Dare I ask .......

[Teken]

Pretty app based interface.  They are the first and only 3rd party that I know of that was ever able to license ClearConnect from Lutron for support of Caseta devices.
I think Wink is still limping along but they lost a lot of customers when they switched to a monthly usage fee.  I haven't heard much about them in the last year or so though.

I was thinking about something completely different - thanks! I thought you were going to say when there was this huge push from the likes of Staples, HD, etc to offer their own hubs only to fail and pull out in less than two years!

[simplextech]

20 minutes ago, Teken said:

I was thinking about something completely different - thanks! I thought you were going to say when there was this huge push from the likes of Staples, HD, etc to offer their own hubs only to fail and pull out in less than two years!

Same thing

 

[upstatemike]

2 hours ago, simplextech said:

Pretty app based interface.  They are the first and only 3rd party that I know of that was ever able to license ClearConnect from Lutron for support of Caseta devices.

I think Wink is still limping along but they lost a lot of customers when they switched to a monthly usage fee.  I haven't heard much about them in the last year or so though.

Looks like they are still around.  https://www.wink.com/products/wink-hub-2/

 

[Teken]

Looks like they are still around.  https://www.wink.com/products/wink-hub-2/
 

On paper looks to be a real winner. I honestly don’t ever recall another hub offering clear connect protocol support. I have to believe lots of money was shoved their way to make that happen!

[larryllix]

6 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Looks like they are still around.  https://www.wink.com/products/wink-hub-2/

 

Oh Gawd! I had two of those in their early daze, and after all the cool app videos how to setup eight different interfaces it was supposed to contain, I discovered it contained no hardware at all, but would connect to many brands of hubs. What a crock!

Great! Just what I needed was another hub! They went back for refunds.

[Teken]

Oh Gawd! I had two of those in their early daze, and after all the cool app videos how to setup eight different interfaces it was supposed to contain, I discovered it contained no hardware at all, but would connect to many brands of hubs. What a crock!
Great! Just what I needed was another hub! They went back for refunds.

I don’t follow what you’re saying?!?

[larryllix]

I don’t follow what you’re saying?!?

The two Wink hubs I owned that had interfaces to 8 different device protocals turned out to be just another hub that could talk to the other 8 hubs, making nine hubs.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[Teken]

The two Wink hubs I owned that had interfaces to 8 different device protocals turned out to be just another hub that could talk to the other 8 hubs, making nine hubs.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

So essentially they built a hub to connect to other hubs to manage the different hardware vs natively supporting the same?!?

It’s been a really long time since I reviewed this Wink offering so don’t know if what you’re saying is true. I suppose that’s a perfect example of doing something different to integrate!

Loosely speaking it’s similar to using any cloud service like IFTTT to integrate to different things. There’s a use case for this but it doesn’t come close to being very practical in a serious HA installation.

[simplextech]

27 minutes ago, Teken said:

So essentially they built a hub to connect to other hubs to manage the different hardware vs natively supporting the same?!?

I think that's perhaps some other Wink or maybe the original.  I have a Wink 2 hub (in a box) but it had a built in radios for:

• Z-Wave
• Zigbee
• Lutron

It was a very complete package of radio's but had a very limited set of "supported" devices.  However those devices worked as intended.  The major downfall was that it was all cloud based just like SmartThings.  Yeah they were trying and marketing moving to local automation but it really never materialized and they lost market fast to other systems when their cloud reliability had a lot of outages.  To top it off they slapped on a monthly fee and without paying well nothing worked then.  Honestly I'm surprised they still exist.

[Teken]

I think that's perhaps some other Wink or maybe the original.  I have a Wink 2 hub (in a box) but it had a built in radios for:

• Z-Wave
• Zigbee
• Lutron

It was a very complete package of radio's but had a very limited set of "supported" devices.  However those devices worked as intended.  The major downfall was that it was all cloud based just like SmartThings.  Yeah they were trying and marketing moving to local automation but it really never materialized and they lost market fast to other systems when their cloud reliability had a lot of outages.  To top it off they slapped on a monthly fee and without paying well nothing worked then.  Honestly I'm surprised they still exist.

Really appreciate that insight as having no radios is just ridiculous to say the least. Made worse as you stated is only supporting a limited amount of hardware to than insult you with a subscription fee?!?

