New Insteon Hub App looks pretty slick

Starting to get some pretty strong app envy here guys....

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/06/insteon-homekit/

Could not agree more! It seems like the Indigo App has a lot of catching up to do. Mine isn't even full screen on the iPhone 6.

I saw a press release about the homekit integration on the new hub and I'll probably order one to play with. It would be nice if Indigo could use the hub as the Insteon interface rather than a PLM so we could use the Insteon app for the quickie interface but still have the horsepower of Indigo for bigger tasks.

Terry

Wow! you guys are quick.. I was just about to post the same thing.

I just pre-ordered the Insteon hub. For the price ($149), not worth dithering in case they end up with an order backlog, I want to be in the first batch of deliveries.

Here's my question: Can the Insteon hub co-exist on the same network/home as my Indigo? I currently only use Insteon devices (no Z-Wave or anything else), and I like the fact that I can still use hardlinks between my keypads and Insteon devices so they operate semi-autonomously while Indigo sees their activity and tracks their status.

Will the Insteon hub co-exist in roughly the same way? I'm thinking of using the Insteon hub (at least initially) only to provide an interactive user interface for my iPhones and iPads. That is, to replace the awful Indigo Touch with a modern UI for turning devices on and off. I would continue to use Indigo for all the scheduled/automated activities and overall configuration.

Will this work? I don't mind if I have to replicate/duplicate my device definitions inside the Insteon hub (my network is only 20 devices right now). $149 for hardware to enable a modern iOS UI, plus the HomeKit Integration - using Siri voice commands to control Insteon devices is just too cool to pass up and I would NOT be surprised if the Insteon hub ships before the long-promised Indigo new Touch app ever sees the light of day.

Where did you find the link for the pre-order? I looked but only saw their current "new" hub at an introductory price of $39.95 which I went ahead and ordered since it said it was field-upgradeable and the only other choice was their "old" hub that was refurbed for $79.

Terry

Crap nevermind, just found the link - guess I should have waited... Anybody want to buy a new (soon to be old) hub at the introductory price of $39.95???
http://www.smarthome.com/insteon-2243-222-hub-pro.html

I too would love to know if the Insteon Hub can coexist peacefully with Indigo side-by-side. I am not hugely confident that Indigo will be Homekit compatible anytime in the near future. Indigo Touch is, unfortunately, quite a bit long in the tooth and I find it barely acceptable at this point. Kudos to Matt and Jay for implementing it in the first place, but it is in sore need of an upgrade / revamp. The ability to control your HA system with Siri is crucial. No matter how awesome the app is for controlling your HA system, once you have 100s of devices and processes, trying to find the right button is laborious. I'm hoping that the hub will help bridge the gap while Indigo peeps figure out the best way to integrate Homekit.

Anyone have experience with the current Hub and how it integrates with Indigo? Would love to know more.

macguyincali

[jay (support)]

I'm pretty sure you'd have some issues. Indigo creates back links from devices back to the PowerLinc - this is how Indigo knows about device changes, etc., among other things. The Hub, when adding a device, will also create these back links. In theory, this should be fine, and often times it might be OK. However, there are some circumstances where it might effect behavior. For instance, INSTEON Thermostats broadcast out equipment changes (hvac on, etc) to the LAST device that creates back links (or some such). This means that if you added an existing thermostat that Indigo controls to the Hub, the Hub would start receiving those broadcasts rather than Indigo's PowerLinc. There may likely be more of these types of issues as well.

So, bottom line: we don't know exactly how it will work given the nature of INSTEON links. It's likely to have some sporadic and hard to track down side effects.

If Apple's decision to sidestep a software bridge.... (shunning the die hard MAC automation folks to pander to the masses) bothers you too....

Add to my thread at Apple.... or start your own grievance there..... either way.... let the weenies in cupertino know how you feel.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/27523352#27523352

Hey everyone,

Excited to be here, looking to switch to Indigo from my ISY994 as I'm just tired of the lacking features with it like iTunes etc. The Indigo Touch app is also an issue for me, as I have the iPhone 6 Plus. Was shocked to see that not only is it not updated for the new phones, but it still is in the iPhone 4 days where it doesn't even fill the screen once the iPhone 5 came out. That's the only thing holding me off upgrading as makes me a bit nervous that Indigo hasn't updated their app for at least the new resolution of the iPhone 5, considering it came out what 2 years ago?

Was just going to chime in though regarding the Hub as I also own the Insteon Hub from last year. It will be interesting to see if the new one does conditions, as the current one doesn't. So you can have motion turn a light on or off etc, but you can't say "only between 9pm to 5am" type thing, so it's very basic. You can however use it with Indigo but in a limited sense. Indigo would use the PLM to do all of its control, so assuming they don't support the new Hub as an interface, you can still link your devices to the Hub and control it there as lights etc can all be connected to multiple devices or PLMs/Hubs etc. The issue is that all you will get is basic control and status, so turn a light on or off etc. It will reflect the status from Indigo and vice versa though, but the Insteon Hub app won't show your scenes or programs or things like that. So really would be just to control your devices, but it would be no different than using Indigo Touch in terms of controlling the device. So you wouldn't mess things up necessarily. I just don't think there's any huge value in it as Z-Wave devices wouldn't show up there etc.

They're currently working on an updated app, but alas no ETA at the moment. That said as much as I'd LOVE the new app asap, I'd much rather wait a while and they do a good job of it than rush it and have lots of issues (and the developers do seem to be perfectionists..)

Not to be rude lol but the app store shows "Indigo Touch - Last updated December 22 2010". I'm all for taking time to make something good, but 4+ years!? It's kind of funny

Yeah, it has been a long time and it is rather frustrating.. Especially the rather annoying authentication issue that keeps bugging me all the time! I think it's not had much love as a they'd put all their resources towards getting z wave support into indigo.. I guess it makes sense as there's no point having a whizz bang app to control a system lacking in functionality (at least outside of the US anyway) but still HOPEFULLY some details will come soon.. As ive said before the natives are getting restless. (Which on a complete side note there's a film called restless natives that I love.. If you ever had a chance to see it do so!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The thing I don't get though is that the control pages are all just web sites, so the Indigo Touch app seems to be nothing more than a web browser, as you can even pinch to zoom etc. So I find it just as easy to access everything in a browser, but to me it seems like all the app needs is to be updated for retina resolution and it would be perfectly fine.

[jay (support)]

Indigo Touch app seems to be nothing more than a web browser, as you can even pinch to zoom etc.

Nope. Control pages are converted to HTML on the fly by the web server - they're rendered natively in Indigo Touch.