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.

I’m looking at robotic mowers. Has anyone tried this Node server? The husqvarna doesn’t come with a rain sensor, so it might be useful to use a weather station to send the mower back to the base.

It’s a moot point what Nokia would have supported as its just vaporware at this point. It it does speak to previous issues they might have been trying to fix with new hardware. The way computer and phone manufacturers continue to sell new devices is by updating speed and features. It seems to me Insteon could be on a longer development cycle, but the same things should sell. Think if capacitive touch keypads with LED screens, built in motion sensors, some switches with screens or cameras, voice responsive switches, etc. There are ways they could create demand for their devices. But it looks to me that they weren’t doing a whole lot of R&D under the previous management. Just resting on their laurels.

Thanks for that. I hadn’t seen that before. A couple questions… did they bring anything to market under Nokia name? If not, could that potential be lessened by the current group buying Insteon/SH? It seems as if Smartlabs must have realized there were insurmountable issues with dual mode mesh and they abandoned power line technology. Should we expect new devices from Insteon to be RF only? The Nokia spec has 2.4GHz as well as Bluetooth. That sounds like Thread compatibility.

That line is not backward compatible with Insteon, is it? I was speaking to Insteon viability. Now, Insteon has a competitor for hardware using their own protocols.

When Jobs came back to apple, he dramatically simplified their product line. He eliminated many of their machines and eventually only had 4 minimally configurable machines that focused on different target markets. He took them from bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world. As he forced them to refocus, they eventually added new product lines. He also ended the Mac clone market that was killing the company and producing lower cost, inferior products. Bottom line is that Insteon needs to refocus on what they are best at first. It seems to me that there has been far more innovation in the z wave world with updatable devices, new updated chips/protocols, improved range, etc. There should be some R&D put in to improving the reliability, upgradability, as well as the look and feel of their base offerings. For them to survive, they have to become profitable quickly. Therefore, hubs need to be on subscription. Hubs will also eventually need to work with Matter and Thread. I imagine that won’t come cheap either. If it were me, I’d probably limit initial offerings to high volume devices eg PLMs, switchlincs, keypadlincs, mini remotes, plug in modules, outdoor on/off switches, motion sensors, and IOLincs. I’d probably put fanlinc, micro modules, open/close sensors, LED bulbs, and ballasts on the back burner for now. Any licensing of the technology would be for specific purposes when someone could bring something valuable to the protocol (eg UD). And not to someone who would be competing with me on everything I sold.

They’re also talking about the old Insteon Hub being a possible replacement. I’m assuming a way to hack the old device to turn it into a New hub type device. No specifics have been given that I’ve seen.

All true, but the combined weight of Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon give it a very good head start.

But the gravitational force pulling developers to an “all inclusive” standard will be a lot to overcome.

Very true. With the advent of Matter, who knows what even z wave will look like in 5 years. Good to hear that UD is incorporating Matter into future devices. Has anyone heard if Ubiquity is incorporating Matter into their line of access points and controllers?

I know Michel is bound by an NDA and can’t discuss. I am assuming that there is no new PLM in the foreseeable future. And there likely won’t be unless someone buys the license for the patents. Are these patents being bound up by Nokia? Are there other bidders out there that want to run with the technology? Are we only relegated to used equipment from eBay if we want to continue to use Insteon? I have no plans to move to z wave in my home. Other than my old Insteon icon switches, my switches have been very reliable and I can see me staying with Insteon for many years to come. I have mostly switchlinc, outdoor outlets, and appliance modules now. But I probably will need to replace a PLM from time to time. Will polisy continue to support Insteon?