Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

Posted on
Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:54 am
peszko offline
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Joined: Mar 07, 2012

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

jalves wrote:
I'm running a mixture of Z-wave and Insteon devices. Can't say I find either more or less reliable than the other.


I think the biggest issue with insteon is signal collisions that are not always handled well. This occurs a lot more with many devices (i have around 150 total), and especially if you have sensors triggering multiple devices. In my case, I have places with several sensors triggering several lights and switchlink buttons. My biggest problem was not that devices wouldn't respond (although this is a problem), but that wrong ones would, or in some cases these collisions would generate an all on event (Newest devices now ignore these) , which in my case is catastrophic (slight exaggeration) as my devices include garage doors, pool pumps and heaters and sauna heaters. And on top of that Indigo would be unaware of this, hence not able to counteract

Posted on
Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:00 am
johnpolasek offline
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Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

peszko wrote:
jalves wrote:
I'm running a mixture of Z-wave and Insteon devices. Can't say I find either more or less reliable than the other.


I think the biggest issue with insteon is signal collisions that are not always handled well. This occurs a lot more with many devices (i have around 150 total), and especially if you have sensors triggering multiple devices. In my case, I have places with several sensors triggering several lights and switchlink buttons. My biggest problem was not that devices wouldn't respond (although this is a problem), but that wrong ones would, or in some cases these collisions would generate an all on event (Newest devices now ignore these) , which in my case is catastrophic (slight exaggeration) as my devices include garage doors, pool pumps and heaters and sauna heaters. And on top of that Indigo would be unaware of this, hence not able to counteract


OTOH, Insteon devices get around the currently insurmountable Z-wave problem of accessing devices and lights in a remote metal building. My garage is a separate all metal building only 10 feet from the house, but I cannot get a Z-wave+ signal through that wall even with a relay on the inner wall of the garage and another on the outside plug under the breezeway. So I'm stuck with Insteon lights, switches, motion sensors, and the piBeacon for my garage door open detection and control. Now if someone ever comes up with a Z-wave relay over IP or powerline, it'll be an equine of a variant hue.

Posted on
Fri Feb 22, 2019 3:20 pm
Dual offline
Posts: 255
Joined: Feb 05, 2019

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

johnpolasek wrote:
OTOH, Insteon devices get around the currently insurmountable Z-wave problem of accessing devices and lights in a remote metal building. My garage is a separate all metal building only 10 feet from the house, but I cannot get a Z-wave+ signal through that wall even with a relay on the inner wall of the garage and another on the outside plug under the breezeway.


Have you tried a range extender mounted in the building such that line of sight is through a window of the building? Or even replacing a small portion of a wall with non-metallic material and having the range extender on the other side of that material? I had some Z wave devices with my Iris system that were in metal electrical boxes in the wall of my detached wooden garage. No luck communicating. I replaced the metal boxes with plastic ones and then had success.


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Posted on
Fri Feb 22, 2019 3:38 pm
matt (support) offline
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Location: Texas

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

Lots of good advice here. A few of my thoughts:

• Z-Wave works better in some houses, Insteon better in others. House structure / wall materials that block RF will impact Z-Wave more than Insteon, but overall I give Z-Wave higher marks for signal reliability.
• It appears that when folks have a lot of Insteon modules (100+ maybe?) signal reliability (caused of collisions) can become an issue.
• Likewise, Z-Wave can probably have its own issues with big installs (routing and collisions), but we've heard fewer reports of that – possibly because more of our users are on Insteon?
• The functionality of Insteon modules is consistent across the different models.
• The functionality of Z-Wave module varies a lot between manufacturers. I like the capabilities of the HomeSeer WD200+/WS200+ modules.
• I *really* like the shallow depth of the Insteon modules. If you have a lot of pigtail wiring stuffed into small electrical box then this can make installation much easier.

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Posted on
Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:16 pm
Hap offline
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Location: Huntsville, AL

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

I have about 80 Insteon devices and 5 Z-wave. Mostly because I started with Insteon and grew from there. Insteon has gotten very unreliable for me with a lot of non-responsive switches/lights. I've put filters on about 20 different devices which improved reliability somewhat, but not enough. I don't want to move from Indigo, so will probably investigate swapping out Insteon for Z-wave devices. If I hit a lottery, I'll upgrade to Savant.

Oh, I just noticed Matt's point about Insteon being shallower in switch boxes :cry: I got oversized gang boxes when I built the house, but some places it's still difficult to get the Insteon switches in.

Posted on
Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:41 am
peszko offline
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Joined: Mar 07, 2012

Re: Advice on Recommended Switch Brand

I have started to change from Insteon to Z-wave and so far have positive results. One area that I constantly had problems with is one washroom. I have a door and motion sensor turn on the lights, and then turn them off after a period of inactivity. Very often the light would either not go on, or would come on after several seconds (sometimes Indigo would think the light is on, when in fact it was off). Now that I changed them all to z-wave, the light comes on in less then a second consistently (other then when my mac mini died :-)).

I have changed several more switches and sensors and so far they are working well. I'll continue to slowly change my sensors to z-wave and monitor the situation. After all my sensors are changed, I'll move over to the switches.

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