INSTEON ALMOST BURNED MY HOUSE DOWN!!! Now ISY Problem

[Adaptel]

I have a very frustrating and confusing problem with my large Insteon network and ISY994i.  I am fairly technical and do not know where to turn.  I have about 100 Insteon devices in my home and most of them are Switchlinc Dimmer and Switchlinc Relay untis.  I was an early adopter of Insteon and purchased most of my devices within a couple months of them first coming out, with very early firmware.  In my home, I had (20) 2476ST Switchlinc Relay switches (Firmware v2B) controlling many outdoor floodlights (totaling about 8000Watts) and in bedrooms which have switched outlets for lamps.  I live in an area with very unreliable electrical service and lose my power quite frequently.  It really bothered me that the relay switches would ALWAYS revert to the ON state whenever power was lost and then restored.  I called Smarthome about this problem and talked to a teenage tech who was really rude and said that there was nothing that could be done to have the switch remember its on/off state or have them power up to the OFF state.  I made this call a year ago after I returned from a 2-week vacation and realized that my power had briefly gone out the day after I left, and my 8000 Watt floodlights were on 24/7 for two weeks….leaving me with a $475 electric bill.  I asked Smarthome how they would EVER decide to engineer the switch to always turn on (instead of OFF) when powered up (like the dimmer units) if they couldn’t retain their previous on/off states during a power failure.  I knew an unwanted switching on of a device could pose some safety problems, but got NO ANSWERS and was pretty much blown off.  I was pissed because I paid $75/piece for these switches and in my mind they were dangerous and could cost me huge money if I lost my power and wasn’t around to turn everything back off.

 

I put it out of my mind and I was on vacation again last month, and surely enough, my power went out while I was away.  I got a call from my cell phone from my alarm monitoring provider saying that there is a fire alarm in my home (from my Elk M1 Gold System) and they wanted to know if it was a false alarm.  I said NO! Send the fire department because I wasn’t home!!!! Long story short, my daughter has a halogen desk lamp plugged into a switched outlet in her bedroom, and she had thrown a scarf on her desk which inadvertently landed on top of her desk lamp.  When the power was restored, the lamp came on, and the scarf caught fire.  Luckily the fire did not spread beyond the smoldering scarf, but this situation was no longer acceptable to me because Smarthome’s appalling engineering decisions almost caused me to lose my entire home.

 

I did some googling and found a thread somewhere with someone else complaining about this problem, and another poster confirmed that the newer Switchlinc Relay Dual-Band switches could remember the previous On/Off states during a power failure.  I should have given up on Smarthome altogether, but I dropped another $1,000 to buy 20 brand new 2477S Switchlinc On/Off units (Firmware v.45) and just got them all installed.  Yes, they do remember their states when power is removed and restored, but NOW THEY DO NOT WORK PROPERLY WITH MY ISY-994i and I have no idea of what is going on.

 

ISY PROBLEM I NEED HELP WITH:

I don’t have many “Programs” in my ISY-994i Pro, but one of the programs I use the most is one that allows me to turn all my lights off by double-tapping (fast-off) certain switches near my exit doors and by pressing a certain button on keypadlincs in my bedrooms.  These programs, when triggered, are set to turn my ENTIRE INSTEON NETWORK off.  When I trigger my all-off program, all my OLD Insteon devices turn off as expected, but every single one of my new relay switches stay on……even though the ISY shows their states as “OFF”.  If I right-click the device and do a “refresh status” the query then shows them to still be “ON”.  I have tried removing and re-linking the switches, upgrading firmware of the ISY, Factory resetting and doing a restore from backup….but nothing changes and this problem remains.  The device will turn off if a scene it is a member of is turned off, but they will not turn off when my program instructs the entire Insteon network to turn OFF.  Is this a bug with my ISY, or a bug in the firmware of the new Relay switches? What is the difference when you send an OFF command to a scene or to the root of your whole network?

 

Sorry this post is so long, but I am about to throw out my $4000+ Insteon investment because it seems that no matter how much money I throw at this thing, there are always frustrating problems.  I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

[mwester]

Recent Insteon devices have removed the "All-ON" and "All-OFF" capabilities -- it's far better to expressly declare what is to be turned on, and what is to be turned off, rather than blindly issuing network-wide commands to turn on or turn off.

 

Simply create a scene named "all-lights" or something, add all appropriate devices to that scene, and use that scene instead.

