Alternative to Insteon

[TUs]

I started with Insteon because I appreciated the dual communication channels for powerline and RF.  This made communications very reliable at my house.

Reading other posts about the challenges of Insteon on Polisy, and Insteon device availability, I am now wondering what are you all using instead? 

[TUs]

I just received my Policy yesterday; purchased to communicate with my Sonoff devices (hacked with Tasmota, of course).

But I do NOT see Tasmota as replacement for Insteon. 
The Insteons communicate point-to-point (no intermediary needed); Sonoff fails if the MQTT server is offline, or the WiFi is down, or the network switch is foobar, etc.

[Whitehambone]

I have a ton of Insteon devices and only a few Z wave devices.  I was going to try these once I needed to replace a switch. But nothing has failed yet. I am also curious on what others plan to use.
 

https://www.casetawireless.com/products/dimmers-switches 

[KeviNH]

I've been adding Z-wave devices, mostly sensors but also a few switches, thermostats, etc.

While the Z-Wave standard is tightly controlled by the Z-Wave Alliance, there are now a couple of different manufacturers for the interface chip, not all of Z-waves eggs are in one basket.   And of course there are hundreds of members and dozens of brands of Z-wave enabled things.

None of my home automation is WiFi enabled, none of the edge devices talks to a "cloud", they don't even have IP addresses.

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, TUs said:

I started with Insteon because I appreciated the dual communication channels for powerline and RF.  This made communications very reliable at my house.

Reading other posts about the challenges of Insteon on Polisy, and Insteon device availability, I am now wondering what are you all using instead? 

This all depends on what you value most from insteon. In terms of scalability, usability, and experience, none of the diy systems come to being a viable alternative. 

If you don't care about uniformity, redundancy, and overall system performance, then zwave would be the best alternative for the isy. 

The reason I say these things is that wifi devices aren't completely scalable in a full automation setting for the reasons you listed and more. In addition, you have the work involved with flashing all of your devices, maintenance, as well as network impact (can be mitigated if you know what you're doing). For me, the amount of work that goes into using them is not worth the cost savings. 

In regards to zwave, you're still dependant on the Isy in order to work. Should the Isy fail for any reason, your system no longer works.  At least with insteon, you can design it to work outside of the Isy so that your most important stuff still work. This can be somewhat mitigated in zwave IF you have the right devices (emphasis on IF). However the ability to have direct links with zwave devices is extremely limited in the amount of devices you can have control of as well as how it could potentially affect Isy programming.

IF (there's that word again) you have the proper zwave devices, the ISY can allow you to recreate some of the things you can do with insteon. However, zwave is not nearly as dynamic in regards to making changes so it doesn't allow for as robust of programming that you'll find with insteon. Finally, (the biggest issue for me) is the popcorn effect. Zwave devices respond 1 at a time not in sync the way insteon does. That's something I could never live with. If that doesn't matter to you then zwave will be fine (though it's response is slower than insteons)

If you can afford it, and didn't want to stick with insteon, I would recommend using Radio ra2. There's a nodeserver for it written by @simplextechso that you can use the isy to give it the additional logic control that radio ra2 is lacking. 

[LFMc]

15 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

If you don't care about uniformity, redundancy, and overall system performance, then zwave would be the best alternative for the isy. 

??

Due to my Zigbee SEP connection, I have no open slots for Zwave. But despite the doom and gloom some soothsayers post about insteon, if Smarthome.com/Insteon goes away tomorrow, my Insteon network will keep on chugging on for years. Parts and repair kits will be on Ebay for a long time and will only get cheaper as people bail and sell off their inventory (see how cheap x10 stuff is). Then I might consider the next protocol. EDIT:  Polisy support is clearly undecided. If they don't support it, they will be cutting off a lot of their base users and relegating them to stay on a 994i device, IMHO. I am not throwing out a couple thousand dollars of Insteon any time soon or complicating my life with multiple RF protocols until forced or when there is an industry wide game changing event. 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by LFMc
@lilyoyo1 is correct, Polisy policy on Insteon is as he stated below.

[lilyoyo1]

44 minutes ago, LFMc said:

??

Due to my Zigbee SEP connection, I have no open slots for Zwave. But despite the doom and gloom some soothsayers post about insteon, if Smarthome.com/Insteon goes away tomorrow, my Insteon network will keep on chugging on for years. Parts and repair kits will be on Ebay for a long time and will only get cheaper as people bail and sell off their inventory (see how cheap x10 stuff is). Then I might consider the next protocol. Polisy support is clearly undecided. If they don't support it, they will be cutting off a lot of their base users and relegating them to stay on a 994i device, IMHO. I am not throwing out a couple thousand dollars of Insteon any time soon or complicating my life with multiple RF protocols until forced or when there is an industry wide game changing event. 

 

Michel has already stated they will support what they currently support. They will not add support (reverse engineering the code) for newer devices (such as the new line) unless they are given the proper documentation for it.