Re: Insteon compatibility

[Neil Cherry <njc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 22:07:49 GMT, Ward Abbott wrote:
> Is the Insteon system compatible with X-10 modules?  Is this more
> reliable than the existing technology?

Insteon has the potential to be more reliable. Electrically it can
fall prey to the same maladies that haunt X10 (and use the same
methods to avoid those problems). When using the Insteon devices as
X10 devices nothing is gained other than it works with X10. But when
used with Insteon commands and having the devices enrolled with the
controller (that's very important!) you get commands ACK'd (that's
good), NAK'd (somethings wrong, resend command), ignored something's
really wrong and waiting for the commands reply will time out (device
is dead, unplugged or not there) and finally a device which isn't
enrolled will give you a sorry I'm not enrolled with you so I'm not
listening to you type of message. Of course if your software isn't
smart enough to listen for these things then you gain nothing. As is
the case of my iplcd at this time, but then again that's not exacly
the purpose of the iplcd. The Enrollment app is something that could
be listening and handle the enrollment while other apps listen and
react for other things. Does this help?


--
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry@xxxxxxxxxxx
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