I placed my order for the X10 to Insteon Translator along with the Insteon starter kit and some other Insteon products and got confirmation that it shipped today. I was pleasantly surprised by this as the translator was not shown "in stock" yet on Smarthome's web site. I'll report on it after I play with it next week. I plan to install the modules in some trouble spots around the house to give them a good workout. I will be using a JDS Stargate to control them. Stay tuned!
I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this because Insteon seems, for now, to offer a broader line of products at more reasonable prices than the UPB stuff. I played with a UPB starter kit but didn't go far with it since it couldn't be readily controlled by Stargate. In reading the Insteon description it appears that it uses PLC at 131kHz, just 10kHz higher than X10 signals. While that would seem to intimate that it would be just as susceptible to "signal anomalies" I guess that the closed loop operation, RF capability and different signal protocol is supposed to get around that.
P.S. Stargate is now offering a firmware upgrade to support UPB but it requires removal of the telephone/IVR board (thereby downgrading it to a Stargate Lite) to do that. I rely too much on the telephone board to remove it. Of course, there's the recently announced X10 to UPB translator option if the Insteon stuff is a bust.
Happy Holidays to All!