I didn’t have many nice things to say about the terrible Insteon hub, but let’s go the other way and gush about how great the ISY994i
Before we jump into it, let’s talk about the difference between Alexa Skills
Connected Home devices are a bit more of a special tier where you don’t have to actually use an “invocation name”; you just say something like “Alexa, turn on the kitchen light.” Vendors like Phillips Hue
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Reader Matt Chroust was right in his guest-post I called Insteon HomeKit – Not Quite Ready For Prime Time – I was just wrong on giving it that title. The Insteon Hub Pro HomeKit-Enabled 2243-222
I got a little further than Matt did in his setup, but the process is brutal, the Insteon+ app barely works, and the interface sucks. Read on for a short list of why I gave up on this piece of junk, or just save yourself the trouble and pick up a much better third-party Insteon Hub – the ISY-994i – and the MobiLinc app to interface with it.
Oh Insteon Hub Pro, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
No attention to detail in the documentation
I get it that Insteon is being “eco-friendly” in reducing their packaging and documentation, but even their one-sheet “quick-start guide” shows pretty poor attention to detail, like randomly jumbling steps together that you’re supposed to follow in an up-down order. Sure, not a big thing or hard to follow along, but it’s just a sign of how bad things are to come.
“Searching” for devices? Nope.
After adding the hub (strangely, using the “Add Devices” menu instead of a dedicated “Add Hub” option), you try to add devices and get this pretty little screen saying “Searching for Devices”. But it’s not searching, the whole screen is a fake and the app isn’t really doing anything. As you see in the above documentation, you have to add each device individually by entering its address manually, and putting a device in set mode won’t actually allow it to be discovered (did I mention the ISY is so much better? It provides a “linking” mode that allows you to simply hold down the button on a device to add it.). Instead you have to tap the “Add Insteon” button. Why would you not call this “add device”? Who knows; I guess technically it’s an “insteon device”.
BTW, after doing some more research (through the “Help” link on that screen), it looks like you CAN add insteon devices to the hub using the set buttons. Good luck with that in multi-floor homes, though – the steps are basically 1) hold set button on hub, 2) run downstairs and hold set button on device, 3) wait for link, 4) hold button on device, 5) run upstairs and hold button on hub, 6) start app and go through convoluted process to rename the generic device that just got added. Read more ›
It’s been a few months since I’ve written here, and am finally getting back to another set of posts. Thank you, readers, for the support, feedback, and article suggestions – keep them coming!
Stay tuned for another round of home automation articles, including:
Last year, I introduced Intellihome, and a lot of you reached out to take a look at the progress so far. My control panel has been running Intellihome all this time, providing Insteon control features and slide show pictures, but the problem with sharing the app has always been the installation process was quite tedious (involving the installation of several different pieces of software and an always-on computer). Recently I found the time to completely re-architect the solution, and have added a bunch of new features. I’m ready to share the “mostly-working beta” for download here, and you can read more about the new features here.
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When setting up my Insteon can lights with Insteon scenes, I had a revelation that might seem obvious, but is worth mentioning because I know I spent a lot of time pulling my hair out on this one. In a nutshell: because Insteon builds a peer-to-peer mesh network, Insteon scenes are not stored in any single device. Instead, they’re stored in link tables on each device, including the ISY994i (or, more specifically, the PowerLinc Modem
Why does this matter? Well, when I turned on my new scene the first time through the ISY, the dim levels in the lights were all set properly to 50%:
But then, when I used one of the switches in the scene, the lights came on at 100%. This drove me nuts, thinking that the lights weren’t compatible with setting dim levels at scene activation. Then I realized each device keeps it own copy of the scene settings in its link table, containing the addresses and dim level of the other devices in the group. They don’t necessarily all have to be the same. For example, when I expanded the scene and clicked one of the devices under it in the ISY, I could see that the dim level for that scene (set via that device) was 100%:
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We’ve covered quite a few security topics on these pages, both digital and physical. Today’s post falls firmly in the latter camp: it’s easy and inexpensive to install a biometric wall safe
Basically, you simply use a jab saw
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As discussed recently, I relocated my media center for a cleaner look in the living room. But it wasn’t just the living room that benefited from this relocation; I actually have 3 TVs and one projector in the house, and with the previously-run ethernet cable and HDMI extenders, I am now able to send a video signal to each of those locations from a single source in the basement.
What’s even cooler than that is that the “single source” isn’t really a single device like a TiVo
This particular HDMI matrix allows you to connect up to four inputs to four outputs, all independently. So I can watch any of the 4 devices in the basement on any of the screens throughout the house. It’s controlled using a Logitech Harmony Ultimate from each location, which sends an IR signal to the switch to change input/outputs (one remote on the first floor sends signals via RF to the Harmony Hub in the basement, which transmits the IR signals, and one remote on the second floor uses the hub to send the IR signals to the IR repeater on the HDMI extender
So the output of, say, the Tivo goes through an HDMI cable