 

[edited to add:  I'd also suggest the use of some ISY programs to help out those older devices -- you can create a program that checks on a variable that is set on ISY boot to a specific value, and upon finding that value it can assume a power-fail may have occured, issue the appropriate off commands, and change that value to mark that it's done so.  You could also have some watch-dog programs that can monitor how long those 8000 watts have been running, send alerts, and finally just turn them off...]

[Adaptel]

Recent Insteon devices have removed the "All-ON" and "All-OFF" capabilities -- it's far better to expressly declare what is to be turned on, and what is to be turned off, rather than blindly issuing network-wide commands to turn on or turn off.

 

Simply create a scene named "all-lights" or something, add all appropriate devices to that scene, and use that scene instead.

 

[edited to add:  I'd also suggest the use of some ISY programs to help out those older devices -- you can create a program that checks on a variable that is set on ISY boot to a specific value, and upon finding that value it can assume a power-fail may have occured, issue the appropriate off commands, and change that value to mark that it's done so.  You could also have some watch-dog programs that can monitor how long those 8000 watts have been running, send alerts, and finally just turn them off...]

Thank you for the info that Insteon actually removed the ALL ON and ALL OFF functionality which would explain that info....but this disturbs me because it reinforces my belief that Smarthome is "making up" the Insteon standard as they go along.  It seems like the universal devices firmware still allows and trusts that the ALL ON and ALL OFF commands will turn all devices on and off as reflected in the status of the devices after the command is issued. This moving target of standards is really making me think to return all the recent devices I bought, ditch Insteon and look for some other platform that has their sh*t togehter.

 

As for the old relay switches, and their design of powering up into the ON state....in regards to your comments about trying to use programs to turn them off after a power outage/restore, there is another reason this is a problem that I didn't mention (besides almost burning my house down).  About 6 months ago, I installed a massive Kohler 22KW 2.5L 4-cylinder propane automatic backup generator to deal with my frequent power outages.  When the power goes out, the generator starts up and automatically switches my entire breaker panel (except my 3 central A/C compressors) over to the generator via a 200a ASCO trasfer switch.  When the transfer switch kicks in, the generator has to deal with all 8000w of lights plus all the other loads in my house powering up at the same time which causes the generator to massively struggle and it causes a serious brownout for about 10sec while it struggles to find equilibrium.  Even though this generator is large enough to run everything in my house, it does not like going from producing 0W to 10-15KW instantly by having all the floodlights being on, 

 

I'm curious to know where smarthome documented these changes to the so called  "Insteon Standard" and why.  Did they tell Universal Devices about it? I think they need to reflect this in the firmware by either disabling the ability to issue an ALL-ON or ALL-OFF command (which results in confusing results with devices saying OFF in ISY when they are actually still on) or figuring out which devices respond to these commands and not assume all devices will turn on or off in this case. 

[jerlands]

it reinforces my belief that Smarthome is "making up" the Insteon standard as they go along. 

 

That's kinda the nature of everything though.. evolution.. things change/grow as time passes.

 

Did they tell Universal Devices about it? I think they need to reflect this in the firmware by either disabling the ability to issue an ALL-ON or ALL-OFF command (which results in confusing results with devices saying OFF in ISY when they are actually still on) or figuring out which devices respond to these commands and not assume all devices will turn on or off in this case. 

 

I believe UDI was instrumental in this because there were many reports of "ALL ON" events that weren't requested (search the forum for "ALL ON.")

 

 

Jon...

[madcodger]

I suggest a call to SH to see if they will give you some sort of deal on replacing those floodlight switches. Early Insteon hardware was just terrible in many cases, and I replaced many switches in our earlier home under warranty, and others at my own expense. I finally arrived at a reasonable place, but it took many months of fighting with SH to get there. I now find that except for Icon switches (which I no longer buy because they don't hold up compared to Switchlincs) the newer hardware is reliable. But you make a really good point about the early Insteon equipment. I always thought SH should have replaced all of it, as many of us had to endure so many problems with it. And creating an automated switch so that it automatically turns on at power up is just an idiotic design.

[larryllix]

Many manufacturers have done this to devices where they turn themselves on after a power failure. Insteon copied the X10 habits.