The final nail in that concept- Cloud only ?!?

You got to be ten kinds of stupid!

[mmb]

20 minutes ago, simplextech said:

I have a Wink 2 hub (in a box) but it had a built in radios for:

• Z-Wave
• Zigbee
• Lutron

Somebody on another thread mentioned Hubitat which can do Alexa, Google Home, Lutron, Zigbee, Z-Wave.

I had a look and it's pretty interesting, in some respects similar to the ISY/Insteon combo.  No mesh though, so coverage could be a pain.

[simplextech]

1 hour ago, mmb said:

Somebody on another thread mentioned Hubitat which can do Alexa, Google Home, Lutron, Zigbee, Z-Wave.

Hubitat has a Z-Wave and Zigbee radio.  Not a Lutron radio.  Hubitat like everyone else integrates using the Lutron integration protocol aka telnet interface which is great, local and fast.

Hubitat from inception has had very good Zigbee support and Z-Wave was secondary.  Hubitat is like a SmartThings clone except it's all local control and apps.  It's not a bad system it just has it's quirks like any system.

[upstatemike]

4 hours ago, larryllix said:

The two Wink hubs I owned that had interfaces to 8 different device protocals turned out to be just another hub that could talk to the other 8 hubs, making nine hubs.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk
 

One hub to rule them all!

I guess the Wink is like a hardware Node Server platform with separate Node Servers to talk to the native hubs for each individual protocol. Novel idea!

[upstatemike]

1 hour ago, simplextech said:

Hubitat has a Z-Wave and Zigbee radio.  Not a Lutron radio.  Hubitat like everyone else integrates using the Lutron integration protocol aka telnet interface which is great, local and fast.

Hubitat from inception has had very good Zigbee support and Z-Wave was secondary.  Hubitat is like a SmartThings clone except it's all local control and apps.  It's not a bad system it just has it's quirks like any system.

Hubitat could be thought of as a good Zigbee interface to other systems. It could be used with some sort of Master Home Automation system if that system had something like a Node Server to communicate with it.

[larryllix]

3 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

One hub to rule them all!

I guess the Wink is like a hardware Node Server platform with separate Node Servers to talk to the native hubs for each individual protocol. Novel idea!

Yeah. When I bought them it was advertised they could control almost  anything and propaganda on the box stated it had eight hardware modems inside. It was sent from God.

When I actually tried it out, it had videos popping up for everything and was extremely well done. Then when I actually tried to connect to a hub (I forget which one now), the video showed getting a cord and plugging it into the existing hub. Then I tried a half dozen other protocols and the videos all showed the same thing.

I returned them to the Home Depot store immediately. About a few months later, Wink went belly up, but about another year later, somebody else bought them and tried to resurrect the thing. I never looked back.

[upstatemike]

I guess I don't understand what the advantage is to having radios in a Home Automaion Controller. Much the way a better quality stereo will consist of discrete components or a better Loacal Area Network will have separate Router and Wireless Access Points and Switches, so too a quality Home Automation System will have a Controller and separate interfaces,

HA Controller= Logic Engine, User Interfaces, Connectivy Channels. Examples=Polisy, Homeseer, Home Assistant.

HA Interfaces provide the gateway between the HA Controller and individual HA devices via various HA Protocols. Example=ISY994+PLM, Homeseer Z-Net, Hubitat Hub, Various Lutron Bridges, Hue Bridge, Various Zigbee and Z-Wave sticks, MQTTT, IFTTT, Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home, Yolink Low Ra Hub, Elk M1 Security Panel, Brultech Energy Monitor, etc. etc. Some Interfaces are complex enough to do some rudimentary logic or UI but that doesn't make them HA Controllers.

HA Devices and Sensors connect to an HA Interface and are at the level that has the most churn and frequent replacement. (Sort of disposable like cell phones) 

I just don't see any value in combining the Home Aoutomation Hardware layers any more than I would want an ISP combo router = switch = WiFi Radio or a Walmart all-in-one stereo unit.

