INSTEON Motion Sensor support?

[MKohanim]

Hello all,

Firstly, let me answer the questions vis-a-vis functionality:

1. INSTEON motion sensors shall be fully supported 1 to 2 weeks after we receive them (Estimated ship date 9/9/2008)
2. The plugin shall support sending commands to groups/scenes including dim, brighten, etc.

I do agree and empathize with the sentiments that paying another $300-$400 is quite disheartening. This said, however - and based on almost 2 years of interacting with hundreds of INSTEON users - I am very much convinced (as upstatemike is) that any significant INSTEON installation without a central link management tool is simply unmanageable. For instance, how would you replace a defective switch with links to 10 other switches? How would you revert back to the last configuration after a party? And, finally, how would you have your INSTEON network communicate with other non-INSTEON devices?

ISY has been designed as a network appliance which manages and exploits 99% of the underlying protocol 100% of the time while not playing as a traffic cop: it actually programs all the INSTEON devices and, as such, all the devices/scenes will continue to work even if ISY is unplugged. Furthermore, unlike other INSTEON management tools, ISY provides a rich network library (Web Services) so that other systems and solutions can easily integrate with ISY and be dynamically and instantly updated with the status of devices to the most minute details of link management events. These are the precise reasons why we truly believe in the HS-ISY solution.

With kind regards,
Michel Kohanim
Universal Devices, Inc.
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[misraels]

Hmmm...and with HomeSeer officially not delivering on Insteon, what about those people that bought homeseer when the package was sold with full insteon support. Sounds like the product was mis-represented.

[Rupp]

Hmmm...and with HomeSeer officially not delivering on Insteon, what about those people that bought homeseer when the package was sold with full insteon support. Sounds like the product was mis-represented.

The PLM and PLC plugins are still available and are free.

[jsandlin]

There dose seem to be a little mis-representation but as been shown over and over again HS has made up their mind and there is nothing that can been done about it.
What I think is interesting is if you look at the join date of the people with the complaints most of us have been using HS from the beginning about 7 or 8 years.
I not a marketing expert but when you start alienating you long time customers that is not a good practice

[eklee]

Michael, perhaps Universal Devices have an upcoming ISY device that does not have built-in timers and program functionalities? If I am pairing ISY with HS2, I will be using HS2's event system, rather than ISY's. So it would seem part of the $329 for ISY would go to waste.

[dem5867]

Michel;
There appears to be serveral models of ISY.. What would I just not wait until you come out with the Supper Dupper ISY999 The one that has all the fuctions of HS and more ??? It should only be a few hundred more...

[jhimmel]

I do agree and empathize with the sentiments that paying another $300-$400 is quite disheartening. This said, however - and based on almost 2 years of interacting with hundreds of INSTEON users - I am very much convinced (as upstatemike is) that any significant INSTEON installation without a central link management tool is simply unmanageable. For instance, how would you replace a defective switch with links to 10 other switches? How would you revert back to the last configuration after a party? And, finally, how would you have your INSTEON network communicate with other non-INSTEON devices?

Of course HS already does all of those things with the current plugin. It replaces switches and rebuilds the links, and HS supports a huge variety of technologies.

The way I see it, the biggest things an ISY/plugin bring to HS-Insteon users is link management, and timely support of new devices. In fact, I would say that it looks like the ONLY way we will get those things.

I did look at external link management tools that could potentially be made to play nice with HS, but those efforts seem to have stalled as well.

I understand the frustration of the HS/Insteon users. It's been a rough road. Now, the plugin has finally reached a stable level and works well for what it does. Unfortunately, the author has pretty much moved on to other things, and HST doesn't have the resources and/or motivation to bring in new talent and keep pace with new Insteon developments.

It seems to me that HS-Insteon users with significant Insteon installations will have two choices. Either cough up another $300-400, or start evaluating alternatives to HS. Of course choosing to dump HS won't be cheap either, and will also involve a significant amount of work for even a moderate HA setup.

Jim H.

[nolesrule]

It seems to me that if you wanted complete direct support in HS for Insteon, then Insteon HS users need to be lobbying Smarthome to provide HS (and other similar companies) with the tools they need to fully support and integrate the product. It's been told to us for years that the guys at HS already asked for that kind of support, but it was not given, so the users should have been the ones to step up and demand that Smarthome support Homeseer (and not the other way around).

I have to assume that they carefully considered what it would cost them to fully support Insteon and realized that it would make the plugin costs too high and they couldn't afford to subsidize the development by absorbing the costs.

As a result, they chose to partner with a company that would provide full support. Yeah, it would require an additional investment in hardware from this other comapny. But since we don't know how much a fully in-house developed fully Insteon plugin would actually cost to produce, complaints about costs of the new solution seem to be uninformed at best.

