Re: A mentor / Advisor ?

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

You say, "Some folks have larger systems" and earlier you referred to seeing
several threads from people who had tried both Insteon and Z-Wave. URLs to
any such threads would be welcomed by those here trying to decide between
the two. Reports from installers whose profitability depends on reliability
would be especially welcomed.

If RadioRA is two-way, then the modules must be transceivers. Why then do
they need separate (and multiple) repeaters?

Free air range is not a valid indicator for indoor range (as you have
noted). I have extensive experience with low power radio modules like these
and my rule of thumb (which holds up fairly well) is that reliable indoor
range is about 20% of free air range. I'd like to see how well they perform
in the plaster over wire lath construction that San Francisco's firecodes
required when I installed commercial sound systems there in the early '60s.

I recall seeing that removing a dead Z-Wave unit from the master controller
required starting over with a clean slate. Has that been fixed?

The cost of RadioRA modules would limit most people to far fewer than 32
modules. ;-)

"Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>The old modules should continue to work. I agree that 6 modules isn't any
>sort of real test. Some folks have larger systems than that of course. Newer
>modules can send async change notifications, using a sort of trick that gets
>around the (stupid) Lutron patent, as discussed in the previously linked
>thread.
>
>RadioRA is two way, though only on/off status is returned, not dimmer level,
>which is the biggest limitation of RA really, well that and it's limited to
>32 loads for a single unit, max of 64 with two linked units. But that's not
>a huge limitation for most people.
>
>I think that for one way control, you can have a Z-Wave module at a pretty
>good distance from its nearest neighbor. Not sure about good two way control
>though. I've not ever tried it. A guy in the linked thread took one out to
>the end of the driveway and said he had no problems controlling it from
>inside the house. Not sure if that would remain so over time, or how it
>would do if it had to be polled, or how reliable async change notifications
>would be seen.
>
>---------------------
>Dean Roddey
>Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd
>www.charmedquark.com
>> So what do early adopters now do with their first generation hardware? Can
>> they co-exist with the "maybe better" later things?
>>
>> Not to denigrate your hands-on experience but six modules in a small
>> apartment is probably not a good predictor for dozens of modules in a
>> large
>> residence (e.g. Bruce Robin's Insteon installation). Lutron suggests RF
>> repeaters within 26 feet of each other for RadioRA (and I believe that is
>> just one-way). I would expect Z-Wave to need similar density for
>> reliability. And, unless one of the changes is an increase in max_hops,
>> the
>> size of an installation is inherently limited so your apartment may not be
>> atypical in terms of size.
>>
>> Unfortunately, unless you are building a new house and can hardwire it
>> during the construction phase, you are pretty much limited to wireless
>> and/or PLC so the question for most people is which less-than-optimal,
>> non-hardwire solution is best.
>>
>> Insteon is two-way with (reasonably fast) automatic ACKs so there's no
>> necessity to poll.
>


http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx