Re: Why cling to old X10?

[RickH <passport@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 14, 4:42 pm, nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
> RickH <passp...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Wow sounds like fraud more than hype, how do you know these things?
> >Why has my reliability been so good?  The documentation says that each
> >device is an RF repeater.  Also if it's not going RF why is it so much
> >faster than X10?  I have no filters in the house and no SignalLinc in
> >the basement at all, just on the 2nd floor.  On one branch circuit I'm
> >running about 15 or more devices, it was my understanding that Leviton
> >X10 recommends a max of 4 devices for a branch circuit before signal
> >absorption.  All this evidence led me to believe it was going RF, now
> >I'd be disappointed if it's not.  Are these bugs documented anywhere?
>
> I didn't say it's unreliable, I just said there's no RF mesh network.
>
> All of the Insteon details were thoroughly documented in a PDF white paper
> that was available onhttp://www.insteon.neteven back when it was first
> announced which was about a year before it began shipping. They've totally
> revamped that webpage since I last visited so the whitepapers are a bit
> harder to find. Here are links to two...
>
>      http://www.insteon.net/pdf/insteondetails.pdf
>      http://www.insteon.net/pdf/insteoncompared.pdf
>
> The second paper has a section titled "INSTEON Is a Dual Mesh Network" (p5)
> which includes the following paragraph...
>
> "All INSTEON devices that are plugged into the powerline communicate with
> each other using the INSTEON Powerline protocol. INSTEON devices with
> radios, whether they are plugged into the powerline or handheld, use the
> INSTEON RF (radio frequency) protocol to communicate with other INSTEON
> devices that have radios. Not all INSTEON devices are required to have
> radios."
>
> Which is highly misleading because, to date, only the SignaLincs (replaced
> by Access Points) and Remotes have "radios".
>
> Once they started shipping, I got a starter kit (on loan from a dealer) and
> posted a serial review here in comp.home.automation over about a 10 day
> period. There's a very brief synopsis on my webpage at...
>
>      http://davehouston.net/insteon.htm
>
> The review thread from July-August 2005 is here...
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.home.automation/browse_frm/thread...
>
> Each device repeats the powerline signal but not as "through the air" RF,
> only over the powerline. It's faster than X-10 because (best case) it only
> needs 5 half-cycles of the powerline to send a standard command (plus
> another half cycle to send it as "through the air RF" to the opposite phase
> while X-10 needs 44 half-cycles to send a command. The only RF device is the
> recently released remote (which requires the new access points).
>
> If you mean the SignaLinc bugs, see...
>
>      http://www.smarthome.com/2442p.html
>
> I received an email months ago from Smarthome telling me about it as well as
> the exchange offer but that may be because I'm a registered developer.
>
> Signal absorption is not a problem for Insteon since each device repeats the
> powerline signal. It is a problem for any X-10 devices in the system as the
> Insteon devices absorb X-10 but do not repeat X-10.

Oops, I guess even my new SignalLinks should be upgraded, but they
have a special deal for free remote, and I wanted a remote anyway:

http://www.smarthome.com/accesspointupgrade.html

Thanks for the heads up on all of this.