Insteon vs ZWave for newly acquired vacation home

[stusviews]

Hi Michael,

 

I noticed that the device, "supports instant status when controlled locally." Does that occur if the status is changed via the ISY? If not, than "instant status" is severely limited, IMO.

[MWareman]

Hi Michael,

 

I noticed that the device, "supports instant status when controlled locally." Does that occur if the status is changed via the ISY? If not, than "instant status" is severely limited, IMO.

I get instant status however the device is controlled. Locally, thru the ISY Admin Console, via the API, using Agave and Alexa...

[pinkfish]

I used to recommend insteon devices, but I have run into some pretty significant problems with insteon switches, namely that they irrecoverably crash.  The switch for the lights in my bathroom crashes and I have to reset it every couple of months, and some other switches in my house are almost always crashed since I don't get to see them often enough to notice or fix it.  I can bring the switch back with a simple reset, as in pulling the set tab on the front of the switch to hardware reset it.  However the worst thing a switch can ever do is not work at all.  This also means the insteon has no watchdog timer in their switch to auto-reset it when it crashes, this is basic embedded systems, now I recommend zwave switches, the repeaters are a little more annoying but the switches have never crashed on me at all.

 

I talked to smarthome about this and they just said to put in power conditioners, which I did and it somewhat helped, however it does point back to the bad design of not doing a watchdog circuit in the first place.  I have found this is true for older and for newer insteon wall switches, in more than one house.

 

Thanks,

David.

[gduprey]

I'll second (third or fourth) the recommendation to get the ISY with ZWave and then pick and choose the best of both worlds.  As others have confirmed, right now, ZWave is the only reasonable alternative for locks, has lots of solid options for thermostats and has a good selection of door sensors and climate sensors.  Insteon is the winner for lighting -- cost (although that is becoming more of a wash) and features.  Specifically, the instant reporting ability is in all Insteon devices and don't discount the built-in scene support which lets you change lighting configurations in an instant.

 

I have 3 houses with this mix (2 are mine, one is a friend).  Largest has 70+ insteon switches, 10 insteon motion sensors, 12 insteon leak sensors (fantastic!), 3 zwave locks, 12 zwave climate sensors, 8 zwave door/contact sensors and it all works really well.  Do keep in mind that ZWave often requires at least 2 additional repeaters (to create a mesh) for larger places or places with older/more solid walls (the aeon siren or doorbell work wonders, but you do need at least 2).

 

Finally, any home you're installing all this stuff in a wall would benefit from installing a whole house surge protector and (for Insteon) a phase coupler.  They aren't expensive and the surge suppressor is "cheap" insurance for all your HA investment.

 

Gerry

[giesen]

I'll second (third or fourth) the recommendation to get the ISY with ZWave and then pick and choose the best of both worlds. As others have confirmed, right now, ZWave is the only reasonable alternative for locks, has lots of solid options for thermostats and has a good selection of door sensors and climate sensors. Insteon is the winner for lighting -- cost (although that is becoming more of a wash) and features. Specifically, the instant reporting ability is in all Insteon devices and don't discount the built-in scene support which lets you change lighting configurations in an instant.

 

I have 3 houses with this mix (2 are mine, one is a friend). Largest has 70+ insteon switches, 10 insteon motion sensors, 12 insteon leak sensors (fantastic!), 3 zwave locks, 12 zwave climate sensors, 8 zwave door/contact sensors and it all works really well. Do keep in mind that ZWave often requires at least 2 additional repeaters (to create a mesh) for larger places or places with older/more solid walls (the aeon siren or doorbell work wonders, but you do need at least 2).

 

Finally, any home you're installing all this stuff in a wall would benefit from installing a whole house surge protector and (for Insteon) a phase coupler. They aren't expensive and the surge suppressor is "cheap" insurance for all your HA investment.

 

Gerry

A phase coupler should be totally unnecessary for all but the most challenging Insteon installs as long as you use predominantly dual-band devices. I have no phase coupler in my 60 year old house (with metal device boxes) and have perfect Insteon reliability...

 

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[gduprey]

Your right that it shouldn't be needed.  But it's cheap insurance and if you have the panel open to put in a whole house surge suppressor anyway, it really cannot hurt and might help for some boundry conditions.  I didn't need one in mu 1928 house (about 1,600sqft) but did see some improvements in my 2012 model 3,500sqft house.  

[cyberk]

I think my vote is Z-Wave. It's true that ISY enables you to choose whatever you want but if you go Insteon and decide to add *some* Z-Wave, you will need sufficient Z-Wave devices to properly strengthen the Z-Wave mesh...or you will need repeaters (AoTec Sirens and maybe Doorbells) to get the job done. ISY still has a lot of room for improvement where Z-Wave is concerned but it's getting there, especially with v5.

 

You will find more a LOT more options and better pricing with Z-Wave, Z-Wave allows for competition between vendors and only great things can come from clean competition. If in the future you decide ISY isn't for you, there are a dozen other (albeit not as versatile imho) Z-Wave solutions for you. With Insteon, you have far less choices BUT it is a reliable system, the insteon dual-mesh technology is far superior in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Z-Wave isn't reliable, it just takes a little more to make it so.

 

In full disclosure, I built my entire house using Insteon but am adding more and more Z-Wave devices every day and if I could do it all over again, I'm not sure I would do much Insteon at all.