Insteon ISY vs Hubitat Programming

@MyHome The programming possible with ISY is child's play for Hubitat's Rule Machine. You'll be able to do things here you never imagined possible.

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I was using ISY back in my house for more than 15 years. After I relocated in
appartment I am very happy I found Hubitat. For the programming HE is
far more powerful and flexible vs ISY but you have to adjust yourself for the
HE GUI. Also ISY is/was for controlling Insteon devices but HE is ZWave and
Zigbee plus limited LAN devices.

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Haha, Hubitat can do that even when the internet is down, and even then only do it if the temperature is below 80 F in the basement AND there's motion in the driveway, but only IF the water sensor in the bathroom is dry, AND it's a full moon.
You get the idea, Rule machine is crazy powerful and flexible. I don't know of another smarthome automationc tool as sophisticated. Unless you run NodeRed on a separate device and feed HE events into node red

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You can control and automate Insteon with Hubitat too if you use the community integration. I do this in my own home. @MyHome was asking about it in another thread. There is some additional hardware needed, so it's not as straight forward as adding Z-Wave and Zigbee devices usually is.

This is all very positive. Is there access from outside the home? I see an App for my iPhone, which I assume can work on an iPad. I can not login since I don't have a Hubitat.

Do you need to be inside the home environment (either physically or connected to a home computer from outside) to do the programming?

In addition, if I purchase it here in the US, and then take it to Canada for my cottage, is there any problem with the programming? I.e., is there anything special about the ex-US devices vs the US devices?

I need to go back to see how I can integrate my Insteon devices - which is most of my US house. I don't have an Insteon controller. I just have the PLM and ISY.

You can control remotely from the app for free.

There’s no difference between US and Canadian devices.

No, they offer a Remote Admin service for a small fee of $3 per month.

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@MyHome Since you would need an always on computer of some sort to run the Insteon integration, it's not a big leap to also run TeamViewer or a VNC at the site for admin of the Hubitat hub. You can run TeamViewer for personal use, free of charge and get to the hub remotely via a web browser running at the remote site, or you can use a VNC. My preference is TeamViewer because the security is done for you, and then you'll also have remote access to the computer running the Insteon server/client. No need to also setup a VPN connection like you would need to access via a VNC.

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This helps me too. Thanks!

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Thanks. I will probably order one and start working with it. I assume that re-setting the IP address when I take it to my Canadian network is easy?

If the built in apps like Rule Machine can’t do what you want you can also write custom apps in Groovy. Groovy is derivative of JavaScript. Chances are the built in apps will be more than enough.

Do you mean the Hubitat hub or the Insteon hub? With Habitat it’s really simple to set static IP or to just let it use dynamic. If you’re talking about the Insteon hub, I honestly cannot remember if there’s a way to set a static IP on that hub. It’s dynamically assigned by default and I just reserve an IP address in my router for the Insteon hub’s MAC address.

If you do not set a static IP address for the Hubitat hub, then you should also reserve a IP address in your router so that it will always be reachable at the same IP. Does not matter if it’s different from one location to the next, just as long as you know what it is and can reach it.

Thanks!

All considered, although I would like to change my US system to Hubitat, I have too many Insteon devices (~90%), and the current ISY works fine. I will try the Hubitat for my Canada cottage.

I will continue to monitor the postings for any nifty way to port the ISY or PLM directly into the Hubitat.

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Or you can set up a VPN at no charge

As I mentioned before, Home Assistant does work as a means to bridge Insteon to Hubitat for automation. And it will work with your PLM by adding a serial to USB adapter. It’s just not as responsive as the integration that’s been built by the community for Hubitat. Having said that, I don’t have a PLM, I have the Insteon hub. Maybe Home Assistant’s Insteon integration works better with the PLM than it does with the 2245-222 hub. :man_shrugging:

Home Assistant does also have an ISY integration that I completely forgot about until now. No experience with that.

Either of these could be brought into Hubitat using a community built, super easy to install and use app/driver combination named Home Assistant Device Bridge. This is what I use for many other devices that are not currently compatible with Hubitat. Complex automation is definitely much easier on Hubitat, but if you're not looking for anything more complex than what you can currently do with ISY, it's possible Home Assistant might actually be all you need. It's just that when you want to create more complex automation or do something like comparisons to reference sensors, you will need to edit the Home Assistant automations in YAML, which really sucks. Some use Node Red for automation, which bypasses both Hubitat and Home Assistant for that task. But that's a new learning experience that will be much less familiar than what you currently do in ISY.

I like having both multiple hubs. Keeps my options wide open and allows me to use the hardware I want, instead of what's available on the menu. Not a choice everyone wants to make though, and I do understand my willingness to run multiple hubs and bridges is outside of the populous norm.

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I wouldn't put any money on that one.

You shouldn't, because I would clean you out :smiley:

In all seriousness, what I mean is outside the populous norm. Within this forum and similar, it's fairly common, but the majority of normal people (not like me or you) have no clue what a hub or bridge is to begin with, or they just don't like the idea of multiple hubs and bridges because they are concerned they will have to heavily maintain them or keep them in sync. There's some truth to that if you go about it the wrong way. It's taken me years of hard learned lessons to get the point I'm at today where things are rock solid stable, and I can still mess around without destroying some kind of fragile balancing act. :v:

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Games on.
Main home - 
  4 Hubitat hubs
  3 Lutron hubs
  1 Philips hub
  10 Apple Home hubs
  1 Home Assistant
Vacation home - 
  2 Hubitat hubs
  1 Lutron hub
  1 Bond hub
  6 Apple Home hubs
Motorhome
  1 Hubitat hub
  1 Apple Home hub

How big is your house? I mean mine is 5600 sf but I may only have around 50-60 dimmers/switches... (no scene controllers or shades) JFCOAGDPS! :rofl:

In that case I have 11.... (9 minis, 1 full size and an apple tv :stuck_out_tongue: )

Two outbuildings that have separate Hubitat and Lutron hubs.

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