Re: Insteon or Zwave?

["Robert L Bass" <robertlbass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>    - You can't say do x, y and z then wait 10 minutes and do a, b and c

I believe you can do that -- just not directly.

>    - There isn't any way to "manage" rules which becomes an issue once
>      you start getting a lot of them or want to do things to groups of
>      rules.

True, but for most that's not a major drawback.

>    - You can't programatically enable/disable rules on the fly.
>    - You can't say if((a or b) or (c and d))... just "and..."

There are ways to do a logical OR.

> If you're doing simple scenes and basic daytime-off/nighttime-on kinds of
> functions, the M1 is fine.  But complex automation needs a more
> comprehensive programming ability than the M1 has.

That depends on what you want to do.  In my home I want the system to arm
after a certain time each night if there's no motion.  When I arm in home
mode I want the HVAC to go to a comfort setting.  In the away mode I want it
to go to economy settings.  When I enter a room if the room is dark I want
the lights to come on.  When I come in through the garage I want a path of
light to the keypad and from there on to the kitchen.

The fun part will be setting up the pool controls.  There will be
temperature and water level sensors for the pool, the spa and the solar
collectors, plus a wireless remote to activate the two spa motors (pumps for
air and water).  I want the pool temperature to remain between 80º and 85ºF
from 9:00 am until midnight.  The spa should go to ~100ºF on demand.
Primary heating for both units is from the solar collectors on the roof.
Auxilliary heat is supplied by a gas-fired unit.  I hope to do all of this
using the ELK unit.

> Right now, I've got a PC connected to the M1 via
> the serial port and will probably replace that with
> an Ethernet connection (once I find out all the
> limitations of the $150+ add-on to the M1).

I have lots of spare PC's around so connecting one to run something like CQC
(assuming I ever hear back from them) or HomeSeer (if I don't) is always an
option.  I might also run an Asterisk server for my VoIP services.  They use
a fair chunk of online BW but very little processing power so I might decide
to play around with some Unix stuff as well.

I plan to add the Ethernet module so I can monitor and control stuff from
Brazil when I'm there (usually several months each year).

> This gives me the ability to do what I want/can on
> the M1 and use the PC to handle the heavy lifting.

Sounds about right.

> IT would be awesome to have one box that did it
> all, but I haven't seen one yet that I could afford.

Same here though I get the stuff wholesale and anything I use as a learning
or demo tool is partly tax deductible.  :^)

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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