30% Off Insteon

[lilyoyo1]

4 minutes ago, larryllix said:

I know a almost a dozen that took that attitude but within another year most had installed some cheap iR or voice controlled coloured lighting. Once you spend time with it, most people want it.

Hmmmm...whatever happened to to B&W TV? Colour TV is just a toy anyway. Who needs it? 

I hope this is readable on an orange monochrome monitor.

Hmm....most have installed cheap ir or voice controlled lighting......sound sexactly like what I've been describing as the avg user. Cheap and easy. Not someone willing to invest alot of time and effort in learning and programming an ISY to do what you or most on here do. Thank you. 

[lilyoyo1]

55 minutes ago, apostolakisl said:

I'm with the colored led's being silly.  I know people who put them in when they first came out.  It was a cute little party trick . .. hey look, I can make my living room green.  Then, they promptly put the light back to warm white for the rest of the evening.

 

This is what generally happens. They get caught up initially but after showing off a few times, they never see color again

[larryllix]

2 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

You've been saying what insteon NEEDS to be doing for 10 years in order to survive and yet here they are. Maybe in 5 years they will be gone. If not what are you going to say then? 5 more years!!!??? At some point you may be right but until then stop with the broken record. 

Not many people care to support specialty markets. There are plenty of companies doing just fine not doing so. Hell, as many zwave device mfg. are out there, how many have color changing bulbs and other specialty products? The fact is, having core products that sell well is what matters. Making stuff to sit on a shelf for a year and stuff have to keep up with it is foolishness. 

Say what you want, they're still in business making much more money than we all have 

I haven't been involved with Insteon for ten years yet or saying what they should be making.

Somehow I doubt with their Ethernet to Insteon bridge just released, their main product will become Ethernet cables next.

For the mean time, stop with the constant broken fantasy defenses based on nothing.

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

I haven't been involved with Insteon for ten years yet or saying what they should be making.

Somehow I doubt with their Ethernet to Insteon bridge just released, their main product will become Ethernet cables next.

For the mean time, stop with the constant broken fantasy defenses based on nothing.

The difference between you and I, is that I defend with information you don't have while you sit around and think of the wildest things you can come up with. 

I'll make a deal- I'll stop when you stop

[upstatemike]

6 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

This is what generally happens. They get caught up initially but after showing off a few times, they never see color again

Unfortunate that there is no sustained interest in color. I expect Hue and Lifx will likely be discontinued because most folks feel color is silly so there is no mass market base to survive on.

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, upstatemike said:

Unfortunate that there is no sustained interest in color. I expect Hue and Lifx will likely be discontinued because most folks feel color is silly so there is no mass market base to survive on.

Not necessarily. While most don't make use of it overall and long term, there are many who either haven't gotten to that point or are still interested in starting out. Thats the beauty of mass market. There's always 1 more

Edited August 28, 2021 by lilyoyo1

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

The difference between you and I, is that I defend with information you don't have while you sit around and think of the wildest things you can come up with. 

I'll make a deal- I'll stop when you stop

If you had real information you could report it but you don't. You only try to refute everything people report here  from Smarthome/Insteon reps or contacts,  and logical outcomes  people infer from the reported information, or what is plainly in sight.  I have always thought the Insteon protocol was the best and I was never interested in moving away from Insteon products,  but you make so many convincing arguments for people to move away from Insteon products before they  get "hung out to dry" with a deprecating system.

It gets very old and tiring here, constantly hearing contradictions or twisted excuses to what users are reporting  Smarthome is actually telling them. The forums are getting  full of that constant BS.  We don't need Insteon propaganda shilling here, just reports of factual information, as gathered from the "horse's mouth" to the best of user's abilities.

[io_guy]

Can't tell ya how much I'm done with Insteon/Nokia.  

Zen77s only for me going forward.  

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, io_guy said:

Can't tell ya how much I'm done with Insteon/Nokia.  

Zen77s only for me going forward.  

People trying to drive others away from Insteon is starting to work on me too, but...

The dimmer looks nice in the pics, and is priced right.
Tell us what makes Zen77 special, please!

 

[lilyoyo1]

9 hours ago, larryllix said:

If you had real information you could report it but you don't. You only try to refute everything people report here  from Smarthome/Insteon reps or contacts,  and logical outcomes  people infer from the reported information, or what is plainly in sight.  I have always thought the Insteon protocol was the best and I was never interested in moving away from Insteon products,  but you make so many convincing arguments for people to move away from Insteon products before they  get "hung out to dry" with a deprecating system.

