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

Cao Gadgets wireless smart tags

About a year ago, as I was considering various ways to save energy, I thought about installing air duct dampers at various points of my A/C system to control temperature with more precision throughout the house (rather than just the

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 12

Automate home systems while on the road

While at CES earlier this month, I was faced with a challenge when I had housekeepers scheduled to come while I was on the road. Normally if I wasn’t going to be home I’d leave a key in the mailbox,

Posted by Matt Chiste
January 28

Make your Insteon Smart Home smarter with location information

By now you’ve probably got a decent number of Insteon-enabled devices in your home, like switches, thermostats, keypads, motion sensors, door sensors, and leak sensors, to name a few. Your house is getting smarter and smarter every day with your

Posted by Matt Chiste
October 13

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

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

Build a Home Command Center for your Smart Home

Remember those old tape deck-based intercom systems popular in the ’80s and ’90s that allowed you to play music and page different rooms of the house? When I bought my house in 2011 (built in ’89) they still had one

Posted by Matt Chiste
July 18
 Subscribe to HomeAutomationGuru.com
    Add to Google Reader or Homepage

Enter your email address to subscribe: