With an iPhone, Home Automation Finally Works
Headline: It’s easy to add Remote Control to your home’s lighting with Insteon based products.
Background
I’ve always thought it would be cool to be able to have your home fully remote controlled. At various times I’ve looked into the current solutions but have inevitably found them to be too flakey, clunky or expensive. A trip to CES would usually spark my interest in some new approach, only to be disappointed again at something that’s all hype and of little practical value.
As we were remodeling our place in Half Moon Bay, there were a few lighting problems that begged for some kind of remote control capability. Specifically, the reading lights over our bed would work much better on some kind of wireless switch as opposed to tearing up the wall and installing hard switches.
Traditional lighting vendors had wireless solutions but they seemed pretty clunky and “Last Generation”, and they were also hideously expensive for the limited functionality they provided. Of the few options out there, some used IR (Yikes!) or proprietary RF Protocols and required some remote control pad that looked like an accessory for a ’70′s TV.
In the past I’d looked at X10 hardware, but after talking with a few friends who had dabbled with that technology and had mixed results and reading a bunch about it I’d never been able to get excited. Most people cited reliability problems in complex installations and very slow response times as show-stopper issues. Also, all reports were that setup and programming could be a challenging – I have plenty of technical challenges at work, and don’t really need a debugging headache in my spare time.
One promising option did emerge though: Insteon. This tech promises better reliability and usability than X10, and had a broader range of devices available for it than any of the competing products. It’s also backwards compatible with X10, which for me is interesting but not that important. The big selling point though was the ease of setup and software support for devices that was available.
The thing that made Insteon go from interesting to no-brainer was the existence of good Mac based control software and full iOS support for iPhone, iPad etc. The software seemed straightforward and easy to program, and the remote control software for iOS looked easy to use and effective. This was all great in theory, but I’ve had plenty of promising gadgets turn out to be a huge pain to implement or use.
is the primary source for Insteon products, and they have modules for just about everything.
Basic Setup
Before getting too deeply invested in Insteon, I wanted to do a minimal setup to control the reading lights over the bed. The total cost of hardware was about $255. Here’s what I ordered to start wtih:
PowerLinc Controller – Dual Band
In-LineLinc Dimmer (x2)
Our contractor was in doing lighting at this time, so I asked him to install the hardware. I took a look at the instructions and wiring myself, and I could have easily done the work on my own. He said it took no more time than replacing a switch or installing a new socket.
The initial programming took less than 10 minutes. The instructions for pairing controllers and devices were straightforward and worked flawlessly.At the end of this phase I had reading lamps controlled by the keypad and 2 different “scenes” set up where you could turn on both lights or operate them independently, just as with a hard wired switch set.
The big advantage of this approach is that you have more flexibility where you put switches and controllers because you do not have to do hard wire runs. You can do some fairly fancy programming of different lighting scenes using the controllers and devices by using the keypad based setup.
It would be several months before I got around to adding the iOS controls, and in the mean time we did use the keypad based controls extensively. It worked flawlessly as you would expect a hard switch setup to.
Adding the iOS Devices
Getting the iPhone to control lighting involved setting up a Mac Mini and connecting it to the PowerLinc USB controller. I already had the Mini that’s used as a media server on our Plasma TV, and getting the PowerLinc connected to the Mac and setting up the software was very straightforward.
Indigo4 Pro has a 30 day full functionality evaluation period. This was a key factor in deciding to give the Insteon setup a try. I was pretty sure that the hardware would work as advertised, but I was wary of the quality of the integration. Our entertainment center setup just barely clears the usability bar, and having a lighting solution that requires any amount of thought was not going to work. The evaluation period meant I could assess how well the software and device integration would work without much of an investment.
Indigo4 from Perceptive Automation provides a server that allows an iPhone or iPad to connect to your Insteon network, and provides a usable (if basic) UI on the phone that allows you to control devices and scenes. Getting the software up and running and connected to devices was very easy. Once a device is connected, it can be assigned to a room via drag and drop. Once the client software is installed on the iPhone anything you do on the server just magically appears.
Getting the first reading lamp online was very easy, but for some reason the second lamp couldn’t be seen by the server. A quick check of the Insteon FAQ indicated that signals can have trouble crossing the breaker box due to electrical noise from appliances, etc. There’s an easy solution to this – adding a Dual Mode (Powerline and Wireless) device to each circuit in the house. This nearly guarantees that signaling will propagate to all devices no matter what circuit they are on.
Despite this glitch, I was able to get one of the reading lamps under iPhone control in about 15 minutes. There are very few hardware/software solutions that were this easy to set up, and I was pleased with the instructions and stability of the product.
I was expecting that controlling lights from the iPhone was going to be cool, but I wasn’t prepared for how excellent it really was. The controls are very easy to use and extremely responsive. It has a real WOW factor.
After ordering a dual mode plug in adapter for some floor lamps, the server could see all of the devices and everything worked flawlessly.
A Few Minor Complaints
In the previous section I mentioned the one functional issue; Insteon signals can have problems crossing circuits and phases in your home. This is easily fixed by putting a dual band device on each circuit. I do not see any need to have more than one dual mode device per circuit – they are a little more expensive (about a $10 premium) and I don’t think several would increase the reliability of the signaling.
There does not appear to be a “Discovery Mode” for Insteon, where I can ask the network what devices are currently attached to it. This means that it is important to write down the addresses of each device as you are installing it. I did not do this with the LineLinc dimmers so I had to go back and open up the access panel to read them. It would be nice to be able to query the network for all devices and have some automatic way of self identifying them – such as a lamp flash.
When you are setting up devices in Indigo4 it takes a suspiciously long time (90 seconds) to “Link” the device to the Indigo4 Database. This just adds time to the setup, and it seems a little absurd given the USB interconnect and the fast machine its running on.
I have read that the network debugging software for Insteon is not good. I haven’t had any issues, so it hasn’t been a problem for me, but I could see how a complex setup could be hard to manage without better tools. The logging from Indigo4 seems pretty robust though.
Adding More Devices
After living with the initial simple setup, I decided to put all of the main lighting on the network. I replaced switches and dimmers with Insteon compatible ones and added a few LampLinc boxes to control floor lamps.
The setup took less than 20 minutes to add an additional 9 devices, and I could immediately use them from the iPhone or control them from a computer.
The next project is going to be to create a bunch of pre-defined scenes for each room. It looks easy, and I’ll add more info once I’ve done it.
