See recall notice appended below from SmartLabs for appliance modules that get stuck ON and overheat. They provide for cross shipment of the replacements. I have several that qualify for the replacement but have not shown any signs of failure that I will exchange.
On the one hand, it is good that Smarthome / SmartLabs have an appropriate replacement policy. On the other hand, this is yet another failure that is costly in time and confidence to INSTEON users.
.... Marc Marc_F_Hult
formatting link
SmartLabs Design is announcing a voluntary recall and replacement program on the ApplianceLinc V2 and ICON Appliance On/Off Module (product numbers
2456S3, 2856S3B, 2856S3).
Customers affected by this program are eligible to receive a replacement product (ApplianceLinc V2 or ICON Appliance On/Off Module) at no cost.
SmartLabs Design has identified a potential defect in the product, which may cause the product to overheat. If this occurs a small portion of the plastic case may melt. There has been no report of injury or damage.
The defect is characterized by the controlled load remaining in the "ON" position and not turning to the "OFF" position. Reports of this occurrence have been where the controlled device is one that creates an instant on load such as some fluorescent lights and small fans.
If you are in possession of product displaying this defect or would like a replacement product, please discontinue use and visit the link below for instructions on obtaining a replacement. SmartLabs Design is committed to providing only the highest quality products to our customers. We regret any inconvenience this matter may cause and appreciate your continued support.
While I share your sentiment that it's a "pain", at least you have a company that's willing to stand behind the products it sells and is being pro-active in determining a solution that's both appropriate and timely.
I agree in general. But with respect to this particular recall, which involves a malfunction that according to SmartLabs causes a component to get hot enough to melt plastic, it seems to me that they had no responsible alternative.
So as I understand it, in the recall/replacement pipeline are/will be:
1) Appliance modules as discussed above
2) the SmartHome Device Manager (SDM). This is the vital link software between the hardware and third-party software. At present, the SDM is so 'feature'-laden that some developers (eg HomeSeer) stopped further work in anticipation of a yet another new release.
3) the Powerline Controller (USB and RS-232 interfaces ) partly because the firmware is not sufficiently field upgradable to accommodate changes needed for the new SDM.
4) Wall dimmers. the "flicker" problem has been discussed in this newsgroup. As I understand it, SmartHome has found neither an internal nor external fix that they feel ought/can be applied by the customers, so the solution may very well be another opportunity to remove and replace and ship the hardware and reprogram the hardware, scenes and system. Reprogramming is easier said than done because at present, removing and modifying device configuration can be awkward/problematic.
Even with these issues, I prefer the INSTEON products to X10 for several reasons. And hey! waddya expect for $19.95 (price of ICON dimmer)? As defenders of x10 dysfunction seem/ed to say, our time has no value -- right? ;-)
( Hardwired remains the method of choice for high-reliability dimmed lighting in my opinion and experience.)
Well, as they say, "You can tell the Pioneers by the arrows in their backs!" We do seem to be getting our share of arrows but the overall benefits will probably be worthwhile. If I were paying an electrician to change these things I'd be pissed but, as you point out, our time is worth nothing (unless somebody elese is willing to pay for it). Even if I have to replace everything, I can do it all in a day - particularly if I have software to do all the linking rather than having to run from switch to swith to play tap-tap.
hmm ... That's a 'belief' that can be examined, no?
As of this moment (and every other moment I can recall looking since their introduction) INSTEON ICON Decora-style dimmers are and have been available for $19.9x .
formatting link
(Durn them facts! ;-)
Should I stock up ? Or have I/we been teased enough already ...
Yup. It's I think its even easier than that. If/when you get a new batch, just set them up 'on the bench' before deploying them throughout the house (having first removed the ones they replace from the circuit).
You better stock up, because that's the GREEN LED version. If you look closely at the price, that's a special closeout price, they're normally $27.99 and as you scroll down the page there is a notice that the GREEN version is only going to be available for a short time.
I've been buying the YELLOW version, which is also $27.99 normally, but is currently on special for $24.99.
Yeah, those facts have a way of sneaking up on you. :)
One way to effectively 'remove' your existing INSTEON and(or) X-10 devices from the circuit is to use an isolation transformer. Do your bench work to program the INSTEON devices on the isolated side.
An isolation transformer can be made by connecting together the secondaries of two identical transformers. One pair of 110 VAC leads becomes the input and the other the output.
For example, two transformers with 10 amp 12VAC secondaries would provide enough power for umpteen INSTEON devices and a 100 watt bulb.
