With Insteon Done...Now What / How to Integrate Others

[lilyoyo1]

17 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

I would set a few requirements to prevent getting into a simiar jam in the future. Mine are:

No dependency on cloud services for basic operation

Does not use the overcrowded 2.4GHz radio band

Does not rely on address space or cpu from my router to manage endpoint devices

Uses broadcasts rather than routed communications so routes can't get messed up and delays can't create a "popcorn effect".

No discernable delay in any operation

Easy and very rapid backup and restore to new hardware in case of a controller failure

Can scale to at least 256 devices without any perceptable impact on performance

End devices are attractive and intuitive (ie true rocker switches, no push on/push off toggles, etc.)

Has a robust local API for easy integration to any Home Automation controller

Just make your own list like this and then go through each available technology option to see which ones tick all the boxes.

 

 

That covers everything currently out there for the most part

[upstatemike]

35 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

That covers everything currently out there for the most part

Caseta might fit if you scale it using multple bridges but generally you are correct. Everybody has some HA technology that they want to promote but they all seem to fall short in one area or another. I don't know why somebody couldn't start from scratch and build a sub Gig (good range, good penetration) home automation protocol that hits all these key points; but nobody has.

[lilyoyo1]

Just now, upstatemike said:

Caseta might fit if you scale it using multple bridges but generally you are correct. Everybody has some HA technology that they want to promote but they all seem to fall short in one area or another. I don't know why somebody couldn't start from scratch and build a sub Gig (good range, good penetration) home automation protocol that hits all these key points; but nobody has.

I agree with you but it's cheaper to piggyback off someone else's work than develop a new technology from scratch. No one wants to take that chance and have it fail

[MrBill]

4 hours ago, prairiecode said:

but then the search here is sub-optimal.

Use google... start the search box with "site:forum.universal-devices.com" and fill in anything else you desire in the search.  If you want to include wiki articles drop forum and use "site:universal-devices.com"  as your search preface.

[larryllix]

9 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I would set a few requirements to prevent getting into a simiar jam in the future. Mine are:

No dependency on cloud services for basic operation

Does not use the overcrowded 2.4GHz radio band

Does not rely on address space or cpu from my router to manage endpoint devices

Uses broadcasts rather than routed communications so routes can't get messed up and delays can't create a "popcorn effect".

No discernable delay in any operation

Easy and very rapid backup and restore to new hardware in case of a controller failure

Can scale to at least 256 devices without any perceptable impact on performance

End devices are attractive and intuitive (ie true rocker switches, no push on/push off toggles, etc.)

Has a robust local API for easy integration to any Home Automation controller

Just make your own list like this and then go through each available technology option to see which ones tick all the boxes.

 

 

Unfortunately....none.

[oskrypuch]

17 hours ago, jrainey said:

 

(disregard)

[io_guy]

16 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Personally i don't see the point in changing. The sheer number of insteon devices on eBay will keep the price from jumping too high

Not in my case. I recently sold my entire Insteon collection on Ebay and converted everything over to Zooz ZWave.  With the market for used Insteon I actually made money doing it (and I didn't charge near what the current Ebay prices are).  

Can honestly say I'm happier with the new setup than I ever was with Insteon.   

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, io_guy said:

Not in my case. I recently sold my entire Insteon collection on Ebay and converted everything over to Zooz ZWave.  With the market for used Insteon I actually made money doing it (and I didn't charge near what the current Ebay prices are).  

Can honestly say I'm happier with the new setup than I ever was with Insteon.   

I'm glad you're liking it. I can see why with the 700 series stuff. I give credit to the new 700 series stuff. Zwave is much better now than it was back with the 3 and 500 series stuff. For my needs though it's still not as easy to use nor flexible enough the way insteon is.

TBH, nothing really is. I've been testing RA3 and while the Isy would give it much more capabilities, it's not as flexible with insteon. If UDI can get the API from Lutron, my plan is to go with that and hue bulbs in the lights that i use and do ketra style automation.

What do you like about it more

[upstatemike]

But will the Tech Oligarchs (Amazon/Google/Apple) let Z-Wave continue to disrupt their master plan with a viable competitor to Zigbee/Thread/WiFi? Lutron can retreat to their dealer/integrator base but Z-Wave is directly in their crosshairs for consumer market share.

[prairiecode]

3 hours ago, io_guy said:

Not in my case. I recently sold my entire Insteon collection on Ebay and converted everything over to Zooz ZWave.  With the market for used Insteon I actually made money doing it (and I didn't charge near what the current Ebay prices are).  

Can honestly say I'm happier with the new setup than I ever was with Insteon.   

Did you have any Insteon 3-way switches, and if so, how did you deal with those in Z-Wave?  AFAICT, every Z-Wave device communicates with exactly one controller, so if you have a 3-way in Z-Wave, it will communicate with its partner but NOT the ISY or something.  Is that accurate?  Somewhat different to Insteon where devices could be part of an arbitrary number of scenes.

[prairiecode]

23 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

But will the Tech Oligarchs (Amazon/Google/Apple) let Z-Wave continue to disrupt their master plan with a viable competitor to Zigbee/Thread/WiFi? Lutron can retreat to their dealer/integrator base but Z-Wave is directly in their crosshairs for consumer market share.

