Monitoring on/off contacts

[rhughes]

Hi,

 

I have about 10 hard-wired on/off contacts (e.g. motion sensors, door switches, garage door contact, etc.) that I want to directly monitor and trigger programs using my ISY. The number of contacts will grow in the future. What are user experiences with the following and what do you recommend:

 

- TriggerLinc (I can line them up and power via a power supply instead of batteries)

- I/O Linc

- EZIO8SA

- Other?

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

[TJF1960]

Hello rhughes,

 

I currently use a EZIO6i for a couple of door contacts and to monitor arm/disarm on my alarm panel (set this up before the DSCLink was available).

 

The EZIO6 now works very well, after Michel and SHN were able to work the bugs out.

 

I had planned on using the EZIO with wired motion sensors but after thinking about it realized that most wired motion sensors (alarm type) trip then reset with no motion after a second or two which would just flood the power lines with Insteon traffic as you were just walking across the room. So some sort of home brew timer would be need between the ms and the EZIO to keep traffic at a reasonable level.

 

Anyway thats my two cents.

 

Tim

[IndyMike]

Hello rhughes,

 

Here's my experience:

 

1) Triggerlinc - problems with RF range. Need to include the cost of additional accesspoints in the system cost.

2) I/OLinc - good little devices, but not inexpensive. Monitoring 10 contacts will run you $390 (they have a sale on 4-packs for $150 right now).

3) EZIO8SA - no experience.

 

4) other - ELKM1 with a serial to Ethernet adapter: Use the ELK to monitor switch contacts and communicate changes to your ISY via the LAN. You import your ISY units and scenes into the ELK and then trigger the devices using ELK "rules" in response to switch closures. Not inexpensive, but it's a nice central package that has plenty of expansion capability.

[rhughes]

IndyMike and Tim,

 

Thanks for your replies. I think I'll go with a mix of EZIO6i, I/OLinc for garage door and TriggerLinc for wireless. I currently use an odd setup of X10 wireless and some hard wired sensors feeding into a controller (a Barix Barionet) that I custom coded to interface to my ISY. It seems to work fine, but I want to move away from that and go pure Insteon for the reliability and simplicity.

 

I had planned on using the EZIO with wired motion sensors but after thinking about it realized that most wired motion sensors (alarm type) trip then reset with no motion after a second or two which would just flood the power lines with Insteon traffic as you were just walking across the room. So some sort of home brew timer would be need between the ms and the EZIO to keep traffic at a reasonable level.

 

Tim

 

This got me thinking that I will probably need to replace my 4 wired motion detectors with Insteon wireless. Thanks for the heads-up, Tim.