Blog Archives

Turn off air conditioning when doors are open

Spring is here, which means great weather and open doors or windows. In the past, the routine has been “Open door, close screen door, turn off air conditioning”. But with an Insteon-controlled thermostat and door/window sensors, the third part of

Posted by Matt Chiste
May 26

Track Electricity Usage with the Kill A Watt

The holiday season is upon us, and for many of us that means Christmas lights. For some of us, way too many Christmas lights: A question that comes to mind when seeing some of that extravagance is “how much does

Posted by Matt Chiste
December 14

Programming your Insteon thermostat with the ISY-994i

When we talked about the Insteon-controlled thermostat a while back, I mentioned not to bother with a 7-day programmable unit because you’ll be doing all your programming through the ISY-994i. For those of you that may already have a (non-Insteon)

Posted by Matt Chiste
September 17

Save money and energy by starting with a home energy audit

Months ago I got a somewhat “junk mail”-looking thing from LEAP (Local Energy Alliance Program), a non-profit home energy resource that “works with local government and utilities to help homeowners lower their bills and save money”. They promised a $250

Posted by Matt Chiste
September 14

Insteon-Controlled Thermostat

While I was installing my home command center, I also took the opportunity to replace my existing thermostat with an Insteon Thermostat (well, technically a slightly older-looking model). Wiring these guys up is pretty straight-forward: you simply pop the cover

Posted by Matt Chiste
July 21

Gather useful energy consumption stats with the eMonitor

As you’re building your Insteon-enabled Automated Home, you may start developing an interest in other things related to a Smart Home, such as power consumption. When I got this energy monitoring bug, I did some research and found the eMonitor

Posted by Matt Chiste
July 15

K.I.S.S. – don’t automate what you don’t have to

The K.I.S.S. Principle is pretty straightforward: Keep it simple, stupid. While it may be tempting to completely automate everything in your home, sometimes keeping it simple just makes more sense. For example, we’ve covered the $30 Insteon 8-watt light bulb,

Posted by Matt Chiste
June 18
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