Re: Insteon Review

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

My enthusiasm is waning.

I have now seen a few complete failures - cases where the target module
never responded and the controller LED flashed for several seconds. There
have been several other cases where the target responded but only after 3-4
seconds.

The ESM1 was plugged into the target circuit and it showed nothing during
the failures which was an indication that the RF link wasn't working. It
turned out that I had repositioned one unit (to avoid the bright LED which
really is annoying when looked at head-on) and had the antennas oriented
badly but this is with the RF units only 8' apart. I think this will be
tough to troubleshoot without dedicated diagnostic tools to indicate both RF
and PLC activity. In fairness, in a permanent installation the antenna
orientation is unlikely to change - but I suggest the RF units be within a
few feet of each other. And, it may well be that they have diagnostics in
the firmware that can only be triggered by a PC interface.

My test setup is less than ideal as the only way I have to send a signal is
by pressing buttons on the tabletop controller. I could devise more rigorous
and automated tests with a PC interface to send/receive and with a 900MHz RF
receiver to indicate whether a failure was related to RF or PLC. But then I
would be the only one to ever know the results given their license terms. :(

Over the week-end I will try to come up with a way to generate some noise on
the powerline and see how the system handles that. Then, I'll be returning
the kit to the dealer who loaned it to me.