[Teken]

I guess I don't understand what the advantage is to having radios in a Home Automaion Controller. Much the way a better quality stereo will consist of discrete components or a better Loacal Area Network will have separate Router and Wireless Access Points and Switches, so too a quality Home Automation System will have a Controller and separate interfaces,
HA Controller= Logic Engine, User Interfaces, Connectivy Channels. Examples=Polisy, Homeseer, Home Assistant.
HA Interfaces provide the gateway between the HA Controller and individual HA devices via various HA Protocols. Example=ISY994+PLM, Homeseer Z-Net, Hubitat Hub, Various Lutron Bridges, Hue Bridge, Various Zigbee and Z-Wave sticks, MQTTT, IFTTT, Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home, Yolink Low Ra Hub, Elk M1 Security Panel, Brultech Energy Monitor, etc. etc. Some Interfaces are complex enough to do some rudimentary logic or UI but that doesn't make them HA Controllers.
HA Devices and Sensors connect to an HA Interface and are at the level that has the most churn and frequent replacement. (Sort of disposable like cell phones) 
I just don't see any value in combining the Home Aoutomation Hardware layers any more than I would want an ISP combo router = switch = WiFi Radio or a Walmart all-in-one stereo unit.

A single box that can integrate various protocol consumes less energy, space, and hardware. I’m not a fan of so called dongles as they are ugly, prone to breaking, and stick out like a 3rd tit.

The only benefit of these is having the ability to add on to an existing controller to extend its hardware support.

Why would anyone want 4-10 boxes laying around vs one?!?

Regardless, as of this writing there isn’t a single hub that seems to do it all - well! I’m looking toward the future in a completely different way and probably in five years won’t have any so called smart switch / outlets.

I’m going all in with industrial and won’t look back at these toy like protocols that simply are a endless money pit as it pertains to hardware failures.

This will probably take another ten years to remove as I have a very solid Insteon network. Along with enough brand new spares to replace the entire home three times over! So will let Father Time dictate the removal process based on failures and won’t replace anything once I’ve used up my surplus.

[upstatemike]

10 hours ago, Teken said:

Why would anyone want 4-10 boxes laying around vs one?!?

I will tell you why I want that even if nobody agrees with me. I am not advocating this or criticizing other views and am open to being persueded differently but my thinking at this point is:

* I tend to avoid single points of failure. This is not some crazy notion of theoretical situations that will likely never happen but rather the product of long experience where too much centralization has gotten me into bad situations in the past.

* I don't have the financial or time resources to replace an entire HA system if it gets outdated. I need to be able to tackle upgrades incrementally. For example I can easily change from 500 series Z-Wave to 700 series by just changing the associated "dongles" without disturbing anything else. Sort of a "future proof" architecture.

* I like to experiment with new stuff so it is much more practical to have a framework that lets me tack on something new without disturbing the rest of my "production" configuration.

* I have an environment that is  not RF friendly and requires widely distributed radios to work properly (I have 11 Wi-Fi Access Points for example). I know this scale is an uncommon situation but I am more comfortable following this principle than trying to blast everything from a single radio source.

* Some technologies have hard limits (Hue) or best practices limits (Z-Wave) to being scaled out so a modular approach is optimal (or required). I like using network attached interfaces for Z-Wave or Zigbee and place them in the most optimal locations from an RF perspective.

*There is (and never will be) a single hardware HA controller that does everything I want it to do so I don't see any way of avoiding the "dongle" architecture anyway. Having a controller with a few built-in interfaces like Z-Wave and Zigbee just seems silly since there are so many other things that need to connect to the system. If you have to connect to other interfaces anyway you might as well make that the standard architecture for all interfaces.

* Sometimes different devices, protocols, or companies get discontinued or fade away or piss me off so I like having the freedom to excise them from my system without disrupting everything.

* All companies have resource limitations and have to prioritize what they work on. An HA Controller manufacturer trying to be a jack of all trades but master of none is not going to produce a "best in class" logic engine or user interface. An architecture where the manufacturer can focus on those things and let external partner resources handle the expertise in each of the interfaces seems like the most practical path to getting the best overall system possible.

* A corollary to the above is speed of innovation. If an "all in one" system has to maintain regular updates for every interface they support, how much time and resource will they have left to innovate? At what point does that interface maintenace become or exceed 100% of resources and things start to actually stagnate or degrade or their product become finacially unviable?

[MrBill]

I have to pause and ponder... will this become the next 40 page/1000 post thread?!?  

it does have a catchy subject....