 

This was an advertised feature for lamp devices so that the old mechanical switch on the wall could still be flipped off and then back on to cause the light to go on. The Hue bulbs, stupidly, do this too so that when I get a power blink due to wind in the middle of the night I wake up to about 300 W equiv. of white light in my gathering room. This is a response t the market refusing to use them because they need to get out the mobile device, run the app, and turn them on, as opposed to just flipping the switch on the wall on.

 

ISY to the rescue!

Knowing this problem,  I have an initialisation program (Run at startup enabled)  with a list of devices, that have this stupid feature built in, and turn them all off.

 

I have no high power lights anymore. As a retired electrical utility worker I saw the handwriting on the wall years ago and have very few, if any, high powered bulbs anymore. I cannot afford to heat my home with electric lamps, let alone have to A/C the heat back out again, in the summer.

 

You have spent all that money on Insteon devices but refused to spend it where it actually will save you money, replacing the energy pigs. Ironically, once you change to LED bulbs the savings you could possibly get with Insteon, disappears. Leaving a 9 watt bulb on 24x7 would probably never cost as much as the Insteon SwitchLinc to turn it off in our lifetimes.  Invest in your future with lower bills. Mine peaks about $120 per month (dead of winter with shop building electric heat) while neighbours and family peak at $500 / month and big rises in cost have been announced again.

Edited December 4, 2015 by larryllix

[larryllix]

Thank you for the info that Insteon actually removed the ALL ON and ALL OFF functionality which would explain that info...

 

Read mwester's post again. That was not the method suggested.

 

 

....

 

Simply create a scene named "all-lights" or something, add all appropriate devices to that scene, and use that scene instead.

 

[edited to add:  I'd also suggest the use of some ISY programs to help out those older devices -- you can create a program that checks on a variable that is set on ISY boot to a specific value, and upon finding that value it can assume a power-fail may have occured, issue the appropriate off commands, and change that value to mark that it's done so.  You could also have some watch-dog programs that can monitor how long those 8000 watts have been running, send alerts, and finally just turn them off...]

 

 

 

 

[Teken]

Just some observation(s) and feed back with regard to some of the above. Its apparent to me your Kohler back up generator deployment was not well thought out. Its apparent to me money isn't an issue here so it translates to knowledge, expectations, and life style.

 

The generator firstly should have been spec'd to have a load shedding capability which Kohler has several solutions for. Next, assuming the load shedding was not something considered or available at that time. Then the key rules of a back up generator were already broken and that is to provide power only for critical loads.

 

There is absolutely no reason why anyone would need 8000 watts of outside lights to be powered, none. These lights should have been segmented and placed in groups where key lighting would be available should it be required. You certainly did not need all 8000 watts to be lit up.

 

What is this a concert?!?!

 

With respect to the power on after electrical failure no argument about how incredibly stupid that method is. The current iterations of Insteon devices (most) use *Last Known State* which is a great compromise.

 

If its on it will return to that condition upon a electrical event and vice versa. With respect to your daughter dropping her scarf on the table lamp?

 

I'm sorry but that was a user issue and can't be placed on Smartlabs entirely. More people die a year due to careless acts then actual conditions that exist in their own environment. People summarily believe they can gamble with their lives all day long doing stupid things.

 

Just because nothing ever happen before, wrong . . .

 

There is no such thing as luck, bad luck.

 

The simple fact is you called out these issues long ago about the devices being on after a power blip. Your decision to leave them in place is ultimately a personal choice. It doesn't mean that SH should not have done something to assist you in lessening the pain of replacement given its a terrible concept and design.

 

As you well illustrated the consequences can be severe and deadly if not addressed. Bottom line get rid of those devices which present a power on condition. Next, rethink and redeploy the generator to either load shed, or actually follow the intent of the generator and that is to power critical loads only.

 

Following that with isolating a few outside lights for needed and required path lighting. Lastly, change out those bulbs even a few will do several things for you.

 

Even if you did nothing else it will save you money and it will reduce the startup load for that generator. Since you obviously have no idea who I am besides some random guy on the Internet. I would like to qualify that almost every body who has read my rants, views, feed back knows I have absolutely no issue throwing SH / Smartlabs under the bus, none.

 

But in this case besides calling out the stupid method they used in the switches you have. The rest is a user issue that needs to be solved by you. I am sure your daughter has literally learned the hard way to be mindful of where she places her items in the future.

