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Here is some advice for iffy insteon reliability


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I finally got around to updating from my ISY99 to the new ISY994IR.  It went fine.  I hadn't logged into my ISY for many months since i haven't been doing any programming.  When i logged on to the admin panel, I was getting at least 10 of my devices not showing up! You know, that "cannot communicate with device ***" error in the ISY admin panel.  My first thoughts were, "great more of my insteon devices are dead on me".

 

I noticed my wife plugged her IBM laptop into the same outlet as my PLM.  I unplugged the laptop and everything came back immediately!  I plugged the laptop back in and many devices disappeared again.

So the advice is: i have had so far two TV's and a laptop that really mess with the insteon reliability (even in a house chock full of insteon devices). So keep that in mind if you too have issues as it might help your troubleshooting.  Insteon is a sensitive technology at least in my house.  When it works its great. But man its easy to break.

 

Cheers!

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Or "why do so many devices whack out an insteon system".  I would never recommend an Insteon system for a 'high end' client. Its just too flaky: Lights in scenes come on/off at different speeds (not ramping but responsiveness); double-tapping light switches all the time might drive other people bananas; blah blah blah.  But for the home tinkerer, its a bloody black hole of fun!  Haha.

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I have found the brains to be the most important piece to keep clear of interference. All devices near my PLMs have a filter on them. When it comes to scenes, I try to avoid extremely large scenes. I would rather create multiple groups that one extremely large scene. Even high end home systems have their short falls when you lump to many devices together. I know someone with a $250,000  system that crashed and they couldnt turn on a single light. There are no perfect system. When it comes to Insteon and Zwave, there can potentially be more issues, but at the end of the day, knowing the shortfalls allow you to overcome them also.

 

Elliott

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Or "why do so many devices whack out an insteon system". I would never recommend an Insteon system for a 'high end' client. Its just too flaky: Lights in scenes come on/off at different speeds (not ramping but responsiveness); double-tapping light switches all the time might drive other people bananas; blah blah blah. But for the home tinkerer, its a bloody black hole of fun! Haha.

Last weekend was my monthly charging duties to ensure all of my back up battery cells were ready to go.

 

More often than not I am able to recharge 90% of the 300 plus cells during the day. This weekend I got side tracked and wasn't able to complete this task on time. So I left all of the remaining chargers on the outlets.

 

Low and behold the following morning eight Leak Sensors did not report in their heartbeat?

 

In the kitchen is a single dual band lamp linc attached to the same wall. It's obvious these chargers ate up any Insteon signal.

 

The reality is Insteon is highly reliant on power line and the RF portion is NOT mutually exclusive in operations.

 

Perhaps the next generation of Insteon will have separate components to send & receive RF COM's. Until then I don't believe people can rely on this portion alone.

 

 

Ideals are peaceful - History is violent

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