upstatemike

Prime Video works for me but Amazon Music is hosed.

There is nothing wrong with knob and tube wiring as long as it is properly maintained. Switchbot makes a good selection of home automation solenoids.

I guess my problem is that I don't care for the look of "new" homes. Anything less than 100 years old is just an eyesore to me, but to each their own. I do agree that Sunnata switches are a big improvement over the Maestro style though. (No opinion on Nokia until they actually become available... later this year?)

Sorry I missed the opportunity to take that stuff off your hands.

I am puzzled by the notion of a light switch's appearance getting "long in the tooth". I have switches from the 1940s that still look fine to me. I can't imagine changing them just because I suddenly feel they have gone out of style.

I still use X-10 for temporary applications where I just need something quick and don't want to build out some radio network or clutter up ISY installing a bunch of temporary Insteon modules. I don't plan to get rid of it any time soon and will continue to collect some more when I find a bargain priced source.

This is the current version of that product. https://www.x10.com/products/wm100.html And it is currently on sale. X10 does not appear to be affected by the chip shortage.

UDI could if Smartlabs would let them... which they won't.

The answer might depend on how good your LAN and Wi-Fi are and how much you intend to scale out the system. I think most reccommendations around Wi-Fi based automation top out around 20-25 devices before you need to do some serious network upgrades.

I don't think they can re-priortize because I don't think they are able to get anything produced at all right now. The question is whether they ever will again irrespective of their apirations and intent. We are looking at a potential Olympic boyott which could escalate into a trade war which could multiply the existing tensions over Taiwan and recent Chinese naval activities which could evolve into open military conflict... how do you expect that is going to affect the supply chain for replenishing Insteon product over the next 3-6 months?

An important factor in your question that will affect the answer is what range of Insteon products do you currently use? I for example use Insteon dimmers, switches, keypads, bulbs, screw-in modules, plug-in modules, wire-in modules, desktop remotes, wireless switches (or battery keypads), door sensors, motion sensors, and dry contact modules. Another factor to consider is any feature of Insteon that you consider important. For me it is the direct association between devices across the entire ecosystem and not just among devices that are in close proximity to each other. if you list the Insteon things that are important to you and then look at how to replicate them with a new protocol the options quickly narrow down to just a few potential alternatives to consider.

Some thoughts on Z-Wave vs Insteon: Z-Wave has a pretty good variety of devices from bulbs to keypads to switches to plug-in modules to wire-in modules. Insteon used to have all of these but as you noted the selection is rapidly drying up. Insteon is pretty logical in handling associations/groups/scenes using the same basic mechanism to accomplish the requirements of each. Z-Wave has some limited "line-of'site" association ability for very small groups of devices. Z-Wave scenes are kind of hit and miss and a lot of folks skip them and just replicate that function with "then" statements in a program. Insteon is a broadcast protocol that is pretty resilient in the face of topology changes. Z-Wave is a routed protocol that can struggle with topology changes. Also if the routing info gets scrambled it can be time consuming to get things sorted out. Insteon generally lets you work with program objects that represent each button or load. Z-Wave has you monitoring the changes to a Central Scene and pushing coded parameter values to accomplish things. You can replicate most (not all) insteon functionality with Z-Wave but there is definitely a learning curve and you will encounter the term "work around" a lot.

That is a good point. Before ISY was ported to Polisy the only place it could run is on a 994i so it was natural to just refer to the combintion 994i and ISY software as just an ISY... especially because the 994i is dedicated to ISY and can't do anything else. Polyglot running on a Ras-Pi or PC would always look for ISY on a 994i because that is the only place it could be. Now it can be co-located with Polyglot running on the Polisy hardware box so thinking of ISY and 994i as synonymous is no longer valid and I imagine referring to it/them that way can easily confuse newcomers. Once understood it is easy to picture yet somehow tricky to express clearly.

The second one.

I think it just verifies that they are on opposite sides of the split 220V service (180 degrees out of phase with each other).

It's not "whole Home" if you aren't monitoring toilet flushes and room specific differences in air pressure.

Cool bracket! I bet that orientation puts the antennas in a more favorable position as well.

They can sell pre-orders at a Black Friday discount... unless they aren't sure if they are ever going to get the stock to fulfill pre-orders?

No Black Friday deals. I guess Nokia isn't planning to target consumers directly. Must be an "Integrator Only" product.

No Black Friday deals. I guess Smarthome couldn't muster a last gasp to support another sale. RIP.

Actually you have it backwards. It is not the companies but rather Canada that is going out of business. The effects of Covid finally reached a point where recovery is no longer possible and these companies, along with many others, have simply pulled back to see if there is a buyer in the wings willing too purchase Canada and put it back on the road to recovery. The current rumour is that Iceland is most likely going to be the next owner.

I have to agree that simply building out a Z-Wave network to include a remote or otherwise difficult loaction is not always practical. If Z-Wave was a broadcast protocol then having devices act as repeaters could be a solution because you can reach a point where the cumulative effect of many broadcast repeaters solves your problem in a way that is resilient even if some of those repeaters are moved or unplugged since no particular one of them is likely to be a single point of failure for getting the signal through. Since Z-Wave is routed then any change to the signal path requires the system to find a new route which may not happen instantaneously. I would be uncomfortable having to depend on that solution for any coverage beyond 1 or 2 hops. I know Homeseer solves this problem by offering network attached controllers (Z-Nets) that can be placed in strategic locations to provide coverage without having to fill the gap between those areas with extra Z-Wave devices. Hubitat also has a solution by allowing multiple hubs to be linked over the network which basically accomplishes the same thing. I wonder if using multiple Hubitats as your Z-Wave interfaces connected to ISY/Polisy via a Hubitat Node Server would create the solution you are looking for?

Less than a week until Black Friday! Excited to see what the sale prices will be on the Nokia switches and keypad.

Clearly.

OK I thought we were talking about solutions to boot things remotely without the Internet and whether anybody would still make devices that utilize land lines. My mistake.