DAlter01

@Brian H Ah, I understand, hook up one thingy up to some other parts, and presto...? You realize of course that you and maybe 5, possibly 10, other people that have ever visited this forum are within the neighborhood of your understanding of the electronics, the signals they generate, and how to repair/manipulate the same? The forum is lucky to have your input. When you post it usually is about the internal parts within the boxes and it reminds me of the Radio Shack transister radio kit I got when I was a kid and built a working radio. I followed the instructions just fine but.... did I really understand the reason for each specific transister, its routing, and the nuance of how the pieces were interelated in order to do something different with the same parts, ah not really. I suspect you did. The above post you wrote isn't as technical as I've seen you write but was enough to remind me of my Radio Shack youth and so I figured I'd write this up. Keep it coming, I'm sure your thoughts have sparked many ideas of how to do something unique to solve a problem. However, I, and probably many other Insteon/UDI users, need these companies to build fully functional boxes that can be bought off the shelf and work together on day one. Thankfully, there is a stable full of beta testers to work out the kinks so that us less sophistacted types can play on the surface and create slick programming that works, otherwise, it would no longer be fun for types like me.

Maybe rename the thread to "Daily Insteon/Smartlabs banter and other conspiracy theories"

Michel, If I had vote, I'd argue this thread has become more banter occupying idle time then learning about Insteon being discontinued. I think that topic (discontinued) has been looked at from 6 different sides and is fully understood for now to the degree it can. Maybe it is time to put this topic to rest for 6 months or so until Smartlabs does something else that leads our minds to wonder what is happening at that non-communicative place. I'd vote "lock-er up". If the idle time must be occupied, it will pick a new thread to start up on.

The MSII works with the logic sequence described above funcations very well. But, yes, as you describe, there is about a 1 to 1.5 second lag slower than a typical direct connect link. If that lag doesn't work for your applicaiton, then yes, I understand why you find the MSII not viable. But, I'd like the readers of the forum to know that if they can live with that slight lag then the MSII can work very well for lighting control through the ISY. And, yes, for direct linking the MSII has a design flaw and doesn't work right so I don't use it with direct linking. I tested the lighting control with both an Aeotec MS and the Insteon MSII and had faster response times with the MSII. So, in my opinion, it is the best of the currently available options for lighting control with a motion sensor. I also have had the old Insteon MS's at my prior house and preferred them for direct linking. However, they were also battery only. I don't like battery operated devices so I prefer the trade off of having the slight lag of the MSII running through the ISY and gaining the hardwire capabiltiy with the MSII Hopefully something better will come along but for now I am 99% satisfied with my MSII and my ONLY issue is the slight lag. I find that an acceptable flaw for my purposes and believe many others can successfully use the MSII in their systems if they use the ISY for the logic. Hopefully the above logic sequence will help some solve the inherent shortcomings of the MSII's built in logic so they can gain MS control of their lighting IF they can live with the slight lag. We can also just agree to disagree on the MSII for lighting.

I disagree on the MS II thwarting ISY users. I've had great success with the device for lighting control. However, it HAS to be done with some programming in the ISY. This set of programs will allow the MSII to work essentially the same as a stand along wall motion detector. I use it for that function successfully and I also use this programming to determine occupancy within my house where I have the ISY monitor several MSII's to determine ithe value of my house occupancy variable used by the ISY. As part of this, It is important to set your MSII's internal timer to a short timeout interval. I currently have mine set and 30 seconds and it works well for my purposes. I previously had it set for 4 minutes and that did NOT work. It did not work because if motion occured at least once every 4 minutes the ISY timer never reset because the MSII's internal timer never timed out. With a 30 second MSII internal timeout inteveral, there only needs to be 30 seconds of inactivity (no motion) for the below programs to work. In your situation, you may need to decrease that even further to the 10 second minimum offered by the MSII, or maybe you can increase it to something longer. It took me 4 programs to create this logic and as suggested by HAbit, variables can be used instead of the values I have inserted for start times, the timeout interval, etc. to provide more flexibility and easier changes. Program 1 (this program uses the MSII to set a state variable that indicates there is motion (occupancy). It is set to do that only during specific times of the day) Casita Motion Variable Set - [ID 0030][Parent 0019] If 'CASITA / Mot - Casita On - Inst' Status is On And From 7:00:00AM For 14 hours Then $Casita_State_Occupancy_Variable = 1 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Program 2 (this program uses the change in the state of the above triggered state variable to turn the lights on) Casita Lights On - [ID 0018][Parent 0019] If $Casita_State_Occupancy_Variable is 1 Then Set 'CASITA / Casita Kitchen Downlights' On Set 'CASITA / Casita Living Rm Downlights' On Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Program 3 (This program looks for a change in state of the MSII's status to reset (restart) a program this is the timer part of this group of programs. Each time there is a change in state of the MSII's status, the program it calls (the timer) restarts. Casita Lights Off Trigger - [ID 0056][Parent 0019] If 'CASITA / Mot - Casita On - Inst' Status is Off Or 'CASITA / Mot - Casita On - Inst' Status is On Then Run Program 'Casita Lights Off Execution' (Then Path) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Program 4 (this program is the timer. There are no conditions to run (no if statement). The only part of this program that is used is the "then" statement. Every time there is a change in state of the MSII this timer program restarts by Program 3 so it keeps resetting to a 90 minute countdown if there is a change of state of the MSII. Once the 90 minutes of the timer in this paragraph has passed, the lights turn off and the state variable in program 1 is reset to an unoccupied condition which will then allow the lights to be turned on again the next time there is motion detected by the MSII. This set of programs is specficially designed to allow an occupant to turn off the lights that have been turned on by this set of programs. Once turned off by the occupant the lights will stay off until the space is unoccuped for 90 minutes as evidenced by there being no change of state of the MSII for 90 minutes.) Casita Lights Off Execution - [ID 0054][Parent 0019] If - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition') Then Wait 1 hour and 30 minutes $Casita_State_Occupancy_Variable = 0 Set 'Z-Automation Scenes / Casita Lights Off' Off Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') I've been using this logic for about 5 months and has worked without error.

