X10 vs Insteon or alternatives

[bebster]

Does anyone have any experience with the Insteon "smarthome" technology? Seems like an improvement over X10 which I tried but found not to reliable.

I'm building a new house and wanted to be able to control the electrical lighting and other components using something like this. Thanks.

 

[MossRoad]

Nope. I've just started reading about it. I use a lot of X10 stuff and find it to work fine, for the price. We use X10 in three bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, some outdoor lighting, the swimming pool pump, the holiday lights, some video cameras and a few other things. I also have their programmable learning remote that runs the TVs, VCRs, DSS, DVD players, suround sound and controls the lights in the house. Talk about lazy, if I bring a beverage and snacks I can plop my butt down on the couch, start a movie, turn off all the lights in the house and bring up some mood lighting! If the little kid needs to go to the bathroom, I can pause everything and light her way to the powder room and turn off all the lights she forgets to on the way back without getting up. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif This stuff is fun. My kids have fish. In the morning, their aquarium lights come on at 30% about 10 minutes before they get up. 5 minutes later they go to 75% and in 5 more they come all the way on. They also dim down at bed time if they are on and go off an hour later. Kitchen lights are on 30% when my wife gets up. Holiday lights go on at dusk and off at 11:00pm. Dawn to dusk is adjusted automatically every two weeks to fit the seasons. Photo sensors take care of cloudy days if it stays dark longer or gets dark earlier. There's no end to the stuff you can do economically with X10. We also have an X10 remote extender that allows us to control the DSS, VCR or DVD in the living room from our bedroom or the workout/laundry room in the basement, so we can watch any of those devices on channel 3 or 4 from any TV in the house that is connected to the in-house video distribution system. Heck, it even works out in the garage 60' from the house.

However, with all that said, it is simply not elegant, like a fine home should have. I haven't invested in the more expensive rocker type switches or any of the scene programable stuff, yet. Maybe that would make it more elegant. There are much more impressive alternatives to X10 out there, but the cost is, in my opinion, not acceptable to the common person. If you have the money you can get some really cool items... but who wants to pay $500-$1000 for a TV remote control anyway when you can get an X10 remote that will do essentially the same thing for $39.00. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

The only problems that I encounter with X10 is on poorly grounded two wire installs. For instance, my daughter has a small tape player with an AC wall wort. When she plugs it into the same circuit as the main X10 controller in our house, the remotes have harder time seeing it. Also, I have a computer plugged into a power strip that is on the same outlet as an X10 lamp module. If the power strip is on, the lamp module can't recieve signals from the controller. If the power strip is off, it works fine. I changed it to a 3wire extension cord and it works fine.

One more example is we have a brass floor lamp plugged into an x10 lamp module. If the kittens are playing rough and get all static charged and their fur is sticking up and they run near the lamp base, we hear a static discharge, the kittens jump into the air cause they just got zapped and the lamp comes on. Then they look around like, "What the heck!??" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif It took us a week or two to figure out why the lamp was on every morning until we witnessed it one evening.

My suggestions for a more reliable X10 installation would be to:

A. Ground everything.
B. Get one of the devices that bridges the two legs of the AC wiring together.
C. Get individual signal recievers for each room of the house and program them different A,B,C codes to eliminate accidental ON/OFF from other rooms.
D. Get a PC and install the software to create macros and timing schedules for the controllers. This is the most important and versatile part of the system. Without it, the system is clunky and requires manual operation. With it, the system can be programmed and downloaded to the controller. Then the PC can be turned off and the system will be a pleasure to operate.

Hope this helps and I hope someone else has some experience with the Insteon products. I'd like to see if they work as advertised. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Michael_E_Tx]

I haven't tried Insteon, but I did have a lot of X10 in our last place. I would just like to comment on a couple of aspects of reliability.

The first is that X10 or any other variation will work best with a quality device to bridge the two phases. This is extremely important. The second is that to really arrive at a functional system, a person may have to do a fair amount of trial and error troubleshooting. For instance, I found two primary offenders. One was an electric tooth brush that you set in the charger after use. It was the type with no external contacts. The second involved those little flourescent light bulbs that screw in to replace incandescent light bulbs. My wife had started using several, and anytime one of them was on, X10 controls would not work.