You can gild the lily by putting a non-polar, high frequency capacitor across the 12VAC leads to further attenuate the INSTEON/X-10 signal leaving or entering the isolated circuit.
If Insteon had to pay the full freight of the recall (hiring electricians to remove and reinstall switches, paying for *all* the shipping, costs, paying for any house wiring that was damaged by jacking switches in and out, etc.) it might be worth $20 a switch.
But they've passed a lot of that cost onto the consumer so it turns out that the real, end-user cost is quite a bit higher than $20 - and that's not even counting the "pissed off" factor of having to redo the job, reprogram the lights and praying that the replacement switch isn't going to suffer from yet another recall of some other nature. Add all of that to the report that some of the switches reprogram themselves automatically - and then back again - and you've got a real quandary on your hands.
All in all, it makes the boatload of X-10 switches made by Stanley that I bought at closeout seem even more of a bargain at $5 a switch than ever before. Four flicker-free switches that never forget their address for the price of one Icon. Such a deal!
backs!" We do seem to be getting our share of arrows but the
What would those overall benefits be?
But as my econ prof said "Wouldn't you rather be doing something else you
*wanted* to do that day?" Lost opportunity costs are hard to see, but they're there. If SmartHome had to pay the full freight of the SwitchLinc recall (electricians, lost time, potential home wiring damage) their bottom line would be bathed in red ink. I don't know what their warranty says, but I'm betting they went to great pains to exclude liability for true recall costs. The trouble is that in some states, you can exclude whatever you want but the courts have the final say whether those exclusions are sustainable. My guess is that in consumer-friendly California, Smarthome's at risk.
I'll bet someone's already proceeding against them in court for those true costs. (Anyone have Lexis access to see for sure?) If it's like any other industry, they'll settle up with the complaintants that have threatened legal action and those consumers will get a much better deal than most because I am sure Insteon is desperate to avoid a court case over the SwitchLincs. Why? Well, if they lose, it might set a precedent for them having to pay those true costs for all the other Insteon users affected by the flicker problem.
Civil cases often focus on what it makes to make the plaintiff "whole" again. In this case, that might easily include the cost of jacking out all the Insteon switches and replacing them with what was there before. It could easily become worse if some former Insteon employee releases embarassing documents to the web (as has happened with other company's product liability suits) that make their way into litigation.
I salute you, brave pioneer, but I wouldn't want to BE you! :-)
Oh, and the trick to the arrows is to break off the fletching and push the arrow THROUGH the wound.
I find it interesting that you find lost opportunity cost and other time expenses in Insteon while you continue to talk about how inexpensive X10 is. I'm not going to claim that Insteon is cheaper than X10, but I don't see how X10 is cheaper either. It has all the same problems when dealing with a new installation. Yes, you can make it work quite well, but you have to go through the debugging phase. You frequently talk about all the knowledge that's on the 'net and all anyone has to do is *spend time* researching the issues. You've also talked about the inexpensive pile of X10 stuff you have for the inevitable replacement of dead switches. If you hvae to have a box of spares, no matter how inexpensive they were, the cost has increased. And of course, there's the time you put into actually doing those replacements.
As I've said before, I have no problem with your use of X10, and I wholeheartedly agree that your personal X10 experience has given you the knowledge to act quickly at this point when dealing with X10 issues. But I fail to see why you're looking so hard to find fault with Insteon (and others). You seem to only see the faults in the system you aren't using.
Well, as I mentioned in the post you're quoting, I can buy 4 load controllers for X-10 for the price of 1 Insteon controller. That makes it
1/4 the price of Insteon components, at least the way I buy things: in quantity and on sale. And that's even being generous because I'm comparing it to the Insteon *sales* price. That's a big price differential and I thought it was obvious from what written today and in the past. Apparently not.
Must respectfully disagree. With X-10, I take a yellow pad, twist two dials and mark down "Bathroom = F10" and I am done. Insteon apparently adds a fun "manual linking" step to that installation process. They also apparently added a magical "reset upon unknown circumstances" feature long ago that they still have not resolved. Those aren't the "same" problems, they are "new" problems, and apparently thorny ones if these devices can unlink and relink and reset themselves at will with no clue as to why.
I'm definitely *not* saying that new systems don't have settling in issues. I doubt very much you'd ever find me making such a claim. What I reject is calling something an improvement when from my POV it adds steps to a process or when it turns out to be no more reliable than the system it is replacing. Why would *I* trade out my X-10 for Insteon? No one has posted any "killer application" function of Insteon that makes me say to myself: "Gee, I'd give up all my X-10 just to have that." In fact, what's happened is the complete reverse. Now that I have some XTB's, the only reason I would have switched to Insteon (better signal strength) is gone.