I would not be opposed to using Zigbee, particularly if it solves the 3-way switch problem.  Wifi sure seems like a terribly poor fit for HA though, and the lack of a standard for "what protocol do you use over wifi" is even worse.  I do not want 10 different apps all hooked in to some cloud service that requires Internet and Google.

I really like that my ISY setup makes the house feel like a regular house.  I don't have to use a phone to control it; I have switches and panels that are much more convenient.

[lilyoyo1]

58 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

But will the Tech Oligarchs (Amazon/Google/Apple) let Z-Wave continue to disrupt their master plan with a viable competitor to Zigbee/Thread/WiFi? Lutron can retreat to their dealer/integrator base but Z-Wave is directly in their crosshairs for consumer market share.

I don't think it's a threat since a controller can still be part of matter and control zwave devices. Overall, I think there's enough room for everyone as the strength of each system fits different scenarios

[lilyoyo1]

38 minutes ago, prairiecode said:

I would not be opposed to using Zigbee, particularly if it solves the 3-way switch problem.  Wifi sure seems like a terribly poor fit for HA though, and the lack of a standard for "what protocol do you use over wifi" is even worse.  I do not want 10 different apps all hooked in to some cloud service that requires Internet and Google.

I really like that my ISY setup makes the house feel like a regular house.  I don't have to use a phone to control it; I have switches and panels that are much more convenient.

Wifi has it's place in smart homes/automation/control. It's great for those who aren't really invested in doing a whole home. Maybe they have some Holiday decorations they want to control or a couple of lamps in a few rooms. Telling Google to turn some lights on/off is good enough. 

For example, I put some wifi led strips under my nephews beds. I could've used hue like i have in my own home but for what they wanted, wifi was more than sufficient. No point in the cost of hue and it's infrastructure for what i was doing. 

As I said earlier. There's a place for all of these technologies. It doesn't have to be 1 winner

[Bumbershoot]

4 hours ago, io_guy said:

Can honestly say I'm happier with the new setup than I ever was with Insteon. 

If you don't mind, are you using an ISY for the controller?  From the limited deployment of Zooz 7x switches in my installation, I'm inclined to move in that direction myself.  I have a remodel starting next month, and there's an opportunity to replace about a dozen Insteon switches with something else (and having electrical contractor wire them up).  I don't want to move off the ISY, however.

[lilyoyo1]

15 minutes ago, Bumbershoot said:

If you don't mind, are you using an ISY for the controller?  From the limited deployment of Zooz 7x switches in my installation, I'm inclined to move in that direction myself.  I have a remodel starting next month, and there's an opportunity to replace about a dozen Insteon switches with something else (and having electrical contractor wire them up).  I don't want to move off the ISY, however.

I don't know what he's using but they work with both Isy and polisy

[io_guy]

4 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

What do you like about it more

Hardware wise I like the look and feel.  Always found the Insteon switches very "clicky" and the multi lights on the side ugly.

Feature-wise, they're easily as fast as Insteon, with many more configuration options (taps, smart bulbs, night light, led notifications, etc.).

A Zen77 does everything my old 2477D did and much more.

[io_guy]

2 hours ago, prairiecode said:

Did you have any Insteon 3-way switches, and if so, how did you deal with those in Z-Wave?  AFAICT, every Z-Wave device communicates with exactly one controller, so if you have a 3-way in Z-Wave, it will communicate with its partner but NOT the ISY or something.  Is that accurate?  Somewhat different to Insteon where devices could be part of an arbitrary number of scenes.

I have 3x 3-way setups.

Not really.  ZW allows for director associations with the controller (device -> controller -> device).  So the software doesn't need to be running but the USB controller needs to be plugged in.  Using this method makes the 3-way just about instant.  With the software running, the status of the switches still gets reported back to software.

 

1 hour ago, Bumbershoot said:

If you don't mind, are you using an ISY for the controller?  From the limited deployment of Zooz 7x switches in my installation, I'm inclined to move in that direction myself.  I have a remodel starting next month, and there's an opportunity to replace about a dozen Insteon switches with something else (and having electrical contractor wire them up).  I don't want to move off the ISY, however.

I started with some ZW on the ISY but had some range/reliability issues once I switched to the 500 card.  I then switched to HA for ZW and pulled all the ISY Insteon in using the integration, gradually moving programs from the ISY to HA.  Since I not longer have Insteon the ISY isn't required.

I'm now on about 50x 700-series devices and 3x 500-series (door locks).

I can't comment on the ISY support for various ZW products, it was lacking when I was using it (although you could manually set parameters).  With zwavejsmqtt virtually every ZW device gets recognized and all their parameters pulled in as readable English.  I haven't had to enter a parameter number/value yet.

[silverton38]

On 4/13/2022 at 7:01 PM, KHouse said:

With Insteon being done...what is the general consensus on how to incorporate other technology (Z-Wave for example) moving forward?

