Insteon 8-watt light bulb

We’ll spend some time on this blog on LED lights and Green Energy, but now that you’ve been introduced to the ISY-994i, set up synching with an ApplianceLinc, selected your Insteon switch types, and installed a new Insteon switch, let’s take a step back and tackle a simpler problem: what if your light doesn’t even have a switch?

Such was the case with an outdoor light I had which used a light sensor to turn on after dark:

The old setup was a simple photo-sensing socket adapter that screwed into the light socket, and the bulb screwed into that. But, to save energy, I went looking for an alternative to this 60-watt bulb running all night long. My requirements were simple: use less energy and don’t run the light when it’s not needed.

The solution for my Insteon-enabled home was simple: the (relatively) new and award-winning INSTEON 8-watt LED Bulb. This bulb has all of the Insteon capabilities built into it (although it’s not dual-band), and uses just 8 watts of energy to produce the light equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent. Even better, thanks to some ISY-994i programming, I was able to configure it to run only from “sunset” to “four hours after sunset”. Those are important concepts we’ll cover with future ISY posts, because as summer comes we all know the sun goes down at different times over the year – so this is not your grandmother’s light timer.

The bulb is a little funny looking because of the heat sink at the base, but it definitely does the job, and comes highly recommended!

Setup is simple: screw in the light and add it to your Insteon network. Later we’ll cover how to program it to turn on when you want it.