 

Which of course high lights the obvious here the bulb in use was indeed a standard bulb. No LED bulb or even a CFL bulbs would have generated enough heat to cause a fire. Unless it was completely surrounded and engulfed in something. As older CFLs did run warm but no where compared to a standard incandescent bulb.

 

At the end of the day I am happy no one was hurt and obviously no one died. Because it makes no difference what happen the loss of life is something no one ever wants to see or experience.

 

I hope you take the feed back provided in a constructive manner as its easy to get angry and not too.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Teken

[Adaptel]

Thanks for all your input and feedback regarding my frustrations and it is good to know that I'm not the only one who thinks the idea of a switch being able to turn on an electical load randomly IS DANGEROUS.  Yes, my daughter learned a valuable lesson and that halogen desk lamp was the very LAST incandescent bulb in my entire home, and is now gone (she loved her desk lamp and didn't want to get rid of it).  I was also an early adopter of LED bulbs and I have not pulled the trigger on replacing my large halogen outdoor flood lights (for a tennis court, swimming pool, and field because I have been waiting for the outdoor LED high-output floodlight technology to mature a bit because I kept reading about owners of them experiencing lots of premature failures.  Plus, these lights were used infrequently and only for short periods of time, maybee a few hours/week, except when they were turn on by a power failure without anyone around to shut them off.  

 

Based on my interactions with Smarthome/Smartlabs, I find it amazing to hear that they actually worked with some people here in replacing the early Insteon devices with more modern ones at a reduced price.  Can anybody give suggestions on how to go about doing this and how to approach them?  I think my original devices are around 6 years old, but can't remember.  It was within 2 months of them originally coming out.  Among my original old devices, I have about 60 Switchlinc Dimmer 2476D v.27 and 15 Keypadlinc 2486D v.29.  Some of my heavily used dimmer switches were replaced because of another bit of bad engineering.  The microswitches behind the on and off paddle were not very durable and I found that after so many actuations, the switches would start failing to make positive contact, resulting in having to repeatedly tap the switch several times until the switch turns on or off.

 

Lastly, I went with a large whole-house generator because I work from home quite frequently and cannot be disrupted during my frequent power failures. Plus, the larger "industrial grade" 1800rpm generators produce much more clean and consistent power with lower fuel consumption when compared to the cheap residential 3600rpm generators in the 8000-12,000KW range.  My insteon network does surprisingly work perfectly when running on generator power because it puts out voltage at a rock solid 60Hz.  And, when the power comes back on, I think it is cool that the transfer switch is smart enough that when the power is restored, it is able to wait for the exact millisecond that the generator and utility power phases are in sync with one another and can switch back to utility power without the lights even flickering. 

[Teken]

Thanks for all your input and feedback regarding my frustrations and it is good to know that I'm not the only one who thinks the idea of a switch being able to turn on an electical load randomly IS DANGEROUS.  Yes, my daughter learned a valuable lesson and that halogen desk lamp was the very LAST incandescent bulb in my entire home, and is now gone (she loved her desk lamp and didn't want to get rid of it).  I was also an early adopter of LED bulbs and I have not pulled the trigger on replacing my large halogen outdoor flood lights (for a tennis court, swimming pool, and field because I have been waiting for the outdoor LED high-output floodlight technology to mature a bit because I kept reading about owners of them experiencing lots of premature failures.  Plus, these lights were used infrequently and only for short periods of time, maybee a few hours/week, except when they were turn on by a power failure without anyone around to shut them off.  

 

Based on my interactions with Smarthome/Smartlabs, I find it amazing to hear that they actually worked with some people here in replacing the early Insteon devices with more modern ones at a reduced price.  Can anybody give suggestions on how to go about doing this and how to approach them?  I think my original devices are around 6 years old, but can't remember.  It was within 2 months of them originally coming out.  Among my original old devices, I have about 60 Switchlinc Dimmer 2476D v.27 and 15 Keypadlinc 2486D v.29.  Some of my heavily used dimmer switches were replaced because of another bit of bad engineering.  The microswitches behind the on and off paddle were not very durable and I found that after so many actuations, the switches would start failing to make positive contact, resulting in having to repeatedly tap the switch several times until the switch turns on or off.