I'm using an ISY994i with Insteon and Elk M1 (for alarm).  I recently wanted to add/change a few more light switches to Insteon and come to find that they are basically out of business.  So...with that said, I've got a house full of mostly Insteon switches that will one day need replacement (technology doesn't last forever, plus if the PLM every goes....).

What is everyone else who is more knowledgeable than me doing in this situation?  I don't really like the aesthetic idea of adding new light switches that are Z-wave / not Insteon to the ISY (though possible) and just waiting for the PLM to die before replacing all my other light switches.  (Don't like the idea of mis-matched switches).

But also don't like the idea of replacing everything so that it all matches.

I've been very happy with the Insteon setup and actually really like the quality and feel of the switches, so not too happy that they're done (I've got Control4 at one of my businesses and strongly dislike the look and mostly feel of their switches).

Just wondering what other folks are doing with their systems now.

I really feel for you. I personally have moved most of my stuff over to Lutron. Also keep in mind that the ISY is around and you can exist for a long time on that. You can also get the ISY with Z-wave and start moving in that directly; though I personally do not like Z-wave.

Maybe the ISY will do what they did for Insteon but with Lutron's system? Hint Hint!!!

[silverton38]

Maybe it is time for a new ISY that is Zigbee, Z-wave and even maybe Lutron RA2/Caseta with support for Insteon as a transition?

[KHouse]

Through some thought over the last few days...personally, I think I'm going to stick with the ISY/Insteon setup.  I've got a decent setup, but it's not crazy by any means.  Will just pickup spare devices over time (eBay).  I know a lot of Insteon pieces are getting record prices right now, but as more people figure out their hubs and systems are toast (the ones that don't want to go through the hassle of turning to HA for example), I feel like there may be a flood, or at least a steady stream of Insteon devices being sold over the next few months.

With that said, I'm happy with my system, so will probably just continue to run it out and replace devices over time as needed with spares and try to keep the system going for a while.  Thanks God for UD and the ISY!  In almost 10 years, I've had a PLM go bad, and that's it.  Luckily I saved that PLM and will get it repaired now as a spare.  I might have a switch going bad now, but to be honest, in 10 years not having any failures is pretty good I think.  (Though I'm dealing with a bit of a communication issue right now so thinking I have a device going bad now anyway).

[silverton38]

I will personally be unloaded a lot of Insteon items soon. Make sure you grab any serial PLM that comes around. That is your biggest risk.

 

[RPerrault]

10 minutes ago, silverton38 said:

Maybe it is time for a new ISY that is Zigbee, Z-wave and even maybe Lutron RA2/Caseta with support for Insteon as a transition?

as i understand the polisy implementation, the polisy is a unix based computer that will replace the isy 

originally, the isy only supported insteon - elk security and z-wave support was added - the evolution led to polisy, its ala carte - the platform provides a java based interface to manage devices - insteon devices - if you want, add roomba - it will show up as a device to be managed alongside your insteon devices - you could label an insteon button to control the roomba

the code for roomba is not necessarily provided by ud - they make the platform available for developers to write the code for roomba - or sonos - or...

 

[silverton38]

12 minutes ago, RPerrault said:

as i understand the polisy implementation, the polisy is a unix based computer that will replace the isy 

originally, the isy only supported insteon - elk security and z-wave support was added - the evolution led to polisy, its ala carte - the platform provides a java based interface to manage devices - insteon devices - if you want, add roomba - it will show up as a device to be managed alongside your insteon devices - you could label an insteon button to control the roomba

the code for roomba is not necessarily provided by ud - they make the platform available for developers to write the code for roomba - or sonos - or...

 

I do not disagree but a solution with a signal box works better for my professional installations. 

[RPerrault]

5 minutes ago, RPerrault said:

as i understand the polisy implementation, the polisy is a unix based computer that will replace the isy 

originally, the isy only supported insteon - elk security and z-wave support was added - the evolution led to polisy, its ala carte - the platform provides a java based interface to manage devices - insteon devices - if you want, add roomba - it will show up as a device to be managed alongside your insteon devices - you could label an insteon button to control the roomba

the code for roomba is not necessarily provided by ud - they make the platform available for developers to write the code for roomba - or sonos - or...

 

this comes closer to a single pane of glass for disparate devices and opens the possibility to relate them to one another - if roomba starts, turn on the pool heater

you are not bound to a single manufacturer or protocol - only the availability of a 'node' for the device(s) you want to buy

THAT is what i see as the biggest selling point for polisy - and if nothing else, a graceful path to move away from insteon gradually

i am leaning toward lutron - homeworks - no 'node' available for polisy though - and not a fan of yet more 'mesh' crap - probably limp through until the matter standard begins to mature

 

[prairiecode]

3 hours ago, io_guy said:

I have 3x 3-way setups.

Not really.  ZW allows for director associations with the controller (device -> controller -> device).  So the software doesn't need to be running but the USB controller needs to be plugged in.  Using this method makes the 3-way just about instant.  With the software running, the status of the switches still gets reported back to software.

This is key news for me -- thank you!  Can you tell me a little bit more about your 3-way setups?  What kinds of switches?  Did you just use the same models for the "remotes" as Insteon does, or did you use different remote (control-only, no load) models?