[Teken]

I will tell you why I want that even if nobody agrees with me. I am not advocating this or criticizing other views and am open to being persueded differently but my thinking at this point is:
* I tend to avoid single points of failure. This is not some crazy notion of theoretical situations that will likely never happen but rather the product of long experience where too much centralization has gotten me into bad situations in the past.
* I don't have the financial or time resources to replace an entire HA system if it gets outdated. I need to be able to tackle upgrades incrementally. For example I can easily change from 500 series Z-Wave to 700 series by just changing the associated "dongles" without disturbing anything else. Sort of a "future proof" architecture.
* I like to experiment with new stuff so it is much more practical to have a framework that lets me tack on something new without disturbing the rest of my "production" configuration.
* I have an environment that is  not RF friendly and requires widely distributed radios to work properly (I have 11 Wi-Fi Access Points for example). I know this scale is an uncommon situation but I am more comfortable following this principle than trying to blast everything from a single radio source.
* Some technologies have hard limits (Hue) or best practices limits (Z-Wave) to being scaled out so a modular approach is optimal (or required). I like using network attached interfaces for Z-Wave or Zigbee and place them in the most optimal locations from an RF perspective.
*There is (and never will be) a single hardware HA controller that does everything I want it to do so I don't see any way of avoiding the "dongle" architecture anyway. Having a controller with a few built-in interfaces like Z-Wave and Zigbee just seems silly since there are so many other things that need to connect to the system. If you have to connect to other interfaces anyway you might as well make that the standard architecture for all interfaces.
* Sometimes different devices, protocols, or companies get discontinued or fade away or piss me off so I like having the freedom to excise them from my system without disrupting everything.
* All companies have resource limitations and have to prioritize what they work on. An HA Controller manufacturer trying to be a jack of all trades but master of none is not going to produce a "best in class" logic engine or user interface. An architecture where the manufacturer can focus on those things and let external partner resources handle the expertise in each of the interfaces seems like the most practical path to getting the best overall system possible.
* A corollary to the above is speed of innovation. If an "all in one" system has to maintain regular updates for every interface they support, how much time and resource will they have left to innovate? At what point does that interface maintenace become or exceed 100% of resources and things start to actually stagnate or degrade or their product become finacially unviable?

You make lots of valid points which I also follow in some ways. But have to say I’ve spent a large part of my life in business as well as personal always having backups, redundancy, and resiliency. In some things like power generation you can never have enough backup / fail over systems.

In network infrastructure I have the same mentality and run a 2N+2 topology along with power generation.

In other areas like environmental the backup systems mostly came organically not because it was planned per say but wanting more features. I simply left the existing hardware in place and that by default provided backup, fail over, and more features.

As it relates to HA the vast majority of people here can affirm the ISY Series Controller is one of the most reliable piece of hardware on the market. As such I don’t see the need to have the same backup (controller) systems even though in a round about way I do.

That was in large part of wanting to manage Insteon vs Z-Wave while balancing the energy management portion that drives my entire objective of efficiency and consumption.

Like many here I’ve probably tried all of the major controllers in hopes of finding that single unit that does everything well. The advent of free third party software taking off and their ability to connect to so much has made me consider going this route at some point once I’m satisfied that solution makes sense.

As it relates to dongles it’s not lost on me as to the ease of use and integration especially via USB. More often than not these USB solutions offer better RF as they are not inhibited by the controllers case or placement as anyone can simply add an extension cable to increase the dongles RX / TX.

Regardless, I can’t see myself going back to having six controllers in the server room as I did in the past.

[lilyoyo1]

11 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I guess I don't understand what the advantage is to having radios in a Home Automaion Controller. Much the way a better quality stereo will consist of discrete components or a better Loacal Area Network will have separate Router and Wireless Access Points and Switches, so too a quality Home Automation System will have a Controller and separate interfaces,

HA Controller= Logic Engine, User Interfaces, Connectivy Channels. Examples=Polisy, Homeseer, Home Assistant.

