Insteon automation

tenacious_snail  asked me to further explain Insteon.  I figured it was better as a standalone post.  Sorry for the length.

For years I have used an X10 home automation system for lighting and appliance automation.  X10 is a system that sends digital signals through your home's 110V wiring to control modules that are plugged into outlets around your house.

A few years ago, a place called SmartHome started offering a system called Insteon.  It is a powerline based system similar to X10, with a similar level of industry support.  Most Insteon modules are backwards compatible with the X10 signal protocol.

In my own experience, Insteon has been much more reliable than my old X10 system.
- Insteon was designed with a wireless protocol from the beginning, rather than the add-on nature of wireless in X10.
- All Insteon devices act as signal repeaters.  This mostly eliminates signal strength issues.
- Most Insteon modules support two way communication with confirmation of signal receipt and automatic retries.
- Insteon has a wireless bridge to bridge the power phases in your house.

I use Insteon mostly to control lights around my house.  It acts as a centrally controlled timer for many lights.  Recently they have introduced wireless motion detectors.  I use these to control my driveway lights, as well as lights inside my house where they frequently got left on unnecessarily.  I also use the system to turn on my side yard lights when I turn on my backyard lights even though they are on separate switches.

With a bit of creativity you can do all kinds of things with the system, limited mostly by the controller and software that you choose.  I run mine off an always on micro PC, with a PC interface module, and a fairly basic piece of software.  You can also get dedicated controllers, web interfaces, iPhone interfaces, etc.  BTW:  You can sink alot of money into this stuff!  You can also use it as part of your security system, your HVAC system, to turn on your hot tub while driving home, etc!

Power line based systems are about the only viable option for home automation in an existing home.  If you are building a new home, or completely rewiring one, there are other options that are less trouble and more reliable.  These sytems generally involve a central controller, switches that have only low voltage signal wires, and all power wires home run back to the controller.  Since these run off dedicated signal wires, they are pretty bomb proof.  I suspect that programming these systems is not a DIY project.