The 20' wire feet is powerline around the walls; how far my PLM would be from the panel on powerline if I put the PLM at the TV. The Cat 5 trip down through the crawlspace to the panel is more straight-line than that, so even less distance, to your point. Placing the PLM near my AV equipment doesn't sound ideal. I'll try it, add a few of my "problem child" Insteon devices, remote on my Insteon powerline and test their communications to see what happens. But I'm leaning more towards putting the PLM in the outlet on my panel that I've always used for powerline interfaces. And suck up a trip through the crawlspace Paul

I appreciate this thread and remain disappointed in SH at the same time. I added a 2441TH to my HA system at about the same time that this thread started. I had random mode changes, or shifting to full on Heat with not stop. WAF went through the floor. I had similar calls with SmartHome trying to "fix" my HVAC system, which continues to have (2) 12 year old RCS X10 stats that work fairly reliably. So this thread is telling to my story. SH needs to better beta market test their products. I bought a Hub 2 years ago, and it had to be replaced with one with new firmware after months. After that it’s been fine. However it looks like that did not happen for the 2441TH. I really appreciate the field engineering and effort in this post, but SM hasn’t resolved the root cause. I don't want to spend this much for 2 stats to have to proceed to 'McGyver" them to get what I already have in my RCS stats plus some new features. Sounds like it’s still not time to buy.

Your note says just one line / breaker. I had a case where I thought that but it was actually 2 lines for 2 breakers had been tied together, one old and one new from new construction. The behavior I got was a little different, it caused a keypad linc to get noisy and then quit working and need to be reset. If the other suggestions don't solve it, you may want to try unbundling the switches and measuring all lines in that box with a voltmeter to see if more than one is hot.

Hi, thanks Michel and Oberkc. I wanted to use the IR capability out of the box if possible. I'm now leaning towards mounting the ISY in the tv case and plugging the PLM into the outlet nearst there which is maybe 20 wire feet from the panel. I'll measure Insteon performance and see what suffers since I have a good communications baseline through my existing system. If I run into comm issues, i'll fish a cat 5 wire through the crawl space to the panel for the PLM. Regards. Paul

Purdue Guy.. I read the pdf manual and didn't catch it that way, Thank you. I have a number of Insteon devices that are virtual electrical circuits for low voltage and other lighting from wall switches. They work device to device and can function if my current HA setup, even the hub/plm die. It doesn't happen often, but I have a travel job now and the few times its happened has been bad WAF. Its how it was designed. I like to monitor and have the convience of "all off", but to rebuild all those links in keypads will be a bear. My thought is to go back through with my existing HA package after I convert and pull the links to the hub out as the final step. Thank you again Paul

Probably an obvious answer, but wanted to see what others have done. I'm getting an ISY with IR. It looks like the IR receiver is built in to the chasis of the ISY, which implies placing the ISY in my TV cabinent to user that functionality. I have a harmony remote that will come in very handy. The flipside is I want my PLM in the outlet i have at the panel right next to the insteon phase coupler. The trip between is across a crawl space. Its a reasonable length for a serial Cat 5 cable. Wondered what others have done to deal with this? It doesn't look like that the IR receiver can be extended via plugin IR on a cable? Thanks! Paul

I am eagerly awating shipment of my new ISY and have been going through the docs. I have some insteon devices burried in places I'd like not to revisit for the sake of pressing the set button to get them in the ISY. I see that I can add a device with controllers like keypadlincs and the ISY will lookup and add the devices associated with links in those controllers. I have some devices that are buried in the attic or under fixtures that are only controlled by automation or direct automation... no links except in the insteon hub I am currently using... no joy on picking them up. Is it possible to add devices by address only? Maybe I temporarily add links for these devices to the keypadlncs to get them added with that feature, and then remove the links after. (?) I really don't want to go up in my attic in July Regards Paul

I'm coming to ISY from another package that is windows / .net based. The appeal to me of ISY is: 1) The product works and is solid, because... 2) How ISY is run like a business. Evidence is that this board is active, helpful and the company owners are fully engaged. Requests are not only listened to, but responded to. Changes are not made that are beyond a solid grasp of delivering something that works and plans for supporting it. The value of this foundation can't be overstated, and compared to the competition, is done very well. 3) Getting out of the windows server management business. I'm going to the ISY and and a NAS. I see the interface aspects coming with time, but my experience is you need to build your HA solution on rock, and product management is the core of that.

One way i have done this is to use the hub to send me text messages when the iolinc on my garage opens and closes. I also have my insteon smoke bridge send its battery panic messages and alerts via the hub. These devices are also linked to a separate plm that has computer control of them. I have had this set up for several months with no problems. Insteon is controlled by links... its robust, but the plm is just another device with links in it... while it does manage scenes, the main difference is that the PLM that can be manipulated by a computer, and report insteon network traffic to the device connected to it. I don't think you want schedules on the hub and your programming on your isy to the same devices. That will be confusing to understand what is actually happening. I would pick a single lamp (or something) and choose to control it via the hub. Per comments above, I think you will be "underwhelmed" by the hub. It is very simplistic and has schedules, but none of the advanced programming features of the ISY. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

The hub is extremely lightweight functionality wise. While it works well, its no comparison to the ISY. it has schedules, does notifications and has simple smart phone apps to turn things on and off. Its essentially an Ethernet connected smartlinc. Its main advantages are that its wired network connected and its x10 signaling seems stronger. A homeseer developer modified his plugin to interface with it and it works very well, its is feasible that the ISY could be updated to interface to it via ET. The disadvantage is that it must be polled via a rest type interface to detect insteon network changes and that can add a slight delay. I did some tests and its not as bad as I would have thought, but measurable. The flip side is that its more reliable than the (non ISY) USB PLM i replaced with it. The way i use it is to control an outletlinc that my current server plugs into. I can remotely access that via on the insteon hub and reboot my server without losing control. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

It sounds like you are mixing X10 and Insteon messages in the same program? My experience is that the PLM is not that smart about managing that.I have experiences where (I believe) the PLM sends the X10, but the insteon traffic on the network stomps on it. X10, being X10, can not recover from that. An example is if you send an insteon message through the plm, your insteon network goes to work receiving and responding to those messages. Yet right behind the insteon scene message, the program requests an x10 message get sent. The PLM will go right ahead and send that x10 message, even as the other insteon devices are confirming their status. and you get no response from the x10 device A way to check test this theory is to put a longer wait, eg 10 seconds to that keypad message and put x10 last as Lee indicated. If that works, back your way into a shorter time.