That doesn't sound like me to me, but if you say so . . . BTW, I disagree with that contention "All anyone has to do" because no matter how much research an end user does, it's not going to compensate for the wrong choke in a switch circuit or a switch that resets it ID after certain types of power glitches. Firmware and SW glitches are a lot easier to work around than hardware design errors. FWIW, I didn't start this thread. Are you sure you're not conflating postings from several different posters?
I'm sorry Larry, but you reached a bad conclusion. I would buy spares, no matter who made them because I believe in spares. You mistook alleged X-10 unreliability as the basis for my insistence on having spares. I have spares because of the unreliability of the market. I want "on site" replacement parts for mission critical items. Period. Whether it's a shower massager or a home automation component, I would maintain spares. So in reality, the gap between Insteon and X-10 widens, not decreases, because X-10 spares are cheaper.
Although I have a box of spare X-10 wall switches (they were $3 and change each at closeout), I haven't replaced one in perhaps 10 years now. (Some Murphy's Law wags would say that's the point of having spares: Having them on hand means you'll never need them!)
Once I got all Stanley units and began observing their instructions on how to connect black and blue (derived from reading this very newsgroup, BTW) I experienced no more wall switch failures. So, as far as comparing my "jacking out switches endlessly factor" I'd say it was zero to Insteon's 20 or so.
You don't know how good that makes me feel! :-) Really! But something tells me those words imply that there's something I'm doing that you DO have a problem with . . .
Even an ego stroke, too. The hammer must be about to fall.
Ouch! The hammer falls. If it sounds like all I am doing is Insteon bashing, I'm sorry, and in more than one dimension. It means that I've failed in my primary goal of getting people to exercise caution before abandoning X-10 for new stuff just because it's new, I expect vendors to prove their claims that it is indeed "far superior." I also expect vendors to beta test thoroughly or to face the consequences of failing to test completely.
So far, I see no superiority and report it as such. My wife hates switches with LED's, so that's not a draw for me. We hardly ever dim the lights, let alone program scenes, so that's not a draw for me.
So, what do you think I should be writing about Insteon? That's it's really never likely that you'll break off a wire jackassing switches in and out? That wouldn't be true because I learned from the bad old defective X-10 wallswitch days that you don't want to overwork 60 year old solid copper wiring. I know from that experience if you bugger up a wire well enough, you have created a monstrous amount of work for yourself that probably involves drywalling and repainting the room.
I think it would be a disservice to the user community to fail to remind them of these potential issues. Sorry if you think I'm picking on Smarthome but I suspect in the face of fierce competitive pressure that they rushed Insteon a little. If so, that's a marketing cost *they* should bear, rather than pushing it off on their customers by making them pull, return and reinstall switches. If I were them, I'd offer to pay for an electrician to do the work in exchange for an NDA. But I think the ship already sailed on the quiet way out. Now, ironically, there's noise on the line in more ways than one.
Consider it an opportunity for those who are using the system to tell me what it does that's so great I should go through the trouble and expense of yanking X-10 and installing Insteon. If Insteon wants to send me some betas, I will be more than happy to test them. But I ain't paying for that "privilege." So far, I see people doing a lot of work at a significant cost without a lot of payout, at least in terms of what would be useful to my HA needs.
Just so that you're sure I am not biased against Smarthome, I think that their website is the best in the business and that their 4071 X-10 Maxi controller is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
formatting link
These three features:
1) Ten non-sequential user-programmable soft-touch buttons
2) Easily access all 256 X10 addresses
3) Multi-house code programmable All Lights On/All Units Off buttons
The Smarthome ControLinc Maxis are just outrageously useful. To anyone who has lights on multiple housecodes, feature 3) is really something you can't live without. It's just too bad they don't have Jeff's XTB booster built-in. When the budget permits, and if Insteon still doesn't impress me, I am going to buy two or three more Smarthome Maxi's and XTB's to drive them. With their built in macro capabilities, they give me functionality that no other X-10 device can provide. That, to me, is the "killer app" that Insteon is still lacking.
I may still end up getting some Icon gear because I have some shallow wallboxes that I've worked around with X-10 (Sticka switch). I could eliminate the Stickas if the Icons will fit. I'm just not sure I want to yet.
In fact, that reminds me that more than half of the controllers I have for X-10 aren't even made (yet?) for the Insteon world.
Do I really have to be an Insteon user to make that sort of comparison or do I just need to be able to read a catalog?
