upstatemike

By your thinking I cannot sell my Toyota to the guy up the street because I have modified it by putting an aftermarket muffler on it when the original one rusted out and therefore violated Toyota's patents on the vehicle.

As long as you paid for the iPhones and Apple got the money they were due you could. Once you purchase a durable good it is yours to do with as you please. Patents protect the owner from their intellectual property being used without them getting compensated. If you bought an iPhone and reverse engineered it to make a dozen more iPhones and sold them without Apple getting paid then that would be a violation. As long as there is a one to one ratio so that Apple got paid for each original iPhone sale and no copies were made that they did not get paid for, then there is no revenue lost and no actionable harm. Apple does not have the right to make additional money from you off of any single iPhone beyond what they got when you originally purchased it through normal legal channels. As long as you are reselling the original item, that you now own, and do not infringe on any patents when making modifications or improvements to it by upgrading caps, loading your own firmware, adding memory, painting it green, etc., then Apple has no say in what you do with your property. You do however have to disclose to the buyer that you are selling a modified product that is not supported or authorized by Apple to avoid potential action related to reputational harm to the Apple brand.

If you use old PLMs as your chip source then Smartlabs has gotten their due from the original sale of the unit and have no claim, patent or otherwise, on what you do with it after purchasing it from them. Think of the conversion van market as a parallel. UL listing and safety liability are still concerns but I don't think Smartlabs would or could do anything about it.

So that never happened but I don't remember if the feasibility of using chips from old PLMs to make the new ones was ever explored. Dead PLMs would have to be shipped to the manufacturer (additionlal expense) and they would have to be paid to remove the chips from the old PLMs (another expense) which would never be practical in the old model but I wonder if the new world of chip shortages now makes this at least borderline viable?

The only security standard I care about is NSTISSAM TEMPEST/1-92. Anything less than that is a waste of time.

So now it gets to the point to ask what ISY on Polisy can do that ISY994 plus Polisy cannot. What is my incentive to move anytime soon when a split system gives me some protection from having a single point of failure?

I have tried this in the past with mixed results. I don't know if my PLM was just missing keypad presses or if there was some other issue with the ISY994/Polisy combo (maybe LAN communication issues?). Maybe worth testing again.

Another key feature I would consider when picking a replacement for Insteon is the ability to add devices to your system without having to perform any physical action at the device itself. This was a key thing for me even way back when Insteon was first introduced. Many times I have devices installed inside fixtures or in high, difficult to reach locations and screwing around with button presses on the device to enroll them is just not practical. With Insteon (or X-10) you just need a list of device addresses and you can set everything up from your controller without needing to go out into the field at all. LoRa is not too bad because you just scan the device address before you install it but still not ideal. I think any protocal that makes you go around pushing buttons on the devices in the field to manage them is a huge step backwards and makes me wonder what the thinking was when these supposedly new and better protocols were being designed.

Depends on what constitutes an upgrade for you? Many people find that Alexa routines coupled with Yolink LoRa sensors and switches can provide a good experience at low cost. LoRa is the only radio protocol with better coverage and penetration than Clear Connect A... it just works, always. Alexa voice control gives you some pretty fancy features at a good price if you buy the Echo voice assistants on sale. The Alexa ecosystem is evolving rapidly and Yolink is very tightly integrated with it. Yolink will also be releasing a general API in 2022 so there may even be a NodeServer for it by the end of next year.

So one thing that might be worthwhile would be to define a "dumb" switch. A few years ago I converted the basement from Insteon to "dumb" Leviton motion sensors and removed all manual switching options. They are not completely dumb though because each room has a relay that operates with the lights to provide a dry contact back to my Stargate/Elk M1 panels (I have 80 zones where the two systems share inputs). So these dumb switches still allow for things like voice alerts when somebody goes down there and turning speakers on and off as you move from room to room. They are just dumb because they are not tied to any HA eco-system and I can easily replace them with off-the-shelf replacements from Home Depot if one of them fails (which they probably won't). I am starting to do similiar things in bathrooms where a motion sensor on the lights and countown timer fan switch are sufficient to accomplish what I need without extending a mesh or buying expensive automated switches for areas that really don't benefit from them. Of course it helps that I have the wiring in place for the dry contacts to my Elk panel left over from the X-10 days where I needed a way to confirm that X-10 control commands actually worked. The point being your switches can be cheap and dumb but still have automation features sufficient to your needs.

What makes Hubitat better than Conbee for a Zigbee interface? How would you handle Hue? Direct connection to the Hue NodeServer? Hue to Hubitat to Hubitat NodeServer? How would you handle Alexa controlling Hue? Directly through the Alexa Hue Skill? Via Hubitat utilizing the Alexa Hubitat Skill? Via Alexa/ISY integration using the Hue NodeServer? Via Alexa/ISY integration using the Hubitat Nodeserver with Hue integrated to Hubitat?