It gets very old and tiring here, constantly hearing contradictions or twisted excuses to what users are reporting  Smarthome is actually telling them. The forums are getting  full of that constant BS.  We don't need Insteon propaganda shilling here, just reports of factual information, as gathered from the "horse's mouth" to the best of user's abilities.

Tell me what I've ever stated in any argument about the company where I've been wrong? Every counter argument that I've made, has come to fruition. Can't say that about any of your arguments. Everyone on here knows insteon reps are the worst since they sent it overseas. Unlike you, i have direct lines to them through personal relationships, I don't need to call their 800 number. 

Let's look at recent times. 1 person came here with an email stating the PLM was disco'd. I refuted that and explained the situation. Subsequently others posted emails contradicted what his said. I even went so far as to post recent stuff from them talking about their stock levels and what they're saying about the PLM. 

When it came to the new products, while everyone was stuck on what hasn't come out, how long have i said stuff was coming and what? When they finally announced things I gave more information than what I had been giving in the past since it was out in the open. 

When people asked their reps, they knew nothing about them but here i was talking about them. 

So let's break it down. You sit around at home with zero contacts and absolutely no information at all but when you think of some far off stuff, it's factual information. I come on here time after time refuting your made up fantasies and having what I say come to fruition but my stuff is propaganda?

Of course I know more than what I say on here. Just like the people I know at insteon know more than what they're telling me. I share what they've said is ok to share so that I don't break their trust. With hat said, there are people here I've had offline conversations with about stuff over the years. As much as they may not like what I have to say, they'd admit to me providing factual information on here as well @Teken. Can you say the same?

[larryllix]

5 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Tell me what I've ever stated in any argument about the company where I've been wrong? Every counter argument that I've made, has come to fruition. Can't say that about any of your arguments. Everyone on here knows insteon reps are the worst since they sent it overseas. Unlike you, i have direct lines to them through personal relationships, I don't need to call their 800 number. 

Let's look at recent times. 1 person came here with an email stating the PLM was disco'd. I refuted that and explained the situation. Subsequently others posted emails contradicted what his said. I even went so far as to post recent stuff from them talking about their stock levels and what they're saying about the PLM. 

When it came to the new products, while everyone was stuck on what hasn't come out, how long have i said stuff was coming and what? When they finally announced things I gave more information than what I had been giving in the past since it was out in the open. 

When people asked their reps, they knew nothing about them but here i was talking about them. 

So let's break it down. You sit around at home with zero contacts and absolutely no information at all but when you think of some far off stuff, it's factual information. I come on here time after time refuting your made up fantasies and having what I say come to fruition but my stuff is propaganda?

Of course I know more than what I say on here. Just like the people I know at insteon know more than what they're telling me. I share what they've said is ok to share so that I don't break their trust. With hat said, there are people here I've had offline conversations with about stuff over the years. As much as they may not like what I have to say, they'd admit to me providing factual information on here as well @Teken. Can you say the same?

What did you buy from the sale?

[MrBill]

5 minutes ago, larryllix said:

What did you buy from the sale?

Irrelevant.  Also likely nothing since he's a dealer.

[lilyoyo1]

6 minutes ago, larryllix said:

What did you buy from the sale?

What does that have to do with anything?

[lilyoyo1]

Just now, MrBill said:

Irrelevant.  Also likely nothing since he's a dealer.

Exactly and thank you. 

[larryllix]

5 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

What does that have to do with anything?

I thought you might want to revert back to the OP thread topic instead of flooding it with off-topic. No?

[lilyoyo1]

3 minutes ago, larryllix said:

I thought you might want to revert back to the OP thread topic instead of flooding it with off-topic. No?

I do believe I said that I would stop when you stopped. You chose to keep going. Funny how you want to revert back to the original topic once called out on your stuff

[io_guy]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

People trying to drive others away from Insteon is starting to work on me too, but...

The dimmer looks nice in the pics, and is priced right.
Tell us what makes Zen77 special, please!

 

- Not Insteon so no PLM or power line noise issues

- Decent price

- Trailing edge dimmer so no flicker issues and full % dimming

- Customizable LED for notifications

- Much shallower than Inovelli

- Standard screw terminals to minimize marrettes

- Z-Wave 700

- Tons of neat customizable firmware functions like night light

- Good quality build, feels much more solid than Insteon

[larryllix]

13 hours ago, upstatemike said:

Unfortunate that there is no sustained interest in color. I expect Hue and Lifx will likely be discontinued because most folks feel color is silly so there is no mass market base to survive on.

The interest in coloured lighting was mostly from the bleachers as most will not pay $80 for one bulb and then need a hub at a cost on top of that. With the later bulbs at less than $10 each and no hub required, that is changing. Even Walmart sells RGBCW bulbs now.