If you have a communications issue causing your problem it can be a noise generator. I had a similar situation to you some years back where I had a few devices that were intermittantly working. Eventually I bought an ultra wideband handheld receiver that receives 132KHZ frequency (Insteon's powerline frequency) and just walked around the house looking for electronics that generated a lot of noise on that frequency. It was englightening. I found that some of my flourescent light ballasts were somewhat noisy and some LED light bulbs were extremely noisy. Both of these items were intermitant noise generators that only caused noise when on. All electronics in the house generated noise at 132KHZ but the above created significant more noise (static). I only had to replace the problem LED bulbs and my comms issue was resolved. Had that not fixed the issue I would have also replaced the ballasts. The radio I bought was a used Yaesu VR-120 on ebay. That radio is discontinued though. I believe an Icom RC-I6 is essentially the same ultra wideband receiver and runs about $200. It's a valuable tool in my view. There may be better ways to hunt down noise generators but this worked for me.

Eventually it will be true in 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.... years.

Control 4, it uses a proprietary Zigbee protocol. It is sold and installed only by contractors approved by C4,

I doubt they expand the product line very fast. That might have been their original intent but I've got to believe this chip shortage has really impacted any plans they had for a smooth roll-out. But, you seem to have an inside track to the minds of some of the people at Smartlabs so maybe you know an open platform is a true possibility and is part of the business model (subject to change of course). I hope its coming.

Thanks, the Mercedes analogy is a better one than the ISY example. A Lutron switch, yeah, they might spend another $1 building an RRA switch vs a Caseta switch, but probably less, most of the difference is in the programming, I think. Again, charge more for the extra functionality, I have no problem with that, Charge 25% more, 50% more, but 4X.....? Its just a smart switch. If Insteon didn't exist I would have bought Lutron or C4, but when you know you can get a very good product for 1/4th the cost, it's tough to spend that and feel right about it, or it is for me.

i don't mind the classes either and would have gladly taken one. But, requiring the class hurts adoption of the protocol by new users and I made my point to suggest the requirement provides an opportunity for Nokia to gain market share by not requiring the classes. Of course, the Nokia system better be easy enough for a low achieving 5th grader to set up or not having classes is going to hurt their reputation to a degree. I do still object to the hard limit and pricing tiers. Your example of the ISY pricing on the UDI is marginally applicable at best. The pricing differences on the ISY is very small. I probably needed one with all the bells and whistles for my system but didn't even take the time to figure it out and just bought the expensive one because the increase price was nominal so I thought I would just future proof my install and buy one with everything (except IR). And, you only need one ISY per HA install. For devices, however, I needed about 150. I thought about 115 but you know how things can grow. When you charge 4X for a device because someone wants to buy more of your product, that is just a little opposite of what I am accustomed to which is usually getting a better price when I buy more. If they changed 25% more, Ok, no problem, but 4X, come on....., that feels like going to get my haircut and becuase I drive a nice car the price goes up 4x. Same barber, same skill, same retail storefront, hmm. Can I afford Lutron, yep, but the sensation of someone digging into my pocket a little deeper than I feel they shold each time I want to make a tweak just rubs me wrong. In my next house will I put in Lutron Homeworks or RRA, maybe, depends on what is going on with Nokia and others. It might be my only viable option. At that point I may just have to get over it. Until then, I get to vent on this forum. Thanks for being my therapy listener.

