Not buying anything else tonight buuuut. When i see a package in wall dimmer and pico can i assume you can unpair the pico from the in wall switch and use it elsewhere?
I like Insteon and it's definitely #2 in the lighting categories. I also think it's time to put the main repeater to use as I've had it sitting in a box for the last 6 months!
That can be an issue with all kinds of dimmers. Did you try these?
I never tried them because for me, the high pitched ringing was more the issue. With incandescents too, so I just moved to almost 100% smart bulbs and LED strip lighting in the kitchen.
The dimmers still come in handy though. I put them in a box, add a cord and plug and set them for Fast ON.
I don't run z-wave for anything except thermostat's and power plugs. The thermostat's are because they were all that was available at the time for baseboard heating. Today there's the Sinope but I also don't have enough zigbee for a good mesh so not replacing for those. Actually thinking of going PLC and relays but not sure or a Lyntec system.
I only use smart bulbs in lamps. I've been looking into some lighting strips and deploying DMX for those.
I think the one big thing I'll miss from Insteon are the FanLinc and KeyPad combo. Works great when it works. When it doesn't or a Fanlinc goes kaput it sucks. Or when your lights are tied to the KPL and Fanlinc and the links somehow got screwed up and now the KPL does nothing.
Insteon is sooooo close to being soooo good but I think SmartHome doesn't care too much... their own products aren't even on the front of their main page!
A technical driver for me is simple. All decent home automation solutions work with RA2. So as I migrate around as I do because I use several systems I won't have to care about changing out switches and verifying functionality of what is supported what isn't supported is there a driver can I change the parameters does this switch support fade up/down etc etc....it just works...always.
They've been in that rut for a long time. But a new app is on the way and a new hub. Things are slowly moving forward again over there. The SmartHome store was, and is just a weird concept in my opinion. Like a business within a business that erodes the other business. I've always thought it was kind of a bad idea, but it was around before Amazon was the main source for these things.
Yes they have and the rut keeps getting deeper....
Yay... a new "app".... ugh...
It's been a great overpriced site for getting stuff just like homecontrols but when they put every other product ahead of their own? They push more Wifi stuff on their own pages than Insteon and then they have in the side panel a tiny little Insteon vs wifi blog entry....what?
Supposedly there's a new PLM coming....yeah... been hearing that for years too.... dual band has been out for how many years now and they still don't actually utilize it except with sensors? How does a dual band device have communication failures???? but they do!!
Those are the ones I bought when doing my house. Yes, the Pico is separate. I can be paired with the dimmer but it also can be paired with the hub . . . it's a standard Pico. Last year I was getting that package for $47 but it's gone up to about $65 at retail so that's not a bad price.
So I received my lutron kit this morning.. had everything working in about 10 minutes not including perusing these awesome forums. very very fast. sigh.. also bought that lot of 5 4-button picos off eBay for $40 usd - thanks for nothing @macdenewf .
One word of caution - during the HE Integrator app the your first device is NEVER #1 which is the hub. The integration report has the hub as the first entry so I mistakenly used that. device showed up as expected but no events would fire. I read that somewhere on this forum and promptly ignored/forgot about it.. of course.
Yes, the Hub should be device #1 and it is a "k" ("keypad") device. That will allow you to address any of the Lutron functions (like scenes) that you have stored on a Lutron (virtual) button. Those are all the (100) buttons you see listed in the beginning of the Integration Report.