OK I see what you are saying... A splitter that runs from a standard POE port on a switch or injector and supplies a voltage to match the requirements of the device. Yes I was thinking of the passive adapters that take the power from the device's own power supply and inject it onto spare pairs of the ehternet with another adapter at the device end to break the power back out again. Your solution is better. I just need to evaluate my available POE power budget to see what I can deliver. I guess I could always add an 802.3af injector on a non-POE switch port to ensure my existing POE devices are not affected by the additional current draw. (cheaper than upgrading to a larger POE switch)

I don't think POE specs apply when doing this. The adapter is just using spare conductors to carry power so the limits are just conductor gauge and length? Not sure if these work for gigabit connections though because as I recall unlike 10/100, gigabit ethernet uses all 4 pairs in the cable.

There is not a direct 1 for 1 replacement for Insteon at this time so it kind of depends on what your existing Insteon deployment includes. I would consider using Caseta switches as the Insteon ones fail unless you need keypads in which case you need Z-Wave or RA3. Likewise if you use a lot of specialty devices beyond switches, dimmers, and keypads you will need to look at Z-Wave or Zigbee. If you have a small enough installation and are a heavy Alexa user then Wi-Fi stuff may give you the best bang for your buck. There is no one size fits all answer (at this time).

I am leaning towards option 6.

For me the optimal radio location will never be a place that is acceptable for a piece of hardware like Polisy. If there was a POE version similiar to an RA3 Main Controller then sure. But as it is the Polisy needs to be in the basement next to the main switch and UPS and out of sight. (Worst place from an RF perspective). I struggle with the how to place hubs with built-in radios in general. You almost need to build an equipment closet in the exact center of your house just to hold your Polisy, Hue Hub, Flic Hub, Hubitat, YoLink Hub, Weather Station Receiver, Home Assistant Pi, Node Red Pi, Etc. Also would never connect an HA hub via WiFi. Just like streaming video to a TV, an HA hub should always be connected by Ethernet.

I think an interesting question is: Once everything moves to Polisy, how far can you extend USB over Cat6 to get the ZWave dongle in an optimal location while keeping the polisy in the basement. USB is tricky because the distance you can go over Cat6 depends on the device you are using remotely. Keyboard/mouse can be a long way away while a serial adaptor or storage device not so much. No idea what you can get away with for a ZWave stick.

My PLM is around 50 feet from my ISY. It has been running that way for many years without issue.

I think you will be able to find a PLM, new or used, for awhile. RA3 could indeed be your ultimate choice but the cost of a PLM in order to buy more time to decide for sure seems like a reasonable trade off. You might also fiind Caseta is all you need if you aren't going to use keypads in the new place.

I would install your spare Insteon switches for now and then test other technologies with the ISY/Polisy and hold off on buying new switches in quantity until you decide what you like. Polisy can mix samples of most anything you want ot try and stretching the decision over time will reduce the stress level of making a decision like this while also dealing with all the other aspects of buying a new house. You could sample: Z-Wave Caseta Hue/Zigbee Maybe even Yolink LoRa or RA3 once the APIs are published Remember the facts used to drive a best decision today might change by the time you are in your new place so better to decide then using up to date information at the point you are actually ready to install something.

The best way to decide the value of RA3 would be to take the free online course. It is a small investment in time to get a clear picture of RA3 so you can compare it against other protocols based on what is important to you. Plus you get to print a nifty certificate at the end for some reason.

It sounds like Matter will come to dominate the HA landscape in much the same way that IPv6 has taken over as the dominant networking protocol.

https://www.amazon.com/Universal-ZEN17-Sprinklers-Compatible-SmartThings/dp/B096LLL1C6/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2E9KCV6CLH666&keywords=zooz&qid=1640123148&sprefix=zooz%2Caps%2C269&sr=8-13

If I was Lutron I would drop Select and immediately discontinue the RA2 main repeater so nobody can sell "new" legacy RA2 installations but they can sell RA2 installations based on the RA3 hub and RA2 Aux Repeaters until RA2 Maestro stock is depleted. Then modify RA Aux Repeater firmware so Caseta can talk to it. Now 2.4G is Pro and 371-374M is consumer. Pro can incorporate anyting from consumer into a Pro installation if they need to but consumers do not have access to the RA3 Hub so they are limited to the constraints of the Caseta hubs and cannot intrude into Pro markets. Less hardware to support but still protecting the line between consumer and Pro.

Good to hear. I saw that RA3 keypads that control loads were coming but I didn't see anything about the RA3 aux repeaters.