So, in my optimistic world, you are correct that Lutron is the obvious choice and the fences Lutron builds are the reasons why there is a big opening for Nokia to have a substantial opportunity for success. IF (big IF), they have a system that works, they don't require people to go back to school, they don't put a device count limit on them, and they don't charge more for the same device just becuae you want more devices, you don't dangle a hard limit in front of someone and tell them they may need to rip out all of their equipment and buy new more expensive equipment if you want to expand (these last two bother met a lot), and with those advantages over Lutron you have a big field to operate in. I would have done Lutron rather than Insteon in my current house if it wasn't for these fences Lutron builds.

And I thought I was thorough, I tip my hat to you sir.

Of course it has wishful thinking, I'm an eternal optimist on most things. It's a internal software issue I have, or is it hardware... Things will evolve but I suspect that over the short term (5 years) that change will be mostly software evolution/refinement. Harware tends to be sticky and doesn't change much as long as the old stuff is still working and making money. With so few participants in the hardware side of HA, I doubt one of them will do any earth shattering hardware changes that makes their old tech obsolete as they don't want to cut off the money making gravy train and how much better can Lutron, Crestron, C4, Insteon get? I little longer range, faster reponse, lower price. I believe the change would be incremental and wouldn't change the landscape that much. I suppose 700 series Z-wave, once it comes out, can be a fairly substantial improvement to the low price point home user market. But, without much cenralized marketing, no standardization on how to customize devices, and such poor documentation by the hardware manufacturers (at least the ones I've read), I'm rather suspect it will signficantly change it's adoption rate. It really isn't that easy for a home user to implement a Z-wave HA system that incorporates a lot of different device types (more than one type of switch/motion). I agree that Z-wave has a lot going for it but it isn't that easy for a novice to mess with. I think that is where the new Nokia/Insteon brand is going, trying to be the Apple of HA. Make it a simple easy to understand, have a user interface that is excellent, and a system that for the most part works. In my view, that isn't Z-wave, though I think it works, it seems to fail on the first two points. If Nokia/Insteon goes that route and does it well, they will have a winning formula. People say that Lutron "just works" and has a great app interface. Well, it seems from my perspective, the new Smartlabs is taking steps to follow that type of model but with more of a retail customer focus. The next 6-9 months should be interesting to see if my hunch is correct and if they are able to pull it off.

Its not suprising they don't care about the ISY user market. While it is important to us that use it, it is not where big business will focuses. There are countless examples of a niche player (which Insteon is) inventing a good technology, having it become popular to a niche buyer, and then the technology gets gobbled up by someone new who takes the technology to a much broader buyer pool with a fresh/new distribution plan. Sometimes there is an improvement to the tech through the process and sometimes a dumming down. But, the technology isn't all that important. The money to be made is in the braoding the distribution and sales side which is a leveraging of the business. The variable cost to produce and sell the equipment is very low. The fixed cost to develop, update and maintain the technology and corporate entity is high. Spreading that fixed cost over 10-100X the number of sales is very profitable. If you can properly develope the sales side, the technology can become much, much more valuable than it was within the niche buyer pool it previously appealed to. Smartlabs attempted to go with a wide distribution model a few years back selling at brick and mortor stores, the partnership with Microsoft, etc. but they didn't have the corporate sophistication to set up systems to pull it off effectively. I suspect they ended up in worse shape than if they hadn't attempted that leap and I believe they tarnished the brand. A new owner could not go back out to Home Depot, Best Buy, etc. and attempt a relaunch without approaching it with an entirely new name/platform, hence, the partnership with Nokia. With that, the doors will open again. As many on this forum believe, the basic technology is still very viable compared to the other platforms that currently exist. It needs some improvements, for sure, but if it is improved, it will be among the top HA tech platforms that exist. Z-wave is coming along and improving substantially and will be real competition for the same market segment as it continues to evolve. A new version of Insteon (Nokia) may put some distance between the two. Smartalbs isn't looking to overtake Lutron Homeworks/Crestron/C4. There will always be that high end market for integrators that sell closed systems to customers where price is largely not relevant. That isn't where Insteon is looking to compete and never has. The ISY is what lets Insteon dip a toe into that Lutron/Crestron/C4 market but it is not likely the focus of Smartlabs. Hopefully, Smartlabs gives us the tools (A way to control its technology with an ISY or other logic systems) so that we can continue this endevor. If they do, they will sell X percent more of their hardware. But, that X percent isn't their focus. Their focus is to become a houshold name and have a LOT Of people buying equipment. And, reading this a little deeper, there will be a day where they look to extract an ongoing monthly fee from users who want "additional" services. That recurring revenue stream is the really big money is in the market. Companies are valued as a multiple of their recurring net revenue stream and the multiple is higher for subscription models than it is for one time sales of technology products that can become outdated overnight.

