Re: A mentor / Advisor ?

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"Chris Hackett" <chackett@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Yeah, so far the recommendations have been either Zwave or Insteon.  I have
>no idea which way I'll go.  I'm probablhy leaning toward Insteon, but I
>don't really know why.  One thing I'm not excited about is bulky adapters
>and stuff.  I don't know what they're called, but I think I saw them on some
>sort of "starter kit" from Insteon.  I really want the sytem to be
>transparent or invisible...

I would investigate ZWave intensively before spending any money on it. IMO
it has fundamental flaws which cannot be overcome. Those touting it are
unqualified to judge (and usually have a financial stake in it). It may
suffice for a very small residence but does not scale up well for larger
residences. It needs a rather dense concentration of modules as it has to
repeat signals sequentially from module to module to traverse the network.
Unless something has changed recently, there is a rather small max_hops
limit which curtails the size of any network. The time required for several
hops to and fro, makes two-way communications too slow to be very useful.
Multiple controllers don't make nice with each other. Removing dead modules
from the routing table(s) involves starting with a clean slate.

The underlying Insteon technolgy is well designed but the company has a
history of not quite getting things right as well as a history of poor
quality control. You've seen some of the complaints on the Insteon forum.
Still, at this time, it would be my choice for a new PLC based installation.


Since it's too late to hardwire, your only choices are PLC (Insteon, X-10,
UPB), wireless (ZWave, several ZigBee based systems are in the works,
several very simple RF systems exist) or HomePlugCC (still mostly vapor).
Anything beyond a basic alarm panel is unlikely to add to resale value.

There are also higher-end wireless systems like LutronRA but I think they
are mostly outside your stated price range.

Since AV is important to you, you should look at CharmedQuark which is
heavily oriented that way. Dean Roddey, who wrote it, posts here and also
has hands on ZWave experience in his (small) apartment. I don't know how it
fits in with a panel like the ELK you're looking at but there are several
knowledgeable end-users of the ELK panel lurking about who might chime in.

Ignore all advice from Borat, who seems to be masquerading as
"accidental_plumber". Do they even have electricity (or houses) in
Kazakhstan?


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