x10

Insteon, Apple style

Submitted by Steve on Wed, 01/20/2010 - 3:07am
Since moving to this house, I had gone from running one 24/7 computer server to three -- actually four if you consider a hibernating laptop. The web site you're looking at right now ran on one of them -- a FreeBSD Unix server. A Windows box ran my home automation set up. The other computer, running Ubuntu Linux, was mostly work related.

Thing is, the juice needed to run these servers and the related hardware was killing me, including the air conditioning needed to counteract the heat they produced in my small office. The three computers together drew about 700 watt/hours. Add a monitor, KVM, DSL modem, router, hub and backup and I was burning about 900 watts/hour x 24 hours x 365 days. At Con Ed's prevailing rates, it costs $1400/year just to run those three computers. That doesn't include the laptop or the A/C.

Last spring I decided that I had to simplify my hardware and by summer I had a plan: I would move everything to one computer. The problem was, the only computer capable of something like this is the one computer I didn't own: an Apple Macintosh. A Mac Pro seemed like the ideal candidate. Using software from VMware, I would be able to run my Linux and Windows software concurrent with the Mac's OSX operating system. All would share the Mac's beautiful 24" cinema display.

Could it really be that simple? Actually, yes it was. I took delivery of my 8 core, 16GB Mac Pro on the morning of Dec 8. By that evening I had Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP happily humming as virtual machines under OSX. XP even ran noticeably faster than it did on my Pentium 4 machine. I was happy.

But the devil's always in the details, and one of these demons was that the Insteon controller for my existing Windows-based home automation software required a DB9 serial jack. Macs don't have DB9 jacks. In fact, Macs don't even have serial ports, just USB and Firewire. While there are USB serial port emulators, there was a larger show-stopper preventing me from moving my existing Windows-based home automation software to an XP virtual machine on the Mac. Under VMware, virtual machines can only access the USB ports when they are the foreground application, or when it has "focus". That would defeat the purpose of running Insteon on a virtual machine because unless XP was the foreground application when an Insteon event fired, the message would never get sent.

If you're a regular reader of this irregular blog, you know that most of my home's lighting is controlled by computers, not by mechanical switches. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read the background here. The bottom line is that I love home automation, I have a small fortune invested in it and, one way or another, it needs a central controller. And it appeared that I would have port everything over to the Mac. Short story: ka-ching!

The Insteon software I used on Windows is called HouseLinc. For Macs, the Indigo software seemed to be the way to go. As luck would have it, I already had a USB-based Insteon controller laying around from another project which would save me about eighty bucks. But as MY luck would have it, it was DOA. After spending an evening trying to get it working, I remembered. It was a victim when one of my Con Ed feeder cables shorted out in the street a couple of years ago.

I ordered a new 2414U Powerlinc controller from Smarthome.com. It arrived a week later. As soon as I opened the cover on the cardboard box I knew I was hosed. The device was in pieces -- not as in "broken during shipping" but "some bonehead didn't finish putting it together". What was just as disturbing was that Smarthome didn't sound one bit surprised by my complaint.

Note to the Insteon people: if you don't want Insteon to suffer the same Death By Obscurity as X10, you had better start producing better quality hardware. Only die-hard fan boys will overlook shoddy merchandise. I had to replace my first broken Insteon device two weeks ago: a relay wall switch. It was only three years old and cost $70. That's not acceptable.

Another week passed and I finally received a functioning 2414U. The migration was uneventful and everything worked fine. It was with a bit of sadness that I turned off my Dell Pentium 4 Windows machine, probably for the last time.



    Insteon, A Year Later.

    Submitted by Steve on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 1:01am
    Last year, I was struggling with upgrading my home automation hardware from fickle X10 to the latest/greatest, Insteon. While cleaning up the blog today I ran across a comment I'd made promising to write about my experience with Insteon after a year of living with it. That was like 18 months ago so I'm a bit late.

    The summary? It's been flawless. About the best thing I can say about a technology is that it works so well you forget that it's technology. You turn on a conventional light switch; you expect it to work. It's been pretty much the same with Insteon.

