Is Insteon still interested in UDI?

[bcwmachine]

In looking at the "new" Insteon and Smartlabs sites I found no mention of UDI on them. I hope I missed it. How good are the relations between UDI and Smartlabs?

[Techman]

In looking at the "new" Insteon and Smartlabs sites I found no mention of UDI on them. I hope I missed it. How good are the relations between UDI and Smartlabs?

 

UDI is a 3rd party developer.

 

Smartlabs is the developer of Insteon products.

 

Smarthome is the retail arm of Smartlabs which sells among other things, Insteon devices and the ISY.

[stusviews]

Which specific sites, the manufacturer, the retailer, the Smarthome forum, the Insteon forum? Or a different site?

[bcwmachine]

On www.insteon.com

Richmond Capital Partners Acquires Smartlabs and Fortifies Company with $7.3 Million in Funding to Accelerate the Company’s Push in the IoT Industry

Jun 13, 2017

No mention that I saw of UDI.

On www.smartlabsinc.com

No mention that I saw of UDI, although it does say visit Insteon, and visit Smarthome.

 

I'm just wondering if relationship with UDI is still strong?

[stusviews]

I don't know why the sites you linked to would mention UDI. Nor do they mention HomeSeer, Home Control Assistant or Indigo, all third party Insteon managers as is the ISY. But all those mentioned can be found on the retail website.

 

In any case, here's the ISY on the Insteon web site

[bcwmachine]

Still did not answer ??? How Good Are UDI's Relations With Insteon ???

UDI seems to be having problems with new Insteon products, but it could be from Smart Labs Inc being bought out last month and the confusion that undoubtedly caused. 

[Brian H]

Both the Alert Module and now the Siren Module. Go way back before the takeover.

They still are not supported properly due to Smartlabs not giving the needed information in a timely manner.

I too lately have seen Smartlabs reluctance to give UDI the needed information.

 

I have reservation on their relationship myself.

[larryllix]

UDI has spent countless development months on Zwave. If there is a rock in the garden a plant's root has to  grow around it.

 

Good companies don't disclose business relationships publicly, while there is still hope.

[bcwmachine]

Might have to start looking at Zwave. :-]

[MikeD]

Although I started with Insteon, I now primarily look at z-wave solutions. Just be aware that multichannel devices will not work if you are running 'official' v4.5.x software. Multichannel is supported in v5(in alpha), and UDI is commited to z-wave, however the implementation is ongoing. I have several z-wave devices, including a Schlage lock, Aeotec doorbell, some plug-in switches, and the older MultiSensor 6. All work in v4.5.4 that I am currently running.

 

Do a search on this forum before you purchase a z-wave device you are interested in. Someone may have posted compatibility information.

[apostolakisl]

I wouldn't worry about it.  SH/SL has way too much invested in their current protocol to make any changes that make ISY obsolete.  They just can't since that would mean that you wouldn't be able to link any of the new devices to old devices.  After all, it is the PLM that makes the links, not ISY and the PLM is made by them.

 

The one thing they could do if things got nasty is to simply stock making the PLM.  But that would take out more than just ISY and I imagine there would be lawsuits.

 

It appears the deal is that new devices with unique functionality are not getting supported by ISY . .. as far as the uniqe function is concerned.  What this means to you and me is, we dont buy those products but instead get a z-wave version of the same thing.  This seems quite counter productive to being in the best interist of SL.

 

There are some comments in a different thread theorizing that SL has outsourced its engineering and that they actually don't even know how the heck it works.  I suppose this could be true.

 

In the end, you can always get an Insteon hub to access some of those unique features, especially the one-time setup stuff.

[Dr Pepper]

My opinion is the guys at UDI are smart enough not to put all eggs into one basket.  With SH the only mfg if anything ever happened to them UDI would be high and dry.  That and there are certain desirable devices that are not made by SH (Locks etc).  So UDI is doing all of us and themselves a huge favor in supporting Zwave.

 

I am pretty happy they are (and its a lot of work).  Homeseer supports both but is very buggy and requires a lot of resources.  It is also very expensive compared to the ISY.

[paulbates]

I am pretty happy they are (and its a lot of work).  Homeseer supports both but is very buggy and requires a lot of resources.  It is also very expensive compared to the ISY.

 

+1. Having personally upgraded through all 3 versions of HS, this says a lot. If you recall, HS went through a long period of trying to jam Zwave into the main product code base rather than make it a plugin like other technologies like insteon, and paid dearly for it. Do you remember how many years of fixes to fixes, memory leaks, crashes, etc? 

 

I love having code that works and wait for it to be released when ready, rather than wonder if I can fly out of town and have to have backdoor access to upgrade downgrade and restart a server. I have significantly automated more functions on the ISY because I can count on it to work once I have it done.

