Insteon -- Any New Experiences?

Mitch · 2006-02-28T01:24:27+00:00

I'm looking at doing a fairly good size lighting system in an existing house and am thinking about Insteon...I'd like to hear from anyone who has done anything significant with these products. How was your experience? Reliability, etc. would be great to hear about.Many thanks,Mitch

Feb 28, 2006 22 Replies

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Insteon is somewhat less likely to be bothered by noise because of the tendency of all the repeaters to saturate the "network" with the Insteon signal. It's also less likely to be bothered by signal sinks for the same reason. Plus, it probably has a far narrower band of sensitivity to noise. Still, it uses 131.65kHz while X-10 uses 120kHz so it will be subject to some of the same gremlins as X-10. I noted that in my initial review a few months back. OTOH, it also has 10mV sensitivity.

Not all PLC systems will have the same sensitivity to noise. The HomePlug system can adapt to noise, shifting to other frequencies to avoid interference.

Your ESM1 will also provide a measure of Insteon signal level. It might be useful to others if you would post the results of measurements from various points in your extensive Insteon "network".

I'm hoping to send Bruce Robin a ZX-24 based version of roZetta by the end of the month. Among the things it will do is allow people to use X-10 RF to trigger Insteon actions.

snipped-for-privacy@whocares.com (Dave Houston) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nntp.fuse.net:

That's actually what I am doing now by way of a W800RF32 and Homeseer. I still have a bunch of wireless X10 Palmpad remotes, and I'm using them to control Insteon devices. The W800 works great at receiving X10 RF signals from those palmpads, as well as some X10 wirless motion sensors and window/door sensors. At this point, I have rid my power lines of X10 traffic with the exception of an X10 Univeral module that triggers some floor warming for me. I am looking forward to the eventual introduction of Insteon "universal" (low votage switching) modules.

I have found that despite X10's weaknesses over power lines, their RF protocol works quite reliably. I get much better results capturing X10 RF Palmpad commands with the W800 and sending out the Insteon command of choice than I ever did with the Palmpads in an X10 only environment. The W800 is even able to capture the signal from my outside wireless motion sensors, through the masonry stucco and wire lathe exterior of my house 40 feet away with seemingly 100% reliability. That amazed me.

I always thought that when I pressed a button on my X10 wireless palmpad and it failed, thet the problem was most likely on the RF side - but aparently the problem was on the PL side. On the other hand, the W800 is also a far better receiver than the standard X10 RF receiver plug in modules.

Jim H.