We had maybe twenty X10 modules in use. I agree with MossRoad that the computer interface makes the whole thing practical and workable. Of all the different modules we have, only one failed.

Good luck which ever way you go. I would guess no matter which system you decide on, the "problems and issues" will be very similar.

 

[Volfandt]

I've run X10 in my house and shop to automatically turn various lights on & off and also use it to control the Christmas lites for the last 5 yrs.
I haven't tried the Insteon and probably won't as the X10 devices do what I need reliably.

I use the old CM11A to do the automation. I've got it serially connected to my PC and use the included Active Home software to program and monitor it. The PC doesn't have to be connected for the CM11A to operate once the program is downloaded but I like to pull it up every now and then.

I use the basic lamp modules and appliance modules and have 2 std X10 push button light switches. Once the price comes down I'll try those new toggle link switches whch work more like a traditional light switch.

At 1st I put a .1uf cap across a 220 breaker to bridge the phases but now I've got a passive dryer bridge to bridge the two AC phases which works much better. I tried an amplified signal bridge thinking that it would cure a problem getting a light to work in a far bedroom and it did but it caused my otherwise reliable system to become very intermittent so when I changed over to the SmartHome passive bridge my system stabilized and the troublesome bedroom worked also. They say that the amplified signal bridge is for homes over 3k feet and I concer. It's not needed for smaller installations, a passive works in this case.

I also had to install a couple device filters to make the system reliable. 1 on my rear projection TV and the other on a bedroom TV. Generally TV's, PC monitors and AC surge strips are the biggest offenders. They put beau coup noise on the AC lines.

I switch 10 different lights everyday, some at different times and an additional 7 more at Christmas time.
I have 3 remotes to control the lights manually if the need arrises. I also have an X10 universal remote that I use to control the computer romm TV as well as the X10 devices.
I've found the lamp modules to be more reliable than the appliance modules.
With the exception of the passive bridge, I purchased all the devices off of ebay at a considerable savings. Most were new but some were used.

Good luck
Volfandt

 

[PineRidge]

Have used the X-10 products for years with good success. When I make a move I simply take all the hardware with me and then reinstall it. Some of my switch modules are better than 10 years old and still working. It's pretty neat to be able to control outside lights as well as lighting in the pole barn from within the house.

 

[mudcat]

Now we see whose got the $$$$$$$$$!!!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[sandman2234]

Mudcat,
Could be "who had the money" might also apply to owners of such toys.
A little too technical for me, I just use the switches on the wall.
David from jax

 

[5030tinkerer]

Maybe I just don't get it, but I have not gotten any sort of reliable video from my X10 cams - fuzzy or just totally missing video, even in the same room. This across multiple X10 devices. Perhaps something in my home is interfering, though - I've never tried the stuff in another house.

 

[lhfarm]

Wow, this is about the last topic I expected to see here /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif. You can find lots of discussion and information about X-10 and all the new hardware on the Homeseer board . Here is one discussion .

Since we can only get to the farm on the weekends, I've used home automation as my "farm hand" for years. I can control everything (power, HVAC, water (pump and heater), security (driveway alters, etc.) and more. If we aren't here, I get a morning email "log" of the past 24 hours' activity. I also get emailed when the driveway alert trips, along with pictures from the security cameras.

Right after my tractor, home automation is my favorite "tool".

 

[sendero]

I don't know anything about Insteon, but I had an X10 system run from my computer for a couple years.

Now at the time ( a few years ago) X10 had a relatively new device that basically went under a light bulb (screw into the socket, screw bulb into it). I had 5 of them, 3 died within a year.

Overall, I would not trust X10 to anything that is really important to actually work. I spent way too much time figuring out why this or that applicance was on or off when it wasnt' supposed to be.

Basically put, you get what you pay for, and if cheap is more important than reliable, X10 would be fine.