HA Interfaces provide the gateway between the HA Controller and individual HA devices via various HA Protocols. Example=ISY994+PLM, Homeseer Z-Net, Hubitat Hub, Various Lutron Bridges, Hue Bridge, Various Zigbee and Z-Wave sticks, MQTTT, IFTTT, Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home, Yolink Low Ra Hub, Elk M1 Security Panel, Brultech Energy Monitor, etc. etc. Some Interfaces are complex enough to do some rudimentary logic or UI but that doesn't make them HA Controllers.

HA Devices and Sensors connect to an HA Interface and are at the level that has the most churn and frequent replacement. (Sort of disposable like cell phones) 

I just don't see any value in combining the Home Aoutomation Hardware layers any more than I would want an ISP combo router = switch = WiFi Radio or a Walmart all-in-one stereo unit.

I can understand your sentiments. I'm with @Teken though since im looking at things through an installers point of view rather than a hobbyist or enthusiast.

Besides the power savings, setting up multiple controllers means more time needed to install a system, more time troubleshooting, and increases the likelihood of failure or something going wrong. All of which means unhappy people (including the wife at home). 

As an installer, everything i do is a charge. If I'm quoting a customer, i have to take into consideration the time necessary to setup and configure controllers. Not only does setup time increase but you could then possibly need a bigger cabinet to hold everything, larger fans for cooling, larger switches, more power, etc. All of which increases costs. 

Next is the troubleshooting. When something doesn't work where do you start? The more parts you have, the greater something will act up.

In business, service calls loses money. Besides an unhappy client, the cost of a truck roll, time spent troubleshooting, replacing parts etc. means less time at another job. This makes for another unhappy client since their home gets delayed or missing out on me clients for to availability issues.

At home, you may end up with an unhappy wife but every moment troubleshooting something means less time for family, friends, and yourself. 

While your comparison to AV systems is nice, i think it misses the mark. Separates work for AV because of the amount of things a processor needs to do at once. Off-loading some of the work to amps improves performance because of the load that is required for everything. Using separate systems for everything with HA is akin to having a separate box for Dolby Vision, a separate one for HDR10, one for HDR+, another for Dolby Atmos, and one for Auro 3D. 

The same applies for routers and modems. Many people use them successfully together without issues. Most people recommend separate router and modem because the combos generally suck in regards to features and flexibility. For starters, the line into the house for the modem may not be in the best place. Having a separate router can enable a person to place the router in the optimal location. In general, a router needs to be upgraded more often than a person's modem do having them be separate allows for that as well. 

With HA, outside of zwave, most system updates simply require a firmware update vs needing a new controller or radio. Even if you include zwave, since every device has to be of the same series to take advantage of upgrades, swapping to a newer board just because makes zero sense unless a person plans on swapping out all of their devices as well. 

Lastly, controlling HA devices is not processor intensive unlike AV equipment and Network equipment. This is why 10 years later the 994 is still humming along just fine doing what it does.

To me, what you may gain from having separate controllers for each radio is lost by a bigger margin due to the experience you have. Every trigger has to travel through your network (router), then to the controller for that radio, which then processes the information and sends the commands to the devices- and back again. I just don't see how that improves upon a system that processes everything right there and sends out the commands to devices directly.

[upstatemike]

14 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I can understand your sentiments. I'm with @Teken though since im looking at things through an installers point of view rather than a hobbyist or enthusiast.

Besides the power savings, setting up multiple controllers means more time needed to install a system, more time troubleshooting, and increases the likelihood of failure or something going wrong. All of which means unhappy people (including the wife at home). 

As an installer, everything i do is a charge. If I'm quoting a customer, i have to take into consideration the time necessary to setup and configure controllers. Not only does setup time increase but you could then possibly need a bigger cabinet to hold everything, larger fans for cooling, larger switches, more power, etc. All of which increases costs. 

Next is the troubleshooting. When something doesn't work where do you start? The more parts you have, the greater something will act up.

In business, service calls loses money. Besides an unhappy client, the cost of a truck roll, time spent troubleshooting, replacing parts etc. means less time at another job. This makes for another unhappy client since their home gets delayed or missing out on me clients for to availability issues.

At home, you may end up with an unhappy wife but every moment troubleshooting something means less time for family, friends, and yourself. 

While your comparison to AV systems is nice, i think it misses the mark. Separates work for AV because of the amount of things a processor needs to do at once. Off-loading some of the work to amps improves performance because of the load that is required for everything. Using separate systems for everything with HA is akin to having a separate box for Dolby Vision, a separate one for HDR10, one for HDR+, another for Dolby Atmos, and one for Auro 3D. 