 

Lastly, I went with a large whole-house generator because I work from home quite frequently and cannot be disrupted during my frequent power failures. Plus, the larger "industrial grade" 1800rpm generators produce much more clean and consistent power with lower fuel consumption when compared to the cheap residential 3600rpm generators in the 8000-12,000KW range.  My insteon network does surprisingly work perfectly when running on generator power because it puts out voltage at a rock solid 60Hz.  And, when the power comes back on, I think it is cool that the transfer switch is smart enough that when the power is restored, it is able to wait for the exact millisecond that the generator and utility power phases are in sync with one another and can switch back to utility power without the lights even flickering. 

 

As stated earlier I am happy and relieved to read no one was hurt and this is why home insurance is in place for such accidents. Moving forward I would humbly suggest you either or contract out the outside lights to be segmented out. Regardless of the lighting technology you have in place and back up power it makes no sense in powering the tennis court, pool, etc.

 

Load shedding is an option where the system is smart enough to remove / add loads based on the systems limits. If load shedding can not be incorporated, then again only *critical loads* should be powered during a grid down event.

 

I also agree with you LED lighting still has a way to go given the vast amounts of variability, noise, and long term use. At this point I would move forward and replace those older units with current product offerings which by the way incorporate the following features.

 

- 100 - 277 wider voltage which helps guard against voltage swings / sags.

- Higher surge protection against electrical line faults.

- Reduced energy consumption when compared to previous iteration models.

- Phase coupling confirmation: Same phase - opposite phase via dual colored LED's.

- Resume: Based on last known state of on-off.

 

Bottom line the family and over all the home is safe now move forward and make the required changes to enjoy that beautiful home.

 

Game on . . .

Edited December 4, 2015 by Teken

[oberkc]

That is surely an interesting story and I appreciate you sharing it. It is quickly obvious that the solution will cover multiple fronts.

 

If I may offer a simple (even if small) part of a solution. Create logical main scenes of devices. My major groups, for example, are ALL INTERIOR, and ALL EXTERIOR. I have found it useful to have simple programs that run in the middle of the night that simply turn everything off automatically. In most cases, these programs are redundant, but it is wonderful peace of mind.

 

Certainly you did not spend thousands of dollars on insteon devices and controllers to continue to operate the devices as you did before: manually. Take advantage of that automation power that you already have. Unfortunately, it sounds as if you will have to abandon the "all off" approach you currently employ.

[larryllix]

As stated earlier I am happy and relieved to read no one was hurt and this is why home insurance is in place for such accidents. Moving forward I would humbly suggest you either or contract out the outside lights to be segmented out. Regardless of the lighting technology you have in place and back up power it makes no sense in powering the tennis court, pool, etc.

 

Load shedding is an option where the system is smart enough to remove / add loads based on the systems limits. If load shedding can not be incorporated, then again only *critical loads* should be powered during a grid down event.

 

....

8000 Watts is not all on one Insteon switch. Doesn't that suggest staging is already a capability with existing hardware?.

Doesn't Insteon have a ramp feature to avoid load surges?

 

 

"If you build it, they will come."

[Teken]

8000 Watts is not all on one Insteon switch. Doesn't that suggest staging is already a capability with existing hardware?.

Doesn't Insteon have a ramp feature to avoid load surges?

 

 

"If you build it, they will come."

 

Larry,

 

As I read the OP's initial thread which he will need to clarify. Is that he has several Insteon switches which control various outdoor lighting fixtures. Some for the home, perimeter, and various others like the pool, tennis court. They are obviously on separate switches but when there is a blip in power.

 

These ill conceived devices turn on.

 

Thus causing a massive load to be present when the back up generator is spooling up. Many if not all back up generators offer surge power like when a fridge, sump kicks in. But that is while the generator is fully operating at normal speeds. His problem is that power goes out than when enough time normally (5-10) minutes the back up generator will kick in.

 

The problem is all of these switches are then defaulted to a on state which the generator is not capable of supporting over a long period of time. Start up power is separate and different than surge power, or even load shedding.

 

Load shedding is a active element that smart generators incorporate whether it be removing a load when power exceeds the systems ability, or to bring it back on line when the system determines its safe to do so.

 

Regardless of the above the primary goal and job of the back up generator is to supply power to critical loads such as HVAC, Fridge, Freezer, Sump, common outlets. Many people take the view since the back up generator is capable of supplying gobs of power its OK to power things like the dryer, washer, etc.