    The problems I had with Insteon initially reduced to two things: a very noisy powerline LAN for my Slingbox and I didn't have enough Insteon devices in my network to provide a reliable communications cloud. After retiring the problematic Slingbox (the Worst Customer Support Ever) and adding more Insteon switches, my problems disappeared.


    Robot, robot

    Submitted by Steve on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 1:31pm
    There was a song by a Chicago band called The Flock that I used to love during my trippy teen days: 
    Robot, robot arms and legs
Teeth, bones, hair, its all there
Robot, robot arms and legs
Battery's dead, head's dead.
(Mechanical man, mechanical man!)
    Whenever I muck with my home automation hardware this song plays over and over again in my head. It's pretty maddening.

    Sitting on my dining room table since last Thanksgiving was a small pile of boxes containing Insteon controllers, in-wall dimmers, relays and the like that have been waiting patiently for me to complete the master bedroom renovation. I was intending to do client work over the Fourth but after sixteen consecutive days of building database stored procedures I needed a break! So I assembled my tools and got busy making that pile smaller.

    Anyone who has read the X10 primer I posted here knows that I'm a nut for home automation gear. And anyone who has read my blog knows that I've been very faithful with renovating and reproducing the original assets in this old house. But you can keep your Chicago Electric rotary and push button switches and your old pull chain fixtures. I want my electrical system state-of-the-art!


    Insteon Rides Again

    Submitted by Steve on Sun, 12/10/2006 - 1:10pm
    I thought I'd post an update on my trials and tribulations with the Insteon home automation network here. A couple of months ago I posted an X10 and Insteon home automation primer. At that point I was just getting into upgrading my problematic X10 stuff here with the newer, wireless Insteon hardware from SmartHome and didn't know how well this stuff would work or what problems I'd find. However I was fed up with X10's flakiness and Insteon looked like an improvement, at least on paper.

    I ran into problems with Insteon from the git-go, mostly devices that either didn't work or worked only part-time. I was ready to go back to the toggle switch world. But I decided to forge ahead with the upgrade anyway. I'm glad I did because things magically started working.


    When Robots Attack

    Submitted by Steve on Sat, 10/21/2006 - 11:00am
    Being the gadget freak I am, I'm of course a big fan of home automation. 90% of my house is under X10 control and the command of a FreeBSD server running some perl scripts I hacked together. I've already written some articles about X10 and my trials and tribs with it so I won't repeat them here.

    I love having my house turn its own lights on/off. I like setting up whole-house lighting schemes, available at the touch of a button. But truthfully, X10 is a lot like owning a 1970s-vintage Triumph motorcycle. You run it for a while, then you spend a whole lot of time fixing it. X10 devices will work fine for years only to suddenly stop responding to commands. After hours of sleuthing you find that it's because the battery charger for your new camera is generating a noise storm on your household wiring.


    Labor Day Snoozer

    Submitted by Steve on Mon, 09/04/2006 - 1:11am
    This was the first Labor Day weekend since I got this place that I wasn't knee deep in some h/i project. Last year I was in the middle of the guest room renovation. Now, I'm waiting for lumber estimates so I can start on the master bedroom rehab. I took the opportunity to hack on my Drupal software here and to play with the Categories and Views modules on a private Drupal instance. Nice software but, man, does it need a coherent manual.

    We got some of Ernesto on Friday/Saturday. The wind down here on NY Harbor was pretty fierce so there was clean up to do, which is about as clumsy a segue as I can make to my house topic o' the day: compressors.

    I've got a 20-gallon compressor. It's one of my favorite tools in the shop -- not just for what it typically does but for some of the oddball uses you can put it to, like drying off a washed car and blowing out the shop after a sanding marathon. It can even take out a mosquito at six feet. Today it was my broom.


    Electrical Gremlins

    Submitted by Steve on Sun, 09/03/2006 - 2:09am
    Just when I think I've got this electrical stuff all figured out, something tosses me in the weeds. This morning I noticed that the clock on my four-year old Frigidaire stove wasn't working. Neither were the buttons. Great, the computer's shot. Of course, it's got an electronic starter that depends on the computer so the oven's not working either.

    