Re: Insteon compatibility

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:

>"Dennis Brothers" <mysurname@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>and every Insteon device functions as a
>>repeater, so signal level issues are pretty much eliminated.
>
>IMO, that's overstating things a bit. The biggest problem for X-10 is
>devices that attenuate the signal. Devices that eat 120kHz are likely to
>also eat 131.65kHz. While Insteon addresses the issue of signal level it
>doesn't completely solve it.

To clarify this...

There are two types of devices that attenuate both X-10 and Insteon signals.


One type consists of X-10 and Insteon transmitters which nibble at the
signal strength by loading the powerline. With X-10, the more transmitters
the lower is signal strength. Insteon transmitters have the same effect and
since all Insteon devices are two-way, all include transmitters. Insteon
solves this by having all Insteon devices repeat the signal so, if there are
no other signal eating devices, Insteon signal level tends to be a constant
level thoughout the "network". The more Insteon devices, the better it is
for Insteon signal level. However, Insteon transmitters also nibble at X-10
signals which are not repeated so the more Insteon devices, the lower are
X-10 signal levels.

The other type of signal attenuation usually comes from other devices
plugged into the powerline that have line filter capacitors between line and
neutral. These usually take large bytes out of both X-10 and Insteon signals
and repeating the signals may not overcome the effect. Filters used for X-10
will also address this problem for Insteon.