[larryllix]

23 minutes ago, io_guy said:

- Not Insteon so no PLM or power line noise issues

- Decent price

- Trailing edge dimmer so no flicker issues and full % dimming

- Customizable LED for notifications

- Much shallower than Inovelli

- Standard screw terminals to minimize marrettes

- Z-Wave 700

- Tons of neat customizable firmware functions like night light

- Good quality build, feels much more solid than Insteon

Thanks! Good to know hardware items/features.

How are you finding signal ranges for Zwave?

I am still watching from the bleachers but slowly moving closer to the playing field.

Edited August 28, 2021 by larryllix

[upstatemike]

9 hours ago, io_guy said:

Can't tell ya how much I'm done with Insteon/Nokia.  

Zen77s only for me going forward.  

I do like a lot of the features of the Zen77, especially the reduced form factor. My biggest gripes with Z-Wave in general are:

The unnecessary complexity of the protocol. The so called advantages of a mesh network do not seem to result in switches quickly finding the best path to communicate but rather creates a mess that needs constant optimization to work right. Plus the ability of manufacturers to add custom features with minimal conformance to standards makes it a constant headache for any hub or software vendor to maintain compatibility with new or updated devices.

The inability to just configure and test an installation. If you have to allow hours, or days, for the communication to optimize itself then its not going to be very practical to drive any distance to do a big customer installation with an expectation that everything is 100% complete by the end of the day. 

The fact that you can't just start with a few devices and add over time because you have to build out fron the controller to reach a location even if you don't need any devices between. (Plug-in repeaters are never a good idea because you don't know when somebody is going to unplug one to charge their phone or vacuum or something.

The whole build out concept gets even worse if you need to move the location of your gateway... then none of that complex routing is valid anymore and you have to re-optimize the whole system.

The fact that most gateways are USB sticks so you need to put your HA controller in a central location in your home instead of tucking it away in the basement or something. Just as I would never combine my Wireless Access Point with my Router, I would not expect to co-locate my HA Controller with my PLM or ZWave gateway.

If I can get past these concerns then I could see myself trying Zooz, Inovelli, and Homeseer products in place of Insteon in many situations.

Edited August 28, 2021 by upstatemike

[io_guy]

11 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

I do like a lot of the features of the Zen77, especially the reduced form factor. My biggest gripes with Z-Wave in general are:

The unnecessary complexity of the protocol. The so called advantages of a mesh network do not seem to result in switches quickly finding the best path to communicate but rather creates a mess that needs constant optimization to work right. Plus the ability of manufacturers to add custom features with minimal conformance to standards makes it a constant headache for any hub or software vendor to maintain compatibility with new or updated devices.

The inability to just configure and test an installation. If you have to allow hours, or days, for the communication to optimize itself then its not going to be very practical to drive any distance to do a big customer installation with an expectation that everything is 100% complete by the end of the day. 

The fact that you can't just start with a few devices and add over time because you have to build out fron the controller to reach a location even if you don't need any devices between. (Plug-in repeaters are never a good idea because you don't know when somebody is going to unplug one to charge their phone or vacuum or something.

The whole build out concept gets even worse if you need to move the location of your gateway... then none of that complex routing is valid anymore and you have to re-optimize the whole system.

The fact that most gateways are USB sticks so you need to put your HA controller in a central location in your home instead of tucking it away in the basement or something. Just as I would never combine my Wireless Access Point with my Router, I would not expect to co-locate my HA Controller with my PLM or ZWave gateway.

If I can get past these concerns then I could see myself trying Zooz, Inovelli, and Homeseer products in place of Insteon in many situations.

The majority of your concerns have been minimized with 500/700 series.

Z-Wave is now an open protocol (thanks SiLabs) and devices are certified.  General behavior and classes need to match the protocol standard or they don't get certified.  Additional OEM features can be added on top and exposed via parameters.  A good Z-Wave controller handles all this and makes it look no different than Insteon to the user.

Instability is much less with the range of 500 and even more so with 700.  I have Zen77s in my pool shed 40' from my house and 100' from my controller, no issues.

If you move the controller, run a "heal", done.

My controller is in my basement without any issues at all.  NWI makes placement a non-issue.  If there are still concerns, run the USB controller to the center of your house with a USB extension cable.

My network only has 22 devices and has zero signal issues.  Where as my Insteon has 3 switches in the house that can't be controlled due to power line noise from appliances and pool equipment.

I'm not in a rush to replace but I'll never buy another Insteon and if the Zen77s go on a Black Friday, it'll be a mass purchase.