 

That's fine and dandy so long as people realize the first two elements of load shedding, surge power, and start up power are tested and validated as meeting those needs. In my travels I have seen lots of so called high dollar generators not even meet the basic surge, start up, load shedding capabilities they the maker claim.

 

The key thing I have learned in life is never take any ones word for anything. Test, validate, and validate some more and in real world use cases. Not when things are all rosy and blue skies as doing so will leave people in a bind when it really matters. 

[Adaptel]

I plan on taking everyone's suggestions and re-writing my existing programs to reflect the behavior of my new devices.  I know the potential of the Insteon, ISY 994i, and Elk M1 Gold hardware is high, and I have wanted to implement all sorts of ideas of automating more things (like using my Elks motion detectors to turn off lights in unoccupied rooms), but finding time is always the hardest part.  This will give me a push in the right direction.

 

On a related note, I done some programming (mostly on microcontrollers), but I am by no means very experienced.  Much of my home's A/V equipment is controlled by an AMX/Harmon Netlinx control system and my home telephones are Mostly Cisco 7971 touch screen IP phones connected to a linux PBX In a Flash (PIAF) server.  I have so wanted to tie all/some of these systems together and was wondering if anyone has any pointers on where to start.  I know the Netlinx programming language quite well, and have programmed it from scratch.  It has the capability of being able to communicate with any IP device in any manner, and where should I start reading about the correct protocols I should use to talk to the ISY with my AMX network.  My amx system is also connected to a serial personal power consumption meter on my breaker panel and it does show me my power draw on the touch panels all the time, and via voice through the ELK system when on generator and I surpass 18kw, but it would be cool to be able to pull all these disjointed systems all together.  I have AMX touch screens, but it would be nice to take advantage of the color screens on all the phones around my house (cisco uses xml on these devices).to control my lighting and cross automate all of it.  Any pointers?

 

As for my generator, I only segmented the A/Cs because they would be too much for the generator to handle, but since I have so many outages, I wanted to be able to enjoy all of my home when they occur.  With 22KW of power, I could run anything i wanted during an outage if I wanted to, but under normal usage, would NEVER have all 8,000W of outdoor floodlights on at the same time.

[Teken]

I have a question for you more of a personal curiosity how many lights and specifically what does each area consume?

 

Pool? Tennis Court, Perimeter Home? Are some lights for example at the tennis court 500 - 1500 watt halogen flood lamps? In a commercial space 8000 watts isn't out of the ordinary but in a residential space.

 

Oh yeah baby . . . 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Teken

[Adaptel]

Larry,

 

As I read the OP's initial thread which he will need to clarify. Is that he has several Insteon switches which control various outdoor lighting fixtures. Some for the home, perimeter, and various others like the pool, tennis court. They are obviously on separate switches but when there is a blip in power.

 

To clarify, the 8,000W of external lighting is controlled by 16 seperate switchlinc relay switch devices.  With the older switches designed to default to the power-on state after a power blip, they act as one massive 66AMP  switch that has been left on when power is restored.  Although my generator can indeed run all these outdoor lights at the same time (I have tried it), it does not like them all being turned on at the exact same moment when the transfer switch kicks in (and my fridge and many many switching power supplies in comptuers and electronics pull a large initial current draw).  I don't believe I need any type of load shedding because 22KW is a crapload of power and can handle any "normal use" scenario.  During a power outage, I have never surpassed 15KW even when using the pool.

[larryllix]

Larry,

 

As I read the OP's initial thread which he will need to clarify. Is that he has several Insteon switches which control various outdoor lighting fixtures. Some for the home, perimeter, and various others like the pool, tennis court. They are obviously on separate switches but when there is a blip in power.

 

These ill conceived devices turn on.

 

...

These problems were all resolved long before the OP post. The power blink problem doesn't exist. The halogen has been replaced with an LED. The 8000 Watts are segmented and low power replacements are being shopped for.

 

The only problem is the replacement devices will not play with ISY994i nicely.

[Teken]

These problems were all resolved long before the OP post. The power blink problem doesn't exist. The halogen has been replaced with an LED. The 8000 Watts are segmented and low power replacements are being shopped for.

 

The only problem is the replacement devices will not play with ISY994i nicely.

 

Larry,

 

Not sure I follow what you're saying here? The OP still uses halogen lights there are no LED's in use now outside hence why the massive 8000 watts. As to the power blip, again this thread wouldn't exist if it didn't happen and thus the fire etc.

