Noob, with a couple of simple questions

[jonjonbear]

Hello group.

New here, and fairly new to Insteon but longtime X10 user. I have been using Homeseer for years, but have been lead over here and have been learning about the U-D ISY units (What the heck does "ISY mean?) All I can say is wow on the units, and even better on the support as I have asked a few questions. I am about half way with converting over, so have X10 and Insteon living together. On my insteon units, every once in a while they don't go off in the proper timing sequence which leads me to believe that the first one off might miss it's signal the first time, then it appears it is sent again and then goes off together with a later "off" signal on a nearly unit. This tells me, that either Homeseer, or Insteon in general, will try to send a signal again if it's missed. This is the problem I have with X10, and am hoping to get past with Insteon. I am not so concerned with the fact that they don't always fire at the correct moment, but they always get to the correct place, usually pretty quick. I am trying to find out if this "effect" will be the same with the ISY units or if this is a "repeat" feature in Homeseer? I want to be sure before making the big jump from Homeseer.

Thanks so much,

John

[Michel Kohanim]

jonjonbear,

 

As far as I know, HomeSeer does not send INSTEON group commands and thus if you turn on/off a group, it will send a sequence of on/off/actions to each device in the scene individually. In order to answer your question, please let me know if you have the same issue with two (or more) switches controlling other INSTEON devices. If so, then ISY will exhibit the same problem and so do any other INSTEON related solutions.

 

As far as X10, nothing is repeated since (in most cases) there are no acknowledgments from the devices.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Hello group.

New here, and fairly new to Insteon but longtime X10 user. I have been using Homeseer for years, but have been lead over here and have been learning about the U-D ISY units (What the heck does "ISY mean?) All I can say is wow on the units, and even better on the support as I have asked a few questions. I am about half way with converting over, so have X10 and Insteon living together. On my insteon units, every once in a while they don't go off in the proper timing sequence which leads me to believe that the first one off might miss it's signal the first time, then it appears it is sent again and then goes off together with a later "off" signal on a nearly unit. This tells me, that either Homeseer, or Insteon in general, will try to send a signal again if it's missed. This is the problem I have with X10, and am hoping to get past with Insteon. I am not so concerned with the fact that they don't always fire at the correct moment, but they always get to the correct place, usually pretty quick. I am trying to find out if this "effect" will be the same with the ISY units or if this is a "repeat" feature in Homeseer? I want to be sure before making the big jump from Homeseer.

Thanks so much,

John

[jonjonbear]

Hello Michal,

I don't think I was clear in my question. I don't use any group commands, I just use simple scenes with delays on some lights. What I exhibit is in a scene, I have the first light which is supposed to go off first right away, with no delay. A minute later, the next and at two minutes, the last. Most of the time, it fires correctly but sometimes when I run the scene, nothing happens right away, then depending how long the repeat takes or whatever is happening, the first and second light go off together or really close together then the last one normally. On a very rare occasion all three are close. This is telling me, due to the lack of the first lamp going off right away that it didn't get the first command, and then something, either the Insteon technology itself or Homeseer seems to send another signal which then works..So my question was will this sort of behavior work regardless of which control system you use? Maybe they all do this?

I like this "feature" because with X10, if it misses, you have to turn the light off manually but it appears that the insteon stuff some how makes sure the signal gets there, even if it has to retry so I never have to worry about coming home and finding my Insteon lamps still on.

 

Did this make sense?

Thanks.

John

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi jonjonbear,

 

Apologies for the misunderstanding. ISY has a configurable "repeat" times; you can also add Wait and Repeat in your programs to repeat certain messages. I really cannot talk about how HomeSeer works, but INSTEON protocol itself only has a HOP COUNT which basically means that each packet "may" be repeated HOP COUNT times on the network till it reaches its destination. Beyond that, PLMs and other devices do not repeat commands unless instructed to. So, I would assume that the repeat issue is either coming from HomeSeer or possibly some noise on the line.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Hello Michal,

I don't think I was clear in my question. I don't use any group commands, I just use simple scenes with delays on some lights. What I exhibit is in a scene, I have the first light which is supposed to go off first right away, with no delay. A minute later, the next and at two minutes, the last. Most of the time, it fires correctly but sometimes when I run the scene, nothing happens right away, then depending how long the repeat takes or whatever is happening, the first and second light go off together or really close together then the last one normally. On a very rare occasion all three are close. This is telling me, due to the lack of the first lamp going off right away that it didn't get the first command, and then something, either the Insteon technology itself or Homeseer seems to send another signal which then works..So my question was will this sort of behavior work regardless of which control system you use? Maybe they all do this?

I like this "feature" because with X10, if it misses, you have to turn the light off manually but it appears that the insteon stuff some how makes sure the signal gets there, even if it has to retry so I never have to worry about coming home and finding my Insteon lamps still on.

 

Did this make sense?

Thanks.

John

[jonjonbear]

Hi Michel,

Perfect! I think the repeat settings is what I am thinking of. It seemed to me that HS had that too, and might be how my signals get repeated or resent..I am amazed at how well Insteon works compared to X10, the one and only problem I have is my PLC seems to lock up from time to time which affects only the Insteon units, as the X10 signals are sent through a second older PLC connected to the same computer..Oddly the older one never locks up.

 

Thanks again!

John