I have the Insteon "starter kit" installed. It consists of the computer interface, wireless/wired signal bridge units, several lamp modules, 2 wall switches and a table-top controller. It has the ability to be backward compatible with X-10 addressing and the new Insteon protocol is actually a 2-way protocol that uses each node in the net as a repeater to ensure commands are delivered and acknowledged.
Bottom line is that it works. It works in places where old X-10 modules didn't. And it is MUCH faster than X-10 when respondng to Insteon commands from the controllers.
My biggest problem is that the current switch units REQUIRE a neutral wire in the switch box to work. Without it, the units cannot communicate between themselves. As my house is over 100 years old, the presence of neutral wires is problematic. Sometimes an outlet is close enough to a switch that I can snake a neutral wire through the wall, but generally my switches are wired as old-style switch legs with the switch in-line on the hot wire.
Other than that, the system works great and I'd happily change all of my wall switches over to Insteon in a heartbeat if not for the neutral wire problem. Rumor has it that they are coming out with units that install at the fixture, rather than the switch, making the neutral wire problem moot.
Upgrade if you can afford it. It is better technology than X-10 by far.
I'll disagree, for me it sucks about as much as X10 did.
Insteon sells itself as a hybrid protocol, both RF and powerline but the switches are powerline only.. the only RF in the system is in the signal bridges AFAIK.
1. Whenever Insteon signals are traversing the power line the backlight on the KeypadLinc blinks. The labels on the keypad link look like backlite paper becuase of the white LED illumination. Uniform plastic labels, or different color backlight would help improve the look a lot. Construction and feel of the device is excellent.
2. Insteon programming seems simple, but you have to do weird things. Like when you program a button on the Keypadlinc if you want the light behind the button to track the state the fixture when the fixture is controlled from something other than the keypad lic you have to reverse program it.. and the system tends to get confused as to which unit will be the controller and which is the controlee. Once again, if you have noise in your environment.. forget it.
3. Acknowledged transmission.... Insteon devices will repeat transmissions until they get an ACK from the controlled device... but only for about 1 sec. Not enough time to bypass a noisy environment. Also the ACK does not appear to contain the device ID, so when two commands go out in rapid series the transmmitters both assume the first ACK is meant for them.
4. The getting started docs are too simple.. the full use docs are way too complicated.
5. Insteon has an X10 compatibility mode that works ok, but interoperation with X10 automation controllers is still a little dicey.
Neutral and ground are not the same thing. Tying these switches to ground will sometimes work, but it actually puts current on your ground wire and ultimately through your entire house by way of your breaker panel. Don't use ground. Use neutral. If you don't know the difference, get up off the sofa and turn the switch off by hand instead of using X-10 or Insteon.
It's not as easy as it sounds. First of all, finding an electrician that is familiar with the old homes and the intricacies of the wiring used 80+ years ago isn't easy. If they're not, they tend to make weird assumptions about what's there. Second, just running the wires is a monumental task - you've got plaster walls, stone walls, old wood that's as hard as cement, studs aren't standard distances apart, and tearing into a wall with 95 yrs+ worth of paint and wallpaper on it a nightmare all by itself - y
First of all, finding an electrician that is familiar with the old homes and the intricacies of the wiring used 80+ years ago isn't easy.
As someone who's job is remodeling houses, I'd recommend not worrying about the electrician's familiarity with knob-and-tube wiring. If you are going to upgrade an ancient electrical system, you should be running all new wiring anyway. The old stuff has certain fire issues you just can't get around, and is likely under-sized for the load produced in a 'modern' lifestyl
If they ever invent wireless power transmission, sign me up!!
Tesla did this a long ass time ago. You can do it with a tesla coil. Your receiver is an antenna, a capacitor, and a diode. It's not especially efficient, though, because it's not directional.
New drywall isn't necessarily a big deal either. Rip down whatever's up there (you can be graceless) and screw in some sheets of drywall. Apply tape/joint compound and paint. This approach will probably also save you a lot of electricion time/cost, since he doesn't have to worry about snaking wires through walls.
I take it you have paint still sitting around for every room in your house, so ripping out switches of wall, replacing them, retexturing them and painting them is a snap.
But for some of us, it isn't so easy. Paint matching is very good nowadays, but you still need to paint an area larger than a few feet with the edges right at eye level. Basically, you end up painting an entire wall.
I was assuming you'd probably be doing an entire room at once, not just one chunk of the wall. If you're going through all of the effort, why not refurbish the whole room? Most of your up front time is going to be spent preparing for and cleaning up/finishing.
I guess I'm going to answer several replies by just replying to my own post... I know that the wiring is a mess, and we'll need to replace the old stuff. I just want a guy that knows what he's doing in the old houses. I've seen younger guys walk in, look around and shrug their heads as if they're lost. That gives a homeowner a baaaad feeling...
There's more to it than just ripping out walls and replacing everything. First of all, I'm not made of money. I am aware of the issues of remodeling - I'm in the
And I don't have neutrals on most of my switches either. I even have ground in every junction box (even switch boxes), but no neutrals in some switch boxes. Why? Because you don't need them. There's no safety issue or anything.
The neutral runs straight to the light, and only the hot is switched. That's 100% safe, and all that is necessary. Go to home depot and find a light switch. It has 3 terminals. 1 is ground. The other two are interchangeable, but we'll call one "hot in" and the other "intermittent hot o
Being 100 years old doesn't have much to do with having a neutral wire or not... what you have going on is switch loops, where a hot leg is sent to the switch, then sent back to the light. Since you're only switching hot, there's no neutral needed... this is valid even in the most recent NEC, so there's no bringing it up to code. Using switch loops is still very much alive today. Now, snaking a separate wire in the wall to the switch certainly is NOT code and isn't really a good idea... it's better to run
I don't mean to be pedantic, but you mean "earth" or "ground", not neutral. See http://sound.westhost.com/psu-wiring.htm#4.0 [westhost.com] (although I'm sure that there are more complete articles out there on the subject).
