I recently had a garage built behind my house. It is only about thirty five feet between the buildings. The garage has a 50A sub-panel installed connected to the main panel in the house. I have some lights on the outside of the garage I want to control by using Insteon switches. Specifically I will be using a micro ON/OFF module in a motion light on the back of the house to also turn on the lights on the outside of the garage. Items have been ordered, but haven't arrived yet.

My question is: will Insteon communicate over the neutral line to the garage or will I be relying solely on the RF function of the devices?

Thanks!

I have something similar, I have most all dual band devices and have no issues with Insteon in the outbuilding.

Thanks! That is encouraging. All my Insteon devices, with the exception of battery powered devices and the thermostat, are dual band.

Hopefully I will know by the end of the week.

Insteon dual band devices use both RF and powerline.

If your garage subpanel is 220v then you want to make sure that you have a dual band device on both garage powerline legs. You can verify that the legs are bridged using the 4 tap test.

You also should verify that your controller in the house and your garage are communicating by also using the 4 tap test.

 

4 Tap test.pdf

Edited August 2, 20232 yr by Techman

The four tap test should show you some data.

If you look at the manuals for the modules. Some call it a Beacon test. Some also show a flow chart of set button actions and led flash patterns. Many times the four tap test works even if not published in the modules manuals.

The tap test works fine in the house. I have enough dual band devices that both sides of the breaker panel are bridged.

The garage sub-panel is 220V. However, all the lights are on one breaker and I don't plan on adding anything other than light control. So I may be relying on RF from the micro module in the motion light on the back porch to talk to the switch in the garage.

I was hoping that I would get some communication through the neutral line from the main panel to the garage.

For now I will wait and see what happens when the switch arrives and I install it.

The tap test. Tests the RF and Power Line communications. The flash pattern on the unit receiving the test information. Would indicate communicating and if the sender and receiver are on the same or opposite phase of the homes incoming power feed.

In your case I feel communicating on either phase should allow the switch to work.

17 hours ago, K-bert said:

I recently had a garage built behind my house. It is only about thirty five feet between the buildings. The garage has a 50A sub-panel installed connected to the main panel in the house. I have some lights on the outside of the garage I want to control by using Insteon switches. Specifically I will be using a micro ON/OFF module in a motion light on the back of the house to also turn on the lights on the outside of the garage. Items have been ordered, but haven't arrived yet.

My question is: will Insteon communicate over the neutral line to the garage or will I be relying solely on the RF function of the devices?

Thanks!

As long as your garage panel is tied into your main panel in the house (50A/220V breaker in the main panel) you should be fine.  Your main panel has both 110V legs bridged already.  Your garage panel is wired in parallel and will also have both legs bridged. 

If your garage panel is being fed by a separate power meter things will be different. 

The 35 foot distance should not present a problem for powerline communication UNLESS you have a lot of signal absorbing loads in the garage (chargers and the like).  Communication will be through each 110V leg with a return on the neutral wire.

I second what Indymike says above, if  all legs are connected in parallel and already bridged. I have one meter and panel that feeds 3 sub panels through out my house and a detached pool house. The shortest run to a sub panel is 30 feet, the longest is about 100 feet to the pool house. Insteon devices all work fine with no bridges or range extenders. In fact, I used to have range extenders and they caused more problems after dual band was released, so I removed them all.

I only have one meter connected to the main panel and then a sub panel connected to the main panel.

The units arrived this morning. I was intending to put micro module in the motion light first. Unfortunately there was no space behind the fixture to fit the module. I will need to use either a different housing or a box extension.

I did install the switch in the garage. I added the switch in the EISY using the device address and the EISY discovered it almost immediately. I added it to a scene with a button on a six button keypad and it worked right away.

There are no issues communicating with the switch in the garage.

Thanks for the replies! Looks like the switch is talking through the power lines just fine.