 

As to the segmented loads my reply was to your inquiry about load shedding which the OP does not have in place.

 

Ha . . . 

[stusviews]

Safety note: Even if the device did not return to an ON state, no one should toss a flammable object on something that can get hot, most especially if it's remote controllable.

[oberkc]

Safety note: Even if the device did not return to an ON state, no one should toss a flammable object on something that can get hot, most especially if it's remote controllable.

In the end, if there were a more serious fire, I would guess that this would have been identified as the ROOT cause.  All other factors, including the insteon "features" would have been secondary, or contributory. 

 

It sounds as if the lesson has been learned.  No doubt, others will have to learn it the hard way, as well.

[mwester]

But, at the risk of side-tracking the conversation, this does bring up an important and interesting issue regarding home automation in general: liability.

 

In particular, we've had a lot of threads involving controlling heating equipment - perhaps because I live where it gets really cold in the winter I'm particularly sensitive to the risks.  Not to mention that I live in a rather litigious nation.  We've had a number of threads that have discussed using ApplianceLincs and other On/Off relay devices to control pumps, blowers, and the like...  I just wonder when Joe Average follows instructions on some post to do this, and comes home to burst pipes and a frozen house, will he sue UDI?  SmartHome?  Or hire a lawyer to try to track down the posters on this board and sue them?

 

Other idle speculation... I wonder when someone will sue Google (they have buckets of money) because Grandpa ended up hospitalized with hypothermia, because the Nest thermostat, being unable to detect a lot of motion from Gramps who's bedridden, turned the heat down to 60 degrees...

 

Or when Charles Chef-Wannabe sues because he cut his thumb off while chopping onions when his ISY/PLM combination issued the dreaded "All ON" command and blinded him with the kitchen floodlights on at max power...

 

Or when Mike Misguided finds out his insurance company isn't paying out in full, because they determined that his Insteon-based "so-called-security-system" isn't really a security system at all...

 

Final bit of speculation here, perhaps some on this forum may have an answer to this one -- do installers of this stuff carry the equivalent of "malpractice" insurance, in addition to the normal insurance contractors carry?

 

Just wondering about the legal aspects of all this...

[Adaptel]

Safety note: Even if the device did not return to an ON state, no one should toss a flammable object on something that can get hot, most especially if it's remote controllable.

Maybe I am the only one who sees this differently.  Yes, nobody should throw a flamible object on a heat generating lamp, that was my daughter's fault.  This only poses a real danger is someone TURNS THIS LIGHT ON.  If someone manually turned this light on, they would be in the room and would have probably noticed the problem early either by smell or when right when the smoke alarm went off.  I live in a remote area and it took 20+ minutes for the fire dept to respond to the event.  if the fire did take hold, the house would likely have been fully engulfed by the time they got there.

 

Yes, these switches are controllable, but a controllable device should be just that......under the complete control of the owner of them, either by remote apps/software, or by the programs they write in their controlling devices, like the ISY.  I had NO CONTROL of the behavior of what happens to these switches when the power is lost and restored.  I would NEVER create a program that would automatically turn on a switched outlet (a common and accepted feature in many homes) because you never know what is plugged into them and having automatically turn on for any reason is something common sense would prevent me from doing. I had called smarthome before this nearly castastrphic event happened, explained how I thought it was ABSURD that they would design a device in this manner, and they blew me off saying "that is how they are designed to behave, it cannot be changed, and there isn't a problem).....which made NO SENSE because the early dimmer devices defauted to the OFF state.  If this fire would have been serious, I am sure my insurance company would have persued this further with the maker of an electrical device that can turn loads on RANDOMLY (power loss events are random).  

 

This makes me think.  Do insteon devices carry the UL certification? I thought this was mandatory on devices such as this used in American home electrical hard-wired devices.  What is that weird "FTL" logo on them mean?

[larryllix]

ETL is the usual Chinese equivalent of _USUL_C or CSA and I believe being accepted in North America due to our approval companies dragging their feet or demanding too much money.

[Teken]

Maybe I am the only one who sees this differently.  Yes, nobody should throw a flamible object on a heat generating lamp, that was my daughter's fault.  This only poses a real danger is someone TURNS THIS LIGHT ON.  If someone manually turned this light on, they would be in the room and would have probably noticed the problem early either by smell or when right when the smoke alarm went off.  I live in a remote area and it took 20+ minutes for the fire dept to respond to the event.  if the fire did take hold, the house would likely have been fully engulfed by the time they got there.

