ryarber

I was assuming that if the neutral wire wasn't at the switch, there would still be one at the fixture. Is that not so? I'm not very familiar with how they wired these older houses.

A couple years ago, I bought an old house that is our vacation home. The house is several decades old, I'm thinking it was originally built around 50 years ago, but has been added onto a couple times. It's a great house but unfortunately, some of the wiring is dated. I'm not there to look at stuff right now, but I don't think it has a neutral wire in the box. There is one room where two fixtures are on the same switch. At the moment, they're not controllable independantly. One of the fixtures is a fan light and the other is a regular fixture that we've put halogen bulbs in. The question is this. I'd like to split them so that they are controlled independantly. Can I do this with insteon equipment? I was thinking of putting a fan control module on the fan light and doing a micro on/off (or dimmer) module in the base of the second fixture. But how would I control them? I could use the small remotes to control them, remove the switch and tie the hot wires together at the wall switch. Is that an option? Doing so, I'd lose the ability to control them with a wall switch, right? If there is a neutral wire, I guess I could do the same thing, but instead of eliminating the wall switch, I could put in a 6 button keypad right?

Isn’t it possible also to connect HA directly to an Insteon PLM (without a hub) from say a Raspberry Pi or old PC?

So, do you see problems using led bulbs with caseta 2 wire switches?

Well, that may limit my ability to install Insteon anyway. Caseta stuff is all 2 wire I believe.

I don’t see a 2 wire version. Have they said if that’s coming?

Other than form factor, what is new with these devices?

It’s good that they seem willing to listen to their user base.

Anyone planning to join? They say limited seats, so maybe we post some questions here for those that will join the zoom call to consider. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

May I ask, are your z wave devices all of a later generation? What generation are they? And what type hub do you have?

The old saying goes… “too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.” That may happen with Matter. Who knows. Delays in the development cycle don’t inspire confidence. The main thing matter is promising to deliver is interoperability. That is not efficiency. The two can coexist, but often don’t. At this point, Matter is nothing more than an idea. We are talking like it already exists. Thread exists, but matter doesn’t.

My understanding is that thread has mesh capabilities. Battery powered devices will not participate in mesh. Only wired devices can participate in mesh. There are 3 type devices. End devices (battery powered eg door locks) border routers (command and control devices that bridge between internet and thread), and simple router (participate in the mesh). Thread device types

My understanding is that thread will only be the wireless vehicle whereby most matter commands will be issued. At first, matter will only have commands for a few type devices. Lighting, motion sensors and a few others in the first wave. Later they will add support for cameras and other devices. So I believe they are still determining much of what you are asking (which commands are available), and the command set will grow over time.

If I may pose a question… Admittedly, I am speaking with people who know much more about this than I. I understand what ase is saying even though I don’t have the depth of knowledge of routing, switches, layers, etc…. But it seems to me the way things will shake out is that, while Wi-Fi will be useful in IoT, it will not be the predominant mode of information delivery/control. I see Wi-Fi as a means to provide hubs and other bandwidth hungry IoT devices an interface with our smarter devices. And then thread as the primary interface with most IoT devices that don’t need the large packets and huge bandwidth. That’s been my understanding from the start. That while Wi-Fi is a necessary element, it will be a relatively minor player going forward. And that where possible, hardwired connections will still be preferable to wireless. I think I am understanding people here saying that each light switch, LED bulb, door lock, motion sensor, etc. would have independent wifi capability and I do not believe that is where we are headed. Ideally, I believe these “dumber” devices will have their own communication protocols while their controllers will act as a bridge to “smarter” devices and the internet.

I may be showing my ignorance here, but I don’t believe Thread is built off Wi-Fi in any way. Just another protocol that is taking up 2.4 GHz bandwidth. No doubt, efforts to adopt HomeKit were too expensive for the return on investment. Hopefully, Matter will be cheaper/easier to adopt. Apple made their standards too expensive to adopt for the smaller shops.