Indigo Domotics

To answer your original question, in my experience, Indigo is rock solid PERIOD.

Insteon suffers from what I consider a legacy communication protocol, so while it works reliable well, I'd peg it at about 95%. In retrospect, the one type of device I've had the most problem with is the one device I can't live with out, and that is the Keypad Link Switches. The ability to customize their function, as well as their appearance is astounding, and there is nothing I've found that even comes close. Almost all of the other Insteon devices I've used were probably closer to 99%. Everything didn't work at some point, but the KPL's were by far the worse, at least in my experience

But Indigo. Dead On Solid. Zero complaints about the software, and the support is nothing less than the best. From Matt and Jay and ALL of the users here, no problem I've presented was un-solvable.

I have run Insteon for over 8 years, some of it with Homeseer and isy and most with Indigo. I have never been able to get Insteon to work reliably in both of my houses. I have sporadic all on all off events, spurious insteon commands and colisions. I have constant random delays especially with scenes. The keypad links are especially problematic, both with how they are implemented and with spurious insteon signals. I'v been able to stabilize it somewhat, getting it to about 95% reliability. This was done by installing numerous filters, removing keypadlinks and replacing switch and motion modules. Just as I though I have everything running a lot better, I got an all on insteon glich that turned most of my lights on, and opened my garage in the middle of the night during -15 freeze outside. Not fun. I could probably live with the delays, but not with spurious commands. I can not have my system open doors, triggering alarms turn on and off my pool pumps, heaters and sauna. Yes, those spurious events now happen once or twice a year, but this is too much for me.

I do believe that its insteon problem not Indigo, as the spurious signals were not even registered by indigo. It is possible that some of the problem is related to the age of the house and noise on the line, but... The end result is that 95% reliability is not enough when the system controls so much. So, I'm now moving to z-wave. I hope that I will be able to have higher reliability. Especially no spurious commands. I can live with unreachable modules once in a while, or signal delays as long as the system knows about it, but not spurious commands.

Just for background, I am an electrical engineer and software developer, so not a neophyte in terms of technology. I have 157 modules of different type, plus alarm integration, hvac, pool, spa controlls, Hikvision NVR with 16 camers, and phone . Everything integrated through Indigo on a dedicated mac mini on separate subnet.

Just my 2cents.

P.S. I do like Indigo, and am planning on using it with z-wave.

To your first point about macs needing rebooting: Last time I had to install an update, I went to the command line and ran

Code: Select all

uptime

131 days without a reboot.

Another 2c from me. See my comments regarding Insteon reliability in larger setups: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21873

For the first few years I had excellent reliability with Insteon, recently it became virtually unusable.
I tried all the well known remedies with no change. This past week or so it has become much better, albeit not
anywhere near it’s initial performance...but usable.

In contrast, for the couple years I’ve been using Zwave I’ve had virtually no issues and am finding it far more
reliable than Insteon. Just my 2¢.

Carl

It seems to be very House/location/user(?) dependent. Through the years I’ve read many horror stories with it. My install has been rock solid with the exception of a KPL failure about 8 years ago (installed outside) and a PLM failure last year from the bad capacitors. Every time I think about switching to Zwave, I think “why?” Buy only because Insteon has hivent me no reason to switch.

I will say that I mostly only use it for lighting. I have 3 or 4 seldom-used motion detectors, a smoke bridge, two thermostats, and one door sensor. All of my other various sensors are hard-wired and/or custom. I currently have around 35-40 Insteon light switches spread around a 3 story 3000ish sf home. No problems with the switches or thermostats not responding or reporting status. The PLM is in the basement, aprox 30 feet from the breaker panel on a dedicated circuit, maybe that helps.

Terry


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Well, I got another "All ON" event. It seems that only the I2 engine modules responded, the I2cs seem to not respond to these. I also disabled my garage module before. I still have four I2 keypadlinks to remove, and overall I have 33 I2 engine switches/dimmers. Thats a pretty expensive change. At ~$75CAD this is almost $2.5k. I'll replace my keypadlinks with regular I2cs dimmers, and then see if this fixes the issue.

Just a note, I got another one again today. I guess they come in bunches. And yes, its only the I2 modules that turned on.

Just got another all off (only I2 modules) and one of my switches stopped sending insteon signals to base. Had to use "define and synch" twice to get it to work again.