Insteon bulb question

I have a garage with standard overhead light bulbs. These bulbs are connected to (2) 3-way switches that turn them on or off. I would like to be able to turn on/off a fan in the garage whenever the lights are on/off.

While I realize I could do this with a couple Insteon 3-way switches, I was wondering if I could use the Insteon bulb (#2672-222) in one of the fixtures, and it could emit Insteon signals whenever power is applied to it. It would certainly be cheaper.

Does anyone know if the bulb can do all of the following:
1) Remain linked to Indigo through power cycling?
2) Emit an Insteon signal when power is applied?
3) Automatically run in the 100% lighted state when power is applied?

Also, if anyone has any other suggestions to my question, I'd be very happy to hear about them. Thanks for any input.

Regards,
-PC

[jay (support)]

1. Yes.
2. No. INSTEON devices don't do any kind of automatic updating when power is applied.
3. Not sure - some INSTEON devices go back to their previous state when power is applied and some don't (I don't have one of the bulbs here to test with).

I wonder if a motion sensor would work for you - if there's a person in the garage while the lights are on then it would be detecting motion as well.

1. Yes.
2. No. INSTEON devices don't do any kind of automatic updating when power is applied.
3. Not sure - some INSTEON devices go back to their previous state when power is applied and some don't (I don't have one of the bulbs here to test with).

I wonder if a motion sensor would work for you - if there's a person in the garage while the lights are on then it would be detecting motion as well.

Thanks for the info Jay. The motion sensor wouldn't work for me, because sometimes I may not be in the garage at the moment, but I want the lights to remain on. But thanks for the idea!

If I can determine #3, then I might try polling the bulb every minute, and take an action if it's on/off. Do you know if repetitive polling of an Insteon device (1000+ times a day) would impact the service life of the unit (in general)? In my case, that would be the 2413U modem & the bulb.

As always, thank you for any insight!

[jay (support)]

Polling that often might effect network performance since INSTEON isn't great at collision detection.

You could user the motion sensor with a longish delay - like say 30 minutes or something - so if you step out for a while it stays on.