 

Yes, these switches are controllable, but a controllable device should be just that......under the complete control of the owner of them, either by remote apps/software, or by the programs they write in their controlling devices, like the ISY.  I had NO CONTROL of the behavior of what happens to these switches when the power is lost and restored.  I would NEVER create a program that would automatically turn on a switched outlet (a common and accepted feature in many homes) because you never know what is plugged into them and having automatically turn on for any reason is something common sense would prevent me from doing. I had called smarthome before this nearly castastrphic event happened, explained how I thought it was ABSURD that they would design a device in this manner, and they blew me off saying "that is how they are designed to behave, it cannot be changed, and there isn't a problem).....which made NO SENSE because the early dimmer devices defauted to the OFF state.  If this fire would have been serious, I am sure my insurance company would have persued this further with the maker of an electrical device that can turn loads on RANDOMLY (power loss events are random).  

 

This makes me think.  Do insteon devices carry the UL certification? I thought this was mandatory on devices such as this used in American home electrical hard-wired devices.  What is that weird "FTL" logo on them mean?

 

There are several things I will try to address in no specific order. ETL is the testing lab which is the equivlence to UL / cUL in a general nature. As their primary function is to help companies (facilitate) to test, meet, and produce items that meet global standards as indicated above and in the EU its called CE.

 

As I stated early on how a product operates doesn't really matter in the general sense. Its when you combine different use cases and scenarios that can, will, and have caused issues.

 

A laymen would assume something would come back in a off state. While others want the reverse in many industries its aptly called and phrased as *Fail Safe vs Fail Secure*

 

Now, let me qualify that normally these two phrases are used strictly in the form of security and other industries. But the general premise applies here.

 

For example when Smartlabs had the older Appliance Linc default to the off state this is considered *Fail Secure*. This is fine for a toaster, coffee maker etc.

 

Fail Safe would be mean when the device came back up the unit would be powered. This would operate perfectly for a sump, fridge, etc because you want power to be present upon power loss and restored when there.

 

Again, some may find value in one or the other but ultimately the intent lies with the consumer. I have learned the hard way like many others that the responsibility falls upon us alone. All of us can dance around and muse about what should of, could of, would of.

 

The hard lesson learned here is you're most certainly more cognoscente of how things operate and (IF) they meet your use case in your personal environment. As you can probably tell I have seen, lived, and experienced these things on a epic level. So I offer the feed back not simply as a outside observer (JAFO) but from personal experience.  

Edited December 4, 2015 by Teken

[larryllix]

There are several things I will try to address in no specific order. ETL is the testing lab which is the equivlence to UL / cUL in a general nature. As their primary function is to help companies (facilitate) to test, meet, and produce items that meet global standards as indicated above and in the EU its called CE.

 

As I stated early on how a product operates doesn't really matter in the general sense. Its when you combine different use cases and scenarios that can, will, and have caused issues.

 

A laymen would assume something would come back in a off state. While others want the reverse in many industries its aptly called and phrased as *Fail Safe vs Fail Secure*

 

Now, let me qualify that normally these two phrases are used strictly in the form of security and other industries. But the general premise applies here.

 

For example when Smartlabs had the older Appliance Linc default to the off state this is considered *Fail Secure*. This is fine for a toaster, coffee maker etc.

 

Fail Safe would be mean when the device came back up the unit would be powered. This would operate perfectly for a sump, fridge, etc because you want power to be present upon power loss and restored when there.

 

Again, some may find value in one or the other but ultimately the intent lies with the consumer. I have learned the hard way like many others that the responsibility falls upon us alone. All of us can dance around and muse about what should of, could of, would of.

 

The hard lesson learned here is you're most certainly more cognoscente of how things operate and (IF) they meet your use case in your personal environment. As you can probably tell I have seen, lived, and experienced these things on a epic level. So I offer the feed back not simply as a outside observer (JAFO) but from personal experience.  

The Chinese also use "CE" but when complained to claim that their C and E are further apart closer together even if the same font style is used.

 

The fridge and appliance scenario is an interesting one and makes real sense. Thanks.

 

Edit: Corrected actual spacing statement.

Edited December 5, 2015 by larryllix