Insteon Observations

["Dennis Brothers" <brothers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4583c206.5602984@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Where've you been?
>
> I and others would be interested to hear your evaluation of Insteon. I
> understand you have converted 100% from X-10.
>
> http://davehouston.net
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
> roZetta-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Been busy on other projects.  Also had a classic worst-case disaster a while
back - simultaneous hard-drive failures in my laptop and primary desktop
computers, and since they were backing each other up...  Lost a bunch of
email; managed to recover most of the other critical stuff.  Needless to
say, my backup strategy is a little different now :)

Anyway, about Insteon:

My house was built in the early fifties.  And the sixties.  And the
seventies.  And the eighties.  The house is now about 4000 square feet,
about 90 feet end-to-end, and has an "interesting" mix of wiring styles.  My
HA computer is at one end of the house, a long distance from most of the
stuff it controls.  X-10 was always marginal, even with an array of phase
couplers, boosters, filters, all the usual stuff.  I've been completely
Insteon for about a year now, and power-line control has been absolutely
reliable.  I was using my own HomeSeer plug-in until the disk problems; when
I rebuilt the system I installed the "official" HomeSeer Insteon plugin.

My biggest reservation about Insteon right now is the physical reliability
of the devices.  Out of thirty or so SwitchLincs, I've got two SwitchLinc
Relays with bad rocker contacts - one won't turn on; the other won't turn
off.  Both work fine under power line control.  Even more alarming is that
I've had three or four LampLincs die when bulbs they were controlling burned
out.

All of my Insteon stuff is early production; I'm about to get all the failed
devices replaced under warranty - I'll see if anything's improved,
quality-wise.

    - Dennis Brothers