I meant what I said. Neutral. Not ground.
As for neutral in switch boxes, most new construction these days does have neutral pulled through the switch box, precisely for home automation tasks. The usual technique is to pull the wire through the switchbox and then directly to the fixture. Neutral wires are usually left uncut/untouched in the switch box and the switch is placed in-line with the load, as with a normal switch leg. But the neutral wire is made available if necessary for these sorts of applicati
Insteon would not work in my home, which I wired myself according to the NEC. I never used a wall box or a ceiling box as junction boxes, so there are no "extra" wires in places they don't belong. From my junction boxes for a ceiling light , I run one cable to the ceiling box and one cable to the wall switch box. The wall switch cable is a switch loop (with ground). Meaning that the hot wires goes in and a switched-hot wire comes out. There is no neutral wire at the wall switch.
This is the first I h
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a
test load.
Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:5, Informative)
Bottom line is that it works. It works in places where old X-10 modules didn't. And it is MUCH faster than X-10 when respondng to Insteon commands from the controllers.
My biggest problem is that the current switch units REQUIRE a neutral wire in the switch box to work. Without it, the units cannot communicate between themselves. As my house is over 100 years old, the presence of neutral wires is problematic. Sometimes an outlet is close enough to a switch that I can snake a neutral wire through the wall, but generally my switches are wired as old-style switch legs with the switch in-line on the hot wire.
Other than that, the system works great and I'd happily change all of my wall switches over to Insteon in a heartbeat if not for the neutral wire problem. Rumor has it that they are coming out with units that install at the fixture, rather than the switch, making the neutral wire problem moot.
Upgrade if you can afford it. It is better technology than X-10 by far.
Re:Insteon still sucks. (Score:4, Informative)
Insteon sells itself as a hybrid protocol, both RF and powerline but the switches are powerline only.. the only RF in the system is in the signal bridges AFAIK.
1. Whenever Insteon signals are traversing the power line the backlight on the KeypadLinc blinks. The labels on the keypad link look like backlite paper becuase of the white LED illumination. Uniform plastic labels, or different color backlight would help improve the look a lot. Construction and feel of the device is excellent.
2. Insteon programming seems simple, but you have to do weird things. Like when you program a button on the Keypadlinc if you want the light behind the button to track the state the fixture when the fixture is controlled from something other than the keypad lic you have to reverse program it.. and the system tends to get confused as to which unit will be the controller and which is the controlee. Once again, if you have noise in your environment.. forget it.
3. Acknowledged transmission.... Insteon devices will repeat transmissions until they get an ACK from the controlled device... but only for about 1 sec. Not enough time to bypass a noisy environment. Also the ACK does not appear to contain the device ID, so when two commands go out in rapid series the transmmitters both assume the first ACK is meant for them.
4. The getting started docs are too simple.. the full use docs are way too complicated.
5. Insteon has an X10 compatibility mode that works ok, but interoperation with X10 automation controllers is still a little dicey.
Mark
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
you want to keep that house, bring the wiring up to code
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:1)
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:1)
Next time you are outside during the day, take a look up.
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
As someone who's job is remodeling houses, I'd recommend not worrying about the electrician's familiarity with knob-and-tube wiring. If you are going to upgrade an ancient electrical system, you should be running all new wiring anyway. The old stuff has certain fire issues you just can't get around, and is likely under-sized for the load produced in a 'modern' lifestyl
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
Tesla did this a long ass time ago. You can do it with a tesla coil. Your receiver is an antenna, a capacitor, and a diode. It's not especially efficient, though, because it's not directional.
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
and paint... (Score:2)
I take it you have paint still sitting around for every room in your house, so ripping out switches of wall, replacing them, retexturing them and painting them is a snap.
But for some of us, it isn't so easy. Paint matching is very good nowadays, but you still need to paint an area larger than a few feet with the edges right at eye level. Basically, you end up painting an entire wall.
This stuff isn't a snap.
Re:and paint... (Score:2)
With some help you could do this over a weekend.
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:1)
I know that the wiring is a mess, and we'll need to replace the old stuff. I just want a guy that knows what he's doing in the old houses. I've seen younger guys walk in, look around and shrug their heads as if they're lost. That gives a homeowner a baaaad feeling...
There's more to it than just ripping out walls and replacing everything. First of all, I'm not made of money. I am aware of the issues of remodeling - I'm in the
my house is 40 years old... (Score:2)
Why? Because you don't need them. There's no safety issue or anything.
The neutral runs straight to the light, and only the hot is switched. That's 100% safe, and all that is necessary. Go to home depot and find a light switch. It has 3 terminals. 1 is ground. The other two are interchangeable, but we'll call one "hot in" and the other "intermittent hot o
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:1)
Now, snaking a separate wire in the wall to the switch certainly is NOT code and isn't really a good idea... it's better to run
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:1)
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
Re:Insteon works and it IS better than X-10 (Score:2)
Insteon would not work in my home, which I wired myself according to the NEC. I never used a wall box or a ceiling box as junction boxes, so there are no "extra" wires in places they don't belong. From my junction boxes for a ceiling light , I run one cable to the ceiling box and one cable to the wall switch box. The wall switch cable is a switch loop (with ground). Meaning that the hot wires goes in and a switched-hot wire comes out. There is no neutral wire at the wall switch.
This is the first I h