matapan Posted December 20, 2021 Author Posted December 20, 2021 With all the discussions related to quality and design-related issues revolving around Insteon and Z Wave on this forum, I personally have had enough trying to use things developed by startups or small outfits and go with something that’s better engineered and thought out from the onset. I’m sure you’ll pay more but the headaches of Insteon reliability and functional limitations like dimming limitations really have tempered my drive for a more reasonably priced solution. You get what you pay for with lighting control hardware it seems. From a support perspective, yes it’s hard to support everything and spreading onself out too thin for a small company so I was curious if Lutron support would be considered something worth of investment in time and resources. Good to know it’s being seriously considered. As some other poster kind of suggested the lighting control hardware industry needs to mature more still to be adopted by a population beyond well heeled people and hobbyists. (Last part is my add!)
simplextech Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 7 minutes ago, matapan said: As some other poster kind of suggested the lighting control hardware industry needs to mature more still to be adopted by a population beyond well heeled people and hobbyists. (Last part is my add!) The lighting control industry is very mature with several offerings. Lutron is well known but they are not the only one out there. Philips also has a very nice lighting control system (professional) that not many even know about in the consumer space. The issue is the systems are not cheap or available on Amazon to the mass market of consumers. This is like saying the home automation industry is not mature when basing the statement from DIY offerings and not taking into account the many very mature, stable, functional professional systems (RTI, Control4, URC, Savant, Crestron).
larryllix Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 (edited) 57 minutes ago, simplextech said: The lighting control industry is very mature with several offerings. Lutron is well known but they are not the only one out there. Philips also has a very nice lighting control system (professional) that not many even know about in the consumer space. The issue is the systems are not cheap or available on Amazon to the mass market of consumers. This is like saying the home automation industry is not mature when basing the statement from DIY offerings and not taking into account the many very mature, stable, functional professional systems (RTI, Control4, URC, Savant, Crestron). OK...somebody has to start a generation counter for HA protocol systems. eg: X10 was gen1, Insteon is gen2? Zwave is gen3 or would that be gen2.2? Gens are the new titling system that is the latest fad. We need to get with the Millennial Times (not a newspaper). Edited December 20, 2021 by larryllix
simplextech Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 1 hour ago, larryllix said: OK...somebody has to start a generation counter for HA protocol systems. Here's a start.... X10 - 1975 X10 (Consumer) - 1978 Insteon - 2005 Z-Wave - 1999 Z-Wave (Consumer) - 2003 Zigbee - 1998 Lutron RanaX - 1989 Lutron NeTwork - 1990 Lutron RadioRa - 1997 1
matapan Posted December 20, 2021 Author Posted December 20, 2021 For the commerical industry, I'm sure there are good, well-designed solutions. Same thing for high end residential installations. The mass market stuff isn't though, and the players in the space for the most part are pretty immature IMHO. While Philips is a well known company in lighting, I wouldn't necessarily call the Hue offering to be a very complete line. From a product offering perspective, Insteon is pretty comprehensive, less a good lock offering, and Lutron is reasonably comprehensive lighting control offering. You can cobble a bunch of Z Wave products from different vendors but industrial design maturity is in the eye of the beholder. Things tend to look like a collection of mismatched assemblies in the Z Wave installations I've seen so far.
lilyoyo1 Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 (edited) 23 minutes ago, matapan said: For the commerical industry, I'm sure there are good, well-designed solutions. Same thing for high end residential installations. The mass market stuff isn't though, and the players in the space for the most part are pretty immature IMHO. While Philips is a well known company in lighting, I wouldn't necessarily call the Hue offering to be a very complete line. From a product offering perspective, Insteon is pretty comprehensive, less a good lock offering, and Lutron is reasonably comprehensive lighting control offering. You can cobble a bunch of Z Wave products from different vendors but industrial design maturity is in the eye of the beholder. Things tend to look like a collection of mismatched assemblies in the Z Wave installations I've seen so far. He's not talking about hue. The name slips my mind but it's dyna something. Might be dynalight. The difference between high end residential (besides quality) is the installer. We go through these companies training to be able to use their products in a way that optimizes their performance. The knowledge gained also helps us with other stuff. In addition to that, we've done more which gives us the experience over someone starting out. The really good ones also stays on top of stuff so they are at least aware of things that change. It's like an amateur photographer comparing his work to a pro. The amateur thinks it's the equipment he has so he goes out and spend 5k on a DSLR and accessories while the pro knows how to get the most out of a given situation and still outshines him with an iphone Edited December 20, 2021 by lilyoyo1
asbril Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 5 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said: If you do decide to start upgrading, let me know I don't do a lot of manual switch control, and mostly use HA in my browser or HA and UD Mobile on my phone. I gradually replaced my 300 series Zwave switches to Zwave Plus (Only a couple left of 300 series) and my current line of thinking is to maybe gradually go from Zwave Plus to RA3, once there is a well tested nodeserver.
larryllix Posted December 20, 2021 Posted December 20, 2021 2 hours ago, simplextech said: Here's a start.... X10 - 1975 X10 (Consumer) - 1978 Insteon - 2005 Z-Wave - 1999 Z-Wave (Consumer) - 2003 Zigbee - 1998 Lutron RanaX - 1989 Lutron NeTwork - 1990 Lutron RadioRa - 1997 But there is no "gen" designation. Millennials may not respond to four digit numbers after Y2K.
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