The same applies for routers and modems. Many people use them successfully together without issues. Most people recommend separate router and modem because the combos generally suck in regards to features and flexibility. For starters, the line into the house for the modem may not be in the best place. Having a separate router can enable a person to place the router in the optimal location. In general, a router needs to be upgraded more often than a person's modem do having them be separate allows for that as well. 

With HA, outside of zwave, most system updates simply require a firmware update vs needing a new controller or radio. Even if you include zwave, since every device has to be of the same series to take advantage of upgrades, swapping to a newer board just because makes zero sense unless a person plans on swapping out all of their devices as well. 

Lastly, controlling HA devices is not processor intensive unlike AV equipment and Network equipment. This is why 10 years later the 994 is still humming along just fine doing what it does.

To me, what you may gain from having separate controllers for each radio is lost by a bigger margin due to the experience you have. Every trigger has to travel through your network (router), then to the controller for that radio, which then processes the information and sends the commands to the devices- and back again. I just don't see how that improves upon a system that processes everything right there and sends out the commands to devices directly.

Not challenging anything you say but I will note my experience with respect to troubleshooting is the opposite. Having discrete modules makes it easier for me to track down problems bcause I can instantly see if a problem is only occurring with Z-Wave devices (for example) so it is a problem in the Z-Wave subsystem v.s. sometheing that affects multiple technologies and therefore a problem in the controller or another shared sytem. Your example of the 994 being reliable is true but the technologies a 994 can handle is so limited that without a Polisy it is really just an interface, not a controller. What I can do with just Insteon and Z-Wave alone represents such a small percentage of the total Home Automation picture as to be almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

[Teken]

I can understand your sentiments. I'm with @Teken though since im looking at things through an installers point of view rather than a hobbyist or enthusiast.
Besides the power savings, setting up multiple controllers means more time needed to install a system, more time troubleshooting, and increases the likelihood of failure or something going wrong. All of which means unhappy people (including the wife at home). 
As an installer, everything i do is a charge. If I'm quoting a customer, i have to take into consideration the time necessary to setup and configure controllers. Not only does setup time increase but you could then possibly need a bigger cabinet to hold everything, larger fans for cooling, larger switches, more power, etc. All of which increases costs. 
Next is the troubleshooting. When something doesn't work where do you start? The more parts you have, the greater something will act up.
In business, service calls loses money. Besides an unhappy client, the cost of a truck roll, time spent troubleshooting, replacing parts etc. means less time at another job. This makes for another unhappy client since their home gets delayed or missing out on me clients for to availability issues.
At home, you may end up with an unhappy wife but every moment troubleshooting something means less time for family, friends, and yourself. 
While your comparison to AV systems is nice, i think it misses the mark. Separates work for AV because of the amount of things a processor needs to do at once. Off-loading some of the work to amps improves performance because of the load that is required for everything. Using separate systems for everything with HA is akin to having a separate box for Dolby Vision, a separate one for HDR10, one for HDR+, another for Dolby Atmos, and one for Auro 3D. 
The same applies for routers and modems. Many people use them successfully together without issues. Most people recommend separate router and modem because the combos generally suck in regards to features and flexibility. For starters, the line into the house for the modem may not be in the best place. Having a separate router can enable a person to place the router in the optimal location. In general, a router needs to be upgraded more often than a person's modem do having them be separate allows for that as well. 
With HA, outside of zwave, most system updates simply require a firmware update vs needing a new controller or radio. Even if you include zwave, since every device has to be of the same series to take advantage of upgrades, swapping to a newer board just because makes zero sense unless a person plans on swapping out all of their devices as well. 
Lastly, controlling HA devices is not processor intensive unlike AV equipment and Network equipment. This is why 10 years later the 994 is still humming along just fine doing what it does.
To me, what you may gain from having separate controllers for each radio is lost by a bigger margin due to the experience you have. Every trigger has to travel through your network (router), then to the controller for that radio, which then processes the information and sends the commands to the devices- and back again. I just don't see how that improves upon a system that processes everything right there and sends out the commands to devices directly.

