"The time has come the Walrus said..."

[JacktheRipper]

"...to speak of many things. Of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and now, sadly, the death of kings..."

With apologies to Lewis Carrol, I have decided to withdraw from using Insteon and ISY products for my home automation needs. I was an early adopter of Insteon (maybe 2002), and bought my first ISY 99x in 2005 as I recall. I was on the waiting list for six months as Polisy was developed, and got an early Polisy PRO. I still think the dual band mesh technology is the best thing out there, so why have I made this decision?

Well, we all know the sad tale of SmartHome and Insteon, and the false starts of trying to rekindle the brand. I bought a new house and could not find a reliable source of Insteon products to outfit it. I was walking through Costco and came across deals for FEIT smart switch modules (three for $14.99) and wall light switches (two for $19.99). For $85 I had nine switch modules and four switches, all that I needed initially. I downloaded the FEIT app and got it working in a few hours. Alexa discovered everything automatically along the way. Between the native FEIT app capabilities and Alexa Routines, I can do some pretty fancy things (FEIT works with WiFi only, but Alexa needs an internet connection too). I then changed out all the Insteon/ISY products in our other two homes for another $200 or so. I can see and control all devices in all homes from one easy to use, modern app.

So my decision provides an opportunity for you. I have three perfectly good ISY 994i's (two with IR), and one Polisy. I have some 30 Insteon devices, all but three dual band. I have contact sensors, mini remote keypads and one motion detector (2844-222). Does anybody want them? I'm not looking to get rich (I already am), but I would like to have the FedEx delivery costs covered. Just pm me.

And I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who have helped me in this forum over the years. You know who you are. And, of course, Michel you are a gem. ...

[Michel Kohanim]

@JacktheRipper,

Thank you for the details. As I mentioned in another thread, those switches are beautiful! Or, look at these beauties! 

Just one reminder: alexa routines have a minimal threshold for successive triggers. So, for instance, if something gets triggered successively within 30 seconds, then the rest is ignored for another 30.

Good luck with all your endeavors!

With kind regards,
Michel

[larryllix]

Be careful with router capacities. I had an older version of an ASUS AC1900 that ran out of NVRAM with no errors reported.

When power failures happened, some would not get an IP address issued in the race. Once my ISY and polisy were attempting to use an IP of 0.0.0.0 I figured it out after years of flaky shite.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[JacktheRipper]

Michel... thanks for understanding my decision, and thanks for the tip regarding the MoesGo controllers. My new house is full of Control 4 controllers including some 4-button switch panels, and I may be able to change them out for something I can work with directly (as opposed to the Control 4 service company I called, who wanted $85 for just showing up!). All the other homes in the track have Control 4, and their porch lights are all on 7/24 because my neighbors are loathe to pay the Control 4 monthly fees.

The Feit products work OK once you know how to properly configure them (turn OFF phone bluetooth before programming them. Otherwise they only work if bluetooth is there!). There are gaping holes in their product mix (only wall dimmers, not switches, and they make fluorescents buzz like crazy). Very poor motion detectors. No integrated switch/motion detectors (California Title 24 requires them in all baths/kitchens--how did Feit miss this?). So I had to go to tp-link Kasa for some devices, and they work fine. I use Alexa to weld them to Feit devices if needed.

And I'm learning just how unreliable and limiting Alexa Routines can be. The promise is much bigger than what's delivered. I don't have any experience with Google to know if it's any better.

My security cameras, doorbells and robo-vacs are mostly Eufy, which work flawlessly. I do have a Lorex NVR and six 4K cameras on one of my houses, and they have worked fine, but the app is clunky.

But the thing I'll miss the most is this forum. Neither Feit no tp-link has anything like it. The support of other knowledgeable forum contributors, and you, in particular, has been outstanding. Thanks very much, and fair winds and following seas for your future endeavors...Jack

[JacktheRipper]

Quote

Be careful with router capacities.

I have three ASUS routers in play in my homes. One house has an ASUS GT-AC5300 (my son configured it for his gaming addiction) and another has an ASUS RT-AX82U). Both of these houses have fiberoptic internet connections (500 Mbps up & down), and have worked flawlessly for the past year or so.

