Insteon HomeKit not quite ready for prime time

Last week I got an email from reader Matt Chroust who recently became (or at least tried to) an Insteon HomeKit early adopter. While he didn’t spend much time with the setup, his experience did not sound like a good one. It’s pretty clear that the third-party products ISY-994i and MobiLinc are still the hands-down leaders in the Insteon space. Speaking of, I’m excited to see the new firmware for the ISY and the latest version of MobiLinc with HomeKit support – both of which I’ll be reviewing in these pages in the coming weeks!

So, without further ado, I bring you the following guest-authored review in its entirety (links added are mine for additional reference)…
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Posted by Matt Chiste

September 2

Tagged with: control device, homekit, hub, insteon, isy994i
Posted in Insteon, ISY-994i

Amazon Echo: Alexa Skills Kit is awesome for home control

I’ve been playing around with the Amazon Echo (buy it today to save $50!), and its ability to integrate into my Insteon-based home automation system. I’ve been using the Alexa Skills Kit integrated with my custom software IntelliHome, and it’s amazingly robust! Normally you interact with commands like “Alexa, play music”, but with the Skills Kit you can customize your own “skills”. In my case, the name of my skill is called “The House”, so I say something like “Alexa, ask The House to turn on the lamp”. What’s really cool is that unlike Siri on the iPhone, it’s got “conversational abilities” built in, so you can ask it something general and it will prompt you for more information. For example, you could say “Alexa, ask The House to turn on a light”, and get a prompt back that says “which light?”. This feature alone makes it incredibly powerful for dialog in home control systems.

I’ll be continuing work on Intellihome and the Alexa SDK, but here’s a preview of this awesomeness:

The unit comes with a remote control to allow interaction without speaking, and you can download a companion app on your phone, which is also incredibly useful for, say, seeing which song is playing or getting more information about your home when a command is issued:

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Posted by Matt Chiste

July 15

Tagged with: alexa, amazon echo, control device, insteon, intellihome, voice control
Posted in Insteon, Media

Apple Watch and Insteon

There are lots of ways to control your Insteon home automation system – with an iPad, touch screen, iPhone app, voice control, or even just by your location.

With the impending release of the Apple Watch, chalk up another great home control system interface:

Honestly, I’m more excited about this approach for home automation, even over voice control (imagine noisy parties where you’re trying to change the song on the media player) or fully automated systems (imagine your house trying to decide exactly what you want to do every morning you wake up – on work days, holidays, sick days, etc.).

Having a constant, immediately accessible connection to your home, media system, and security cameras is enormously powerful and it will be amazing to see what you’ll be able to do with it!

The down-side, of course, is that until we see the Apple Watch, Insteon’s new hub, and the integration between the two, we won’t know exactly how well the first-generation devices will make our home automation controls seamlessly integrate into our daily lives. And, I wouldn’t count out the ISY-994i, which to this day still trumps Insteon’s own hub in terms of usability and functionality.

You can read more about the Insteon Hub’s Apple Watch integration at Insteon.com.

Posted by Matt Chiste

April 25

Tagged with: app, apple watch, appmedia, insteon, media
Posted in App, Insteon, ISY-994i, Media

ISY994i not working after updating Chrome?

Google Chrome is arguably a much better web browser than the atrocity known as Internet Explorer (that Microsoft is thankfully euthanizing), but it’s still not without its… challenges. While software that updates itself is nice, I really question Google’s decision to make dramatic changes to the underlying infrastructure without letting the user decide when to update – or at very least letting the user know that the software has updated (imagine if Windows Update couldn’t be turned off easily, or iOS app updates happened without your knowledge!).

My beef today is with the Google Chrome version 42 update that happened two days ago, which blocked Java, and consequently prevents the ISY-994i java console from working in Google Chrome, with a generic “This plug-in is not supported” error message – no clues about why this literally worked hours ago but just now stopped working:

The solution is a magic URL as documented here. In a nutshell, if you are seeing the above error, enter the following URL in Chrome:

chrome://flags/#enable-npapi

Check out the CastleHub on Kickstarter

One of the things I enjoy most about this blog is getting to know you all, the readers of my humble little corner of cyberspace. One person in particular who I’ve been collaborating with is Zachary Trautenberg. Zach has a disability that makes home automation even more important to him, and he’s been working for some time now getting an Insteon system set up so that he can gain more freedom around his home. He writes a blog called Independent & Accessible Living, so you can learn more about his cause there.

One of the things Zach has brought to my attention was the new CastleHUB, even putting me in touch with Christopher Cicchitelli at CastleOS. Chris, too, is a great guy, and has a stated goal of trying to get a CastleHUB in the hands of persons with disabilities via a $999 pledge on the Kickstarter page.

In case you’re not familiar with CastleOS, here’s a video to bring you up to speed; in a future post I hope to do a fuller review of CastleOS:

Posted by Matt Chiste

April 11

Tagged with: CastleHUB, CastleOS
Posted in Other

Modular, low-voltage wall jacks with Keystone connectors

We’ve talked about installing ceiling speakers but didn’t cover much about what’s on “the other side”. You could just stick the wires through a hole in the wall, but that’s not going to offer you the cleanest look. Instead, look into Keystone wall connectors for a clean, modular hookup for any of your wall jack needs.

After installing a standard mounting bracket, you’ll choose a wall plate with 1, 2, 4, or 6 ports. In each of those ports, you can use a variety of jacks, such as ethernet, HDMI, coax, RCA, or speaker wire.
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Posted by Matt Chiste

April 9

Tagged with: keystone, low voltage, media, wiring
Posted in Media

Installing ceiling speakers is easy

Installing speakers in your ceiling isn’t as hard as you may think – especially if you’re installing them in a middle floor with space between levels and no insulation.

1. Select a location for your speakers
There really is a lot that goes into planning a media room for optimal speaker placement; in general you want as many speakers as possible equidistant from the optimal listening position (so you can get decent “surround” sound). In practice, though, room shape and the fact that you’re probably just looking for a full room sound experience means that “good enough” is often good enough. In my case I had a relatively small room with already existing ceiling can lights limiting my options, so the speakers aren’t as centered as they should be. Nonetheless, the speakers are good enough for casual TV watching and music. The choice is yours.

2. Cut the holes for the speakers
Use a stud sensor to make sure you’re installing the speakers BETWEEN the studs, trace the outline from the provided template, and cut out the hole a bit at a time, taking care to ensure nothing is on the other side such as A/C ducts or electric wires.

3. Run the wires
Using a cable pull, thread your in-wall rated speaker cable from the newly cut holes down the wall (see this post for how a ceiling-cut access point can be helpful for this).

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Posted by Matt Chiste

April 6

Tagged with: drywall, install, speakers
Posted in Media