So HS is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[upstatemike]

Of course HS already does all of those things with the current plugin. It replaces switches and rebuilds the links, and HS supports a huge variety of technologies.

The way I see it, the biggest things an ISY/plugin bring to HS-Insteon users is link management, and timely support of new devices. In fact, I would say that it looks like the ONLY way we will get those things.

I did look at external link management tools that could potentially be made to play nice with HS, but those efforts seem to have stalled as well...


Jim H.

Even if you found an external link management tool that worked OK with HS link management there is no guarantee that this would continue to be the case. You would always be 1 software revision or 1 firmware change from potential disaster when this informal matchup stopped playing nice together. Your link management tool and HA interface really need to be the same thing.

[dem5867]

upstatemike;
There's no guarrenty that the ISY will always play nice with HS.


\

Even if you found an external link management tool that worked OK with HS link management there is no guarantee that this would continue to be the case. You would always be 1 software revision or 1 firmware change from potential disaster when this informal matchup stopped playing nice together. Your link management tool and HA interface really need to be the same thing.

[bpwwer]

Vansluis,

Since I'm writing the ISY plugin, I'll try and answer some of your questions.

- the current beta version of the ISY plugin will expire on September 30th. Will there be another version available after that date?

There will definitely be another version out before that date. I'm new to HomeSeer so I've been learning how it works while writing the plugin. The first few versions are really to provide me with the feedback needed to make it work right and integrate properly. Also, since they're not complete and have known (and unknown problems). I didn't want them out there creating support issues.

Even though the forum title says beta, the versions so far are more alpha, it's not yet ready for production use. When it's ready, it'll be added to the HomeSeer store.

- the ISY plugin description states: "Currently only supports lighting devices. Other types of devices will get a default On/Off control and status". Does that mean dimming as well? How about the "ON command to Group 3" for low battery status?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. I've started with lighting devices because that's what I have a bunch of to experiment and test with. Commands to group/scenes is support also for on/off/dim/bright. I don't have support in there yet for the thermostat commands which are really the only other type of command the ISY supports right now.

Control devices (which is what I believe the motion detectors are) are somewhat supported. It really depends on how the control device is being used. Some of this is still being developed. One thing that's not supported is the ability to see status change or set HomeSeer triggers on group events that are triggered by an external controller. For example, if you press a button on a Controlinc, the devices linked to that will all change state and the HomeSeer plug-in will see those devices change state, but the plug-in won't see that the "group" as a whole was activated.

I have been using and reselling HomeSeer for many years and have been real pleased with it. I have a vested interest in this as I am quite an expert and have invested quite a bit of time with custom scripts etc., so I don't really like to switch.

If you can help test the ISY plug-in that would be a big help. Or just take a look at what been posted about it so far and add comments on what you expect and how you'd like to see it operate. I can use all the expert opinions I can get since I'm just starting out with HomeSeer.

[Pete]

Personally I moved to Insteon because it appeared to be the next step from X-10 (legacy powerline). After a software hiccup and walking into a dark home one night I switched over my lighting control to my HAI Omni Pro II. I still use HS for lighting via X10 and Insteon. I am currently still using my "legacy" Insteon RS232 controller with plugin. It works for me. The ISY device will give me back what I had assumed lost and now a little more redundancy with a fail over to the OmniProII or HS for lighting control. Someone asked me last week how much I had invested in my HA. I said I didn't know. No sense in beating a dead horse over the matter of support at this time. I tend to learn a lot from history (another hobby) but also always look towards the future. (the push/drive)

[jackpod]

From a complete outsiders view, as I don't have any Insteon, and if I understand the concept of linking devices, why would you want to? (link that is) doesn't that take the granularity away from Homeseer control, which is what Homeseer is designed to do (and does best)? If the current plugin allows HS to control the devices, I don't understand why you would want to take that control away from the homeseer application? With events and scripts you can control multiple devices but still maintain the individual control, it sounds like links take away flexibilty rather than add. Espically since Insteon has the 8 button keypadlincs (which I sorely miss since migrating away from X10 (button a turns on a single light, button b triggers an event to turn on 10))

Just curious

[TechHA]

Jackpod,
Linking is what makes Insteon, Instant On! When you link a button on the keypadlink with a lamplinc, the lamplinc turns on instantly ... just like a 'normal' light switch. It then sends the PLM a signal to let HomeSeer know that the light has been turned on.

That's just one of the benefits of the linking process.

[jackpod]

Jackpod,
Linking is what makes Insteon, Instant On! When you link a button on the keypadlink with a lamplinc, the lamplinc turns on instantly ... just like a 'normal' light switch. It then sends the PLM a signal to let HomeSeer know that the light has been turned on.

That's just one of the benefits of the linking process.

Really, I did not know that, being a powerline device, if you turn a switch on that has a corresponding device in HS, HS does not automatically know about it? It takes linking to add a device to HS?

Thanks for the explanation