My living hell is my main house in Orange County. It has an ASUS RT-AX3000) but is connected to "AT&T Internet 100", which uses two bonded DSL phone lines to get to 100/20 Mbps, at least in theory. Believe it or not, cable service is not available for my home, located in Orange County, CA, population 3.2 million. Things were so flaky I programmed an ESP32 to log internet outages, and was shocked at the results.This AT&T service experiences many "micro-outages" each day (about 1 to 10 seconds each), and often goes down hard for minutes if not hours many times a month. The router seems to cope with this, but some connected devices get confused and lost. So I programmed a Feit switch to restart the router (and the pass-through AT&T modem/router before it) upon remote command. That has always fixed things.

I'm waiting for Verizon, T-Mobile or Starry to finally roll out their promised 5G-Home service to my area, and will switch the minute it's available.

[Brian H]

Sorry to see you go away from Insteon. Though all of you points are very valid.

In my gut I feel more are going to dump Insteon if the new owners have to take understandable long time to get things going again.

Guess I am lucky in away. Though older power line only and maybe I1 only. I still have a few storage boxes of spares to use.

[xlurkr]

Jack:

I PM'd you on your Insteon gear.  If it's already gone, please update this thread.

-Tom

[upstatemike]

I don't think about "dumping" Insteon, or any other technology, but rather about embracing the best technology currently available. Unfortunately I don't agree that Wi-Fi can make the claim of being the best because I don't think it is scalable, I don't think it offers good support for integration with other platforms (ie pressing a button on a Wi-Fi keypad to open your garage door or start your whole house music system), and I just don't agree that currently available Wi-Fi switches are particularly attractive when compared to the likes of Lutron, C4, and some Zigbee and Z-Wave offerings.

I guess I'm saying I don't want to worry about what no longer works as much as I would like to find something that does. I love the simplicity of telling Alexa to turn on a Wi-Fi light switch but I can't live with Alexa routines that have no "OR" statements and I need switches and keypads that are as good at controlling other stuff as they are at being controlled from Alexa or some other controller.

[larryllix]

15 hours ago, JacktheRipper said:

I have three ASUS routers in play in my homes. One house has an ASUS GT-AC5300 (my son configured it for his gaming addiction) and another has an ASUS RT-AX82U). Both of these houses have fiberoptic internet connections (500 Mbps up & down), and have worked flawlessly for the past year or so.

My living hell is my main house in Orange County. It has an ASUS RT-AX3000) but is connected to "AT&T Internet 100", which uses two bonded DSL phone lines to get to 100/20 Mbps, at least in theory. Believe it or not, cable service is not available for my home, located in Orange County, CA, population 3.2 million. Things were so flaky I programmed an ESP32 to log internet outages, and was shocked at the results.This AT&T service experiences many "micro-outages" each day (about 1 to 10 seconds each), and often goes down hard for minutes if not hours many times a month. The router seems to cope with this, but some connected devices get confused and lost. So I programmed a Feit switch to restart the router (and the pass-through AT&T modem/router before it) upon remote command. That has always fixed things.

I'm waiting for Verizon, T-Mobile or Starry to finally roll out their promised 5G-Home service to my area, and will switch the minute it's available.

Yeah. I had three ASUS routers in mesh. What a mistake that is. I had 81 devices and only once I went to that total did I realise that the AC1900 wasn't logging more than 51 units at a time. Once I got rid of that model and used my other AX92u routers things changed. ASUS is junk but after getting one router repaired under warranty, things started working better and 81 devices soon showed up.

Later, after the router repair I only get an occasional lockout of some devices. They register as connected. Signal is strong. All other devices work great but somehow the last original ASUS router in my system decides that the device has no permission to connect to the outside world. Why? Nobody knows but a power cycle (not a rest) fixes it again for a month or so until it picks on another device.

Once I got my 35 ++ RGBCW bulbs and strip onto an single older Netgear with a much better range, all the WiFi HA connection problems disappeared.

Much later I discovered that my original ASUS had a NVRAM shortage and the later releases had 128 kB instead of 64 kB. You would think the router would have at least told the user of the problem. Garbage now and 2 - Ax92u routers sitting in a junk box may be next.

I don't do mesh anymore. It's a joke to protect other router signals from being overpowered.   Many devices cannot take the signal drop and AP or band switch. Mesh and band switching did nothing for me that a 20 year old router couldn't do with one unit. Now if they would only get it WiFi 6 upgraded.

Best of luck. Like to see how you make out with lots of WiFi devices.  I downsized into an apartment with a new router again, so things are much cleaner (26 floors into the cloud )

[JacktheRipper]

Update: All of the Insteon and UDI equipment I had has been spoken for and shipped as of this morning. Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in it. ...Jack