Speaking for myself only I’ve walked many paths as noted by lilyoyo and mike. Lots of things just happen over time and more often than not is driven by failures.

As noted up above trouble shooting 2-6 controllers isn’t the norm much less practical when needed.

It took me a very long time to come around to deprecating lots of so called backup systems. This was in large part due to energy consumption, maintenance, and to some extent space.

I still have four of the controllers placed in secure military Pelican cases! At some point once the Polyisy is officially the next generation controller I can see another box going away - I’m OK with that!

I’m in the middle of spooling up a monster server that will allow me to virtualize many other systems and programs. This again will help me reduce hardware count, energy consumption, and long term maintenance.

From a security stand point it’s one less attack surface available on the network assuming it had Internet access which none of them do!

[lilyoyo1]

44 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Not challenging anything you say but I will note my experience with respect to troubleshooting is the opposite. Having discrete modules makes it easier for me to track down problems bcause I can instantly see if a problem is only occurring with Z-Wave devices (for example) so it is a problem in the Z-Wave subsystem v.s. sometheing that affects multiple technologies and therefore a problem in the controller or another shared sytem. Your example of the 994 being reliable is true but the technologies a 994 can handle is so limited that without a Polisy it is really just an interface, not a controller. What I can do with just Insteon and Z-Wave alone represents such a small percentage of the total Home Automation picture as to be almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I understand your point in troubleshooting a single box but that's not always the case. Looking at these forums alone, one can see the multiple points of failure due to network issues, handshakes, etc.

Your example is what I want to avoid. Multiple points of failure. Using the Isy for example, it's easier to pinpoint the problem if something isn't working. If no zwave device works, then the board is problem done for. If it's 1 device, then maybe it's a the device. If the device works, then i can look at my programming. 

Going back to your same example, if your zwave controller is working properly with your other devices, then you look at the device itself. If that works, now you have to turn to the Isy (just using Isy for continuity). What if it doesn't work from there? Is it an ISY issue or communication issue between the 2 controllers?

Again, I'm looking at it from a business perspective vs. my home only. Even if it's my house, I have other things I'd rather do than mess around with my system so the same applies. Even if a simple reboot fixes the issue, that's 2 minutes out of my day i could've done something else

[upstatemike]

1 hour ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I understand your point in troubleshooting a single box but that's not always the case. Looking at these forums alone, one can see the multiple points of failure due to network issues, handshakes, etc.

Your example is what I want to avoid. Multiple points of failure. Using the Isy for example, it's easier to pinpoint the problem if something isn't working. If no zwave device works, then the board is problem done for. If it's 1 device, then maybe it's a the device. If the device works, then i can look at my programming. 

Going back to your same example, if your zwave controller is working properly with your other devices, then you look at the device itself. If that works, now you have to turn to the Isy (just using Isy for continuity). What if it doesn't work from there? Is it an ISY issue or communication issue between the 2 controllers?

Again, I'm looking at it from a business perspective vs. my home only. Even if it's my house, I have other things I'd rather do than mess around with my system so the same applies. Even if a simple reboot fixes the issue, that's 2 minutes out of my day i could've done something else

I understand that thinking but still not 100% convinced because there just aren't any hardware controllers that include the majority of things I use Home Automation for. Lighting and audio and thermostats and cameras and motion detectors are all things that I am actually disengaging from my HA system to some extent because I can find stand alone solutions that do the same thing more simply. Motion sensing light switches, switches with built-in timers, programmable thermostats, and security cameras are all things that can be installed using stand alone products with only minor additional advantages if you incorporate them into a central controller. Things that really benefit me from Home Automation from my perspective are the integrations you can't find out of the box solutions for.

Some examples from my system:

Having the music mute in a room (and only that room) when the phone rings or is picked up to make a call or there is an intercom announcement or a critical system warning.

Verbal alerts when significant unexpected events happen with key equipment like the generator, well pump, furnaces, etc.

So I guess I don't need HA to do most remote control or automatic control functions so much as I need it to keep me apprised in a timely fashion of what is going on in areas I cannot see or to create new functionality that is not available in any existing product. If I were to go with something like Hubitat I would not use much of what they offer because it is not that useful while at the same time I would miss a lot of functionality that they do not support. Not picking on Hubitat as the same is true with pretty much any single box solution.