Do I really need to own an Insteon switch to know that jackassing switches in and out of wall boxes all day long is bothersome and potentially very troublesome if you break off a wire close to the wall?
Do I really need to have an Insteon switch to know that I wouldn't like to have to press and hold buttons and run back and forth between switches and controllers to program them?
Do I really need to own an Insteon switch to know that every switch you add is an impediment to existing X-10 traffic? (Well, someone had to own some to know, but thankfully, it was not me!)
Do I really need to have an Insteon switch to know that my wife doesn't like LEDs glowing from every corner of the house?
-- Bobby G.
War does not determine who is right, war determines who is left.
Not real advice, Lewis, just a bad joke trying to extend on the pioneer metaphor and imply that you should cut your losses and not have to drag the entire arrow through the wound, the assumption being that you're already shot through. No sense dragging the fletching through the wound as well.
In reality, there would be very few circumstances, where pushing it further in would be helpful, not harmful. So, you're correct, it's never a good idea in real life to push an arrow through unless you're already in the ER and a doctor's doing it and deal with the potential bad consequences.
The balance for the surgeon, I suppose, comes in evaluating how much damage a arrowhead can cause being pulled backwards in the victim compared to what it would do being pushed forward compared to what a surgical extraction would do. That probably depends a lot on the shape of the arrow and the location and extent of the wound. In any event, the prevailing thought seems to be to always leave it IN (arrow, spear, knife or other puncture-type weapon) until you reach the hospital because it could be keeping the wound closed like a cork.
However, if anyone's seriously taking medical advice on arrow wounds from CHA then they're in trouble! I'll be more careful in my humorous asides in the future and suggest that for treatment of arrow wounds, those interested should see:
formatting link
I'll summarize, for educational purposes but mostly just to prevent visions of CHA'ers brusquely yanking arrows out of the torsos of hapless arrow wound victims from haunting me for the rest of my life. Pay particular attention to point 5, which closely mirrors your own (correct) advice:
1) Transport an injured arrow wound victim to professional medical care as quickly as possible.
2) Pressure, applied firmly and directly, is the best control of serious bleeding anywhere on the body. Pressure closes blood vessels and forms a barrier, allowing blood to clot around the wound.
3) Use a thick, soft, clean pad to apply firm pressure directly on the bleeding wound. Covering the wound and applying pressure is most important, even if you have to use your hand. Try to avoid contaminating the wound with dirt, grass, or other foreign matter.
4) A deep wound in the chest or abdomen calls for quick action, especially if an artery or vein has been cut by a razor-sharp broadhead. If possible, apply a pressure bandage to the damaged vessel or wound.
5) If the arrow remains in the victim, leave it there. The broadhead itself may provide the pressure to stop the bleeding from the wound and allow clotting to occur around it. Try to stabilize the arrow with adhesive tape or other material. Minimize movement of the shaft to avoid further injury from the broadhead.
6) Give medical professionals a duplicate of the arrow imbedded in the victim so that they see the size and shape to avoid injuring themselves as they treat the victim. A duplicate arrow also helps them determine if they have retrieved all of the broadhead from the victim?s body.
I'd probably clip the extending arrow shaft from the wound a few inches from the skin, if I had a helper to hold it very still and some boltcutters nearby, just so that it would be less likely to "stir" inside the body. I'll bet you could do some pretty seriously savage laproscopic-like surgery twisting a razor-sharp broadhead arrow point around in someone's gut. Sounds like an idea for a horror movie. Hey, if "Saw" can sell, why not "Arrow?"
The X10 stuff is cheap but even with the XTB in place it's not a whole house solution for me. While I have some real Insteon issues, I do have to say that the signal gets through "where no X10 signal has gone before!"
The primary benefit is signal reliability. I've been working with X10 stuff for 22 years and know the tricks and tips to signal reliability but there are areas in my house that are just not supportable with X10 - even with an XTB and/or repeaters and filters - and, of course, even when it does work it may change. Insteon signals are reliable and reach every square inch of my house. I think that after I replace the 2414X with the RoZetta my experience will be much better.
Sure, but it's an inconvenience rather than a dollar cost. I'm not going to pass up doing something better to do the job but instead do it when I'd normally be doing nothing more than staring at the the tube. It's not like a plumbing leak that has to be fixed right this minute.
I think that, like most limited warranties, the remedy is to return the unit for repair or replacement with no manufacturer liability for installation, removal or shipping. That will hold up in most states - even California.
I doubt anybody's going to sue. The damages are just not great enough to warrant the costs and effort and Smarthome is doing everything they've promised in their warranty.
Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.