Th Mr Bill, That puts my concern into perspective, thank you. For me it seems having a KP that might fail at 10-15 years isn't a concern that will keep me from writing the EEPROM 2x a day to acheive my goal. That is still plenty of lifespan. And, will I own the house for 10+ years? Plus I have a half dozen spare KP's to cover the various known/unknown device failure risks. So, in the end, I view this as a neglible risk solution. I like your idea of painting the clear under button. I've done something similar in another location where I used spray on tint to the those clear under buttons. The issue I had was the lowest light setting (except for off) was still too bright for my needs. After applying the spray tint a lot less light comes through which allows much finer control of the lighting level on the KP's as the button still allows some light to come through, just less.

I've got a KP that I want to turn the backlight off each night, then in the morning, turn it on again. During they day I like it having a backlight but at night I want to get rid of the room illumination it provides. I remember reading in some forum that constantly writing to the EEPROM of a device will eventually kill the device/signficantly shorten it's lifespan. Is that true? Is changing the backlight level writing to the EEPROM or is that just a false assumption of mine and not an issue? Are there other ways to achieve my objective of having a different backlight level in the day vs the night?

Now, if we can only talk Michel/UDI into supporting the new PLM when Smartlabs finally releases it. It sounds like a longshot.

So, this movie has a happy ending

That made me chuckle. Michel, I am starting to believe you actually enjoy reading these forum posts?

One would think that after lots of failures through multiple revisions, someone up the foodchain at Smartlabs would realize it is a design/use that requires higher quality capacitors than their typical device and they should spend an extra $2 in parts per unit and charge $10 more. Lacking that decision, one could make the leap that it is designed as a short lifespan product for repeat sales. I doubt that is the case but some manufactures have that type of thinking. Again, i don't think that is their intention but it might have crept into the discussion ( Imagine a C-suite disccusion along the lines of: "We don't need to put expensive capacitors in all the units if only 10% of them will fail within 5 years. That 10% that fail, well, those customers will just need to purchase replacement units." That kind of thinking can easily occur and is just one step short of planned short lifespan).

UDI knows the Insteon system, its weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for making the system better more than anyone. And, they have (or had) a real insterest in the platform's success. I suspect they would have been generous with their input to Smartlabs on how to implement improvements to the system. When Smartabs decided to do the grand redesign for their new devices, how do you not make a seat for UDI at the strategy meeting? Why would you not bring in such an aparently willing expert into the development process? There is arrogance in that kind of thinking that is a huge loss of opportunity. Smartlabs/Nokia may be successful with the new platform moving forward but think of the additional refinments that could have been made with input from UDI? The lost opportunity could mean the difference between havng moderate success because the system works OK, and 10X success because the system works great. I don't get it.

Yeah, that is just plain STUPID.

I've had Insteon since early 2014. Its been about 300 devices between two residences. In that time I've had one PLM fail early on, one micro-dimmer (I think that was my fault), and I have had no failures of any other devices that I can remember. Maybe there was one dimmer switch years ago but I can't say for sure. I've had to factory reset dimmer switches 3-4 times when they stopped working or worked incorrectly. That is 7 years of what I consider pretty solid performance over what I consider a lot of devices. I do know others have had a real problem with PLM's, I've been spared that problem except for the one and it was likely a 2013 manufacture date. Is it possible that over the last +/- 7 years Smartlabs has improved the reliability of their equipment and a lot of the problems are with older equipment? Maybe the PLM which everyone seems to have problems with needs some work, though I've not experienced much issue. To me, getting 7 years, and hopefully more, out of electronics is a pretty good track record. Maybe my bar for measuring is low, maybe my sample size is small, maybe my incoming power is cleaner that average and I've been blessed with low failure because of it? I hear talk on these boards about low quality components inside their devices but I haven't experienced it. Maybe I should count my blessings and hope I haven't jinked myself for commenting on the topic.

You can also spray the clear plastic "sub button" with spray tint. I've used VHT Nite-Shades from Amazon. Runs $10. Works great. For my purposes I use three light coats on the sub button and it greatly reduces the light output but still leaves the button with a glow in a dark room. I'm sure you could just use this on the buttons you want to be dimmer than the others.