 

Paul

[Dr Pepper]

+1. Having personally upgraded through all 3 versions of HS, this says a lot. If you recall, HS went through a long period of trying to jam Zwave into the main product code base rather than make it a plugin like other technologies like insteon, and paid dearly for it. Do you remember how many years of fixes to fixes, memory leaks, crashes, etc? 

 

I love having code that works and wait for it to be released when ready, rather than wonder if I can fly out of town and have to have backdoor access to upgrade downgrade and restart a server. I have significantly automated more functions on the ISY because I can count on it to work once I have it done.

 

Paul

 

The memory leaks kept crashing my Hometroller.  I was supposedly the only one for about a year or so then it came out that it was in fact happening to many others.  Its possible the fixed it now I dont know.  I have poured a few thousand into Homeseer just to have it sit on the shelf.  Then again I poured even more than that into the original generation of Insteon to throw it in the garbage

[paulbates]

The memory leaks kept crashing my Hometroller.  I was supposedly the only one for about a year or so then it came out that it was in fact happening to many others.  Its possible the fixed it now I dont know.  I have poured a few thousand into Homeseer just to have it sit on the shelf.  Then again I poured even more than that into the original generation of Insteon to throw it in the garbage

 

I did ok with HS1 and HS2 until the zwave debacle. WAF had been good and then went down. There were things I had to "un-automate".  When HS3 came along, it was a large enough recreate of some of my functions (vs upgrade) that I decided to look around and landed here.

 

I went Insteon early to bridge off of X10 with those first gen products. Most of mine are still installed, I've done very well with them, inlinelincs, togglincs, and lamplincs, followed closely by outletlincs, and iolincs. 

 

Paul

[Dr Pepper]

I did ok with HS1 and HS2 until the zwave debacle. WAF had been good and then went down. There were things I had to "un-automate".  When HS3 came along, it was a large enough recreate of some of my functions (vs upgrade) that I decided to look around and landed here.

 

I went Insteon early to bridge off of X10 with those first gen products. Most of mine are still installed, I've done very well with them, inlinelincs, togglincs, and lamplincs, followed closely by outletlincs, and iolincs. 

 

Paul

 

 

I went the HS2 to HS3 route.  Had to buy a new Hometroller for HS3 it would not run on the HS2 Hometroller.  Then had to get new plug-ins only to find it did not work well and crashed after a week or so due to memory leaks.  Rich did send me a new hard drive saying that was the problem but it was not.  Your comment implies they have finally fixed it.  ISY is MUCH more reliable then Homeseer.  Also better support.  But HS is a little ahead on the Zwave component from what I hear from guys at work (although they abandoned it to after I did and went to something else).

 

I have only had 3 or 4 Insteon I2 devices fail in the past year and a half.  I used to have that every month or so for the original Insteon devices around 2007. 

 

As far as SH still interested in UDI they best be.  I think UDI saved the advanced users from dumping Insteon years ago.  If they dont support UDI supporting SH products they are shooting themselves in the foot.  I would guess the average ISY user has more Insteon devices then the average SH Hub user.

 

I agree that SH may have outsourced their Engineering in hopes of getting it right for once.  Not sure if its true but could very well be.

[paulbates]

..Your comment implies they have finally fixed it.  

 

As far as SH still interested in UDI they best be.  I think UDI saved the advanced users from dumping Insteon years ago.  If they dont support UDI supporting SH products they are shooting themselves in the foot.  I would guess the average ISY user has more Insteon devices then the average SH Hub user.

 

I agree that SH may have outsourced their Engineering in hopes of getting it right for once.  Not sure if its true but could very well be.

 

I might have not stated it right. There was a version that I had to backgrade to and stuck with, passing up new features, until HS3 came out. I didn't have the willpower to put my family through another wasted upgrade even when later versions of HS2 supposedly fixed the problem, when HS3 was just about there. I don't recall having stability problems with HS3, it was more that my lab experiments to estimate upgrade effort showed it was considerable.. so I stopped and shopped around. I had a significant amount of vb scripts to directly control my 2 ezfloras, and that was basically a re-write for me, just to get back to where I was. Nothing really new was introduced in HS3, so it was a lot of work to get back what I had. 

 

The only problems I have had with insteon devices have been:

• Notorious production flaws like the bad Keypadlinc caps in 2011. Replaced several of those
• Bad outdoor design of the original MS, which can be addressed by putting a bead of superglue round the outside front bezel
• Knock on wood, been pretty luck with PLMs. Into year 3 with refurb version I bought from orchestrated with my refurb ISY.

Really agree on UDI and keeping insteon at the next level. You can live with the hub, 'roll your own' code or use ISY.