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, upstatemike said:

I do like a lot of the features of the Zen77, especially the reduced form factor. My biggest gripes with Z-Wave in general are:

The unnecessary complexity of the protocol. The so called advantages of a mesh network do not seem to result in switches quickly finding the best path to communicate but rather creates a mess that needs constant optimization to work right. Plus the ability of manufacturers to add custom features with minimal conformance to standards makes it a constant headache for any hub or software vendor to maintain compatibility with new or updated devices.

The inability to just configure and test an installation. If you have to allow hours, or days, for the communication to optimize itself then its not going to be very practical to drive any distance to do a big customer installation with an expectation that everything is 100% complete by the end of the day. 

The fact that you can't just start with a few devices and add over time because you have to build out fron the controller to reach a location even if you don't need any devices between. (Plug-in repeaters are never a good idea because you don't know when somebody is going to unplug one to charge their phone or vacuum or something.

The whole build out concept gets even worse if you need to move the location of your gateway... then none of that complex routing is valid anymore and you have to re-optimize the whole system.

The fact that most gateways are USB sticks so you need to put your HA controller in a central location in your home instead of tucking it away in the basement or something. Just as I would never combine my Wireless Access Point with my Router, I would not expect to co-locate my HA Controller with my PLM or ZWave gateway.

If I can get past these concerns then I could see myself trying Zooz, Inovelli, and Homeseer products in place of Insteon in many situations.

I'm with you about zwave though my concerns are different. Though 500 and 700 series devices have mitagated many issues with zwave the major stuff still exists. For me, it's the popcorn effect, the need for a controller, how it handles direct links, and the inability to set large scenes. 

[io_guy]

36 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I'm with you about zwave though my concerns are different. Though 500 and 700 series devices have mitagated many issues with zwave the major stuff still exists. For me, it's the popcorn effect, the need for a controller, how it handles direct links, and the inability to set large scenes. 

That's fair. I have so few scenes that I don't really care about that aspect.  The majority of my automation requires a controller regardless.  

I'm pretty happy with the Zen77s.  I can see my 2477Ds hitting the marketplace soon.  

[upstatemike]

@io_guy It is the OEM features via parameters that does not make sense to me. There should be no OEM features. There shoud be a protocol that basically defines ports or registers that have a purpose defined by SiLabs. If a manufcturer wants to add something not currently supported they should put in a request to SiLabs to add it and SiLabs can assign a currently unused port or register to that new feature so it is then available to all devices going forward. Hub manufacturers only need to worry about updates to the current protocol without needing to know anything about what devices use what features. Manufacturers can add the new features using the SiLabs defined standard method to new products or to existing products via firmware if they support it. You can still have a device report which features it is supporting upon enrollment but nothing more complicated than that... to the hub it is just a yes/no checkmark for each feature in the master protocol and then it can display/hide pramameters accordingly still without knowing what the device model/version is. Device manufacturers can still distinguish themselves by how they use the data communicated between the hub and device but should never ever be able to modify the format of that communication or define custom parameters.

@lilyoyo1 Not sure what you mean by the need for a controller? All protocols except WiFi need a gateway/controller/hub/whatever to connect and this is good because home (and even most small business) routers do not have anywhere near enough horsepower to keep up with a large home full of IoT stuff in addition to regular streaming and other IP based tasks.

[lilyoyo1]

20 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

@io_guy It is the OEM features via parameters that does not make sense to me. There should be no OEM features. There shoud be a protocol that basically defines ports or registers that have a purpose defined by SiLabs. If a manufcturer wants to add something not currently supported they should put in a request to SiLabs to add it and SiLabs can assign a currently unused port or register to that new feature so it is then available to all devices going forward. Hub manufacturers only need to worry about updates to the current protocol without needing to know anything about what devices use what features. Manufacturers can add the new features using the SiLabs defined standard method to new products or to existing products via firmware if they support it. You can still have a device report which features it is supporting upon enrollment but nothing more complicated than that... to the hub it is just a yes/no checkmark for each feature in the master protocol and then it can display/hide pramameters accordingly still without knowing what the device model/version is. Device manufacturers can still distinguish themselves by how they use the data communicated between the hub and device but should never ever be able to modify the format of that communication or define custom parameters.

@lilyoyo1 Not sure what you mean by the need for a controller? All protocols except WiFi need a gateway/controller/hub/whatever to connect and this is good because home (and even most small business) routers do not have anywhere near enough horsepower to keep up with a large home full of IoT stuff in addition to regular streaming and other IP based tasks.

Insteon doesn't need a controller. When you create a scene, those links reside in the devices. Disconnect your Isy, they'll still work. You'd lose your programs but multiway switches and stuff will still work