ryarber Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 I’m moving to a new house. Leaving behind my 15 year old Insteon/ISY system and starting all over again. My system was fully DIY. I had an ELK alarm, Rachio, weatherflow tempest, and myQ garage door openers. I’ve looked at other switches, specifically Caseta, RA3, Z wave, etc. I’m down to staying with Insteon and it’s constant state of uncertainty, vs Caseta. The main drawbacks I see with Lutron is that there are no scene controllers. I really like my tabletop remotes/scene controllers and that’ll be hard to part with. If it weren’t for that, caseta would be my choice. It’s fairly simple, reliable, inexpensive, and from a very stable company. Plus, it already integrates with apple HomeKit. Another drawback is that they have very few switches to choose from and the look and feel of Insteon equipment is far superior. Right now, I’m planning to carry my new Polisy with me and leave my old ISY-994 for the new homeowners. So I’ll have to revert everything to the old hardware. Is there a way to print out a table with all my switch addresses and switch names so that I could manually rebuild the ISY-994? Is there a way to revert to the older 994 without having to do this? Does anyone see z wave as a realistic option right now? I keep hearing about the popcorn effect… I’ve never seen that in person, but coming from Insteon I’m sure it’d get on my nerves. Has anyone played with a z wave 800 device yet? As far as the new i3 switches from Insteon, are they more reliable? Have a better wireless range? I did occasionally have some reliability issues with my Insteon switches. The fact that Insteon didn’t seem to improve wireless range and reliability issues over time is also concerning to me. Do the new i3 switches still use power line communication at all? Link to comment
ryarber Posted March 20, 2023 Author Share Posted March 20, 2023 As a follow up, I think moving to Matter over time is a possibility. I’d love to see EISY/polisy gain some HomeKit functionality so that I didn’t have to run homebridge. Link to comment
lilyoyo1 Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 55 minutes ago, ryarber said: As a follow up, I think moving to Matter over time is a possibility. I’d love to see EISY/polisy gain some HomeKit functionality so that I didn’t have to run homebridge. That's pretty much a dead horse. Unless apple makes it cheaper and easier, UDI has stated a few times it won't happen Link to comment
Bumbershoot Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, ryarber said: Is there a way to print out a table with all my switch addresses and switch names so that I could manually rebuild the ISY-994? There's a menu item in IoX/ISY: Tools | Generate Topology that might provide you with what you're looking for. 1 hour ago, ryarber said: Does anyone see z wave as a realistic option right now? I keep hearing about the popcorn effect… I’ve never seen that in person, but coming from Insteon I’m sure it’d get on my nerves. I don't think that Z-Wave is as smooth as Insteon for lighting, but you can create associations between dimmers/switches that are useful, though they're limited in number and coordination between the devices is nowhere near as graceful as with Insteon IMHO. 1 hour ago, ryarber said: As far as the new i3 switches from Insteon, are they more reliable? I've tested the i3 dial, and it's not yet fully supported by IoX (though UDI indicated that they'll provide support soon). I have an i3 paddle on order, so I'll test that as well. I don't have any information as to how strong the RF communications are on these new devices compared to the old devices, but they're still dual mode, meaning they still use power line communications as well as RF. New PLM's are due shortly from Insteon, and they've made noises about an upgraded PLM, possibly due later in the year. Edited March 20, 2023 by Bumbershoot Link to comment
lilyoyo1 Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 1 hour ago, ryarber said: I’m moving to a new house. Leaving behind my 15 year old Insteon/ISY system and starting all over again. My system was fully DIY. I had an ELK alarm, Rachio, weatherflow tempest, and myQ garage door openers. I’ve looked at other switches, specifically Caseta, RA3, Z wave, etc. I’m down to staying with Insteon and it’s constant state of uncertainty, vs Caseta. The main drawbacks I see with Lutron is that there are no scene controllers. I really like my tabletop remotes/scene controllers and that’ll be hard to part with. If it weren’t for that, caseta would be my choice. It’s fairly simple, reliable, inexpensive, and from a very stable company. Plus, it already integrates with apple HomeKit. Another drawback is that they have very few switches to choose from and the look and feel of Insteon equipment is far superior. Right now, I’m planning to carry my new Polisy with me and leave my old ISY-994 for the new homeowners. So I’ll have to revert everything to the old hardware. Is there a way to print out a table with all my switch addresses and switch names so that I could manually rebuild the ISY-994? Is there a way to revert to the older 994 without having to do this? Does anyone see z wave as a realistic option right now? I keep hearing about the popcorn effect… I’ve never seen that in person, but coming from Insteon I’m sure it’d get on my nerves. Has anyone played with a z wave 800 device yet? As far as the new i3 switches from Insteon, are they more reliable? Have a better wireless range? I did occasionally have some reliability issues with my Insteon switches. The fact that Insteon didn’t seem to improve wireless range and reliability issues over time is also concerning to me. Do the new i3 switches still use power line communication at all? Outside of testers, it's a new product so no one can comment on reliability. I've had test units for a few years now and mine are still in operation. Range isnt a good indicator of anything nor does it really matter in a whole home. Due to the mesh natural of systems, network density matters more. In a limited install, range does matter but in a whole home it doesn't. Environment comes into play as well. Whether lutron or C4, they'll talk about how the environment has the greatest impact on an installation. I've seen systems that tout long range fail due to poor environments. Since Polisy/eisy can work with multiple vendors, things are no longer about specific vendors/technologies. You could still use caseta with insteon keypads for example. It's about using what you feel is best for how you want to run your house Link to comment
brians Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 5 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said: That's pretty much a dead horse. Unless apple makes it cheaper and easier, UDI has stated a few times it won't happen As a UI, Apple HomeKit on an iPhone is a slick experience compared to many other things, I won't go on because people who own and use multiple Apple devices will know what I mean. HomeKit as a back-end controller is not as powerful as IoX, but I am just talking UI here and I think that is what most want, just have IoX do all the work, and have in Home App on their iPhones. The solution for now is to setup Home Assistant with the IoX integration. In my case I used HomeBridge in the past, but now use Home Assistant running on an Intel NUC which works far better. It has been said that you can even install Home Assistant on an EISY, but I would recommend it on a separate system. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/isy994 Then setup the HomeKit integration... https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit 1 Link to comment
brians Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 I also have to say that the new Caseta Diva and Clara switches are much nicer than the original weird switches... this is based on my limited experience playing with them in Home Depot Link to comment
TRI0N Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 (edited) On 3/20/2023 at 4:57 PM, brians said: As a UI, Apple HomeKit on an iPhone is a slick experience compared to many other things, I won't go on because people who own and use multiple Apple devices will know what I mean. HomeKit as a back-end controller is not as powerful as IoX, but I am just talking UI here and I think that is what most want, just have IoX do all the work, and have in Home App on their iPhones. The solution for now is to setup Home Assistant with the IoX integration. In my case I used HomeBridge in the past, but now use Home Assistant running on an Intel NUC which works far better. It has been said that you can even install Home Assistant on an EISY, but I would recommend it on a separate system. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/isy994 Then setup the HomeKit integration... https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit Home Assistant on Pi4-B Due to recent disappointments with UD, Developer Wiki being completely irrelevant and never finished, lack of support when asking about their proxy abilities with curl, etc and felt like I was just being run around trying to avoid answering the questions or just point to something that isn't published in 2014 that doesn't means squat with their current product. So I put together a Home Assistant Pi4-B unit. If things keep going the way they are, the eisy will be more of a tool (device) rather than the brain of my home automation system when I'm developing my own interface. Here is what I put together this afternoon. TRI0N Edited March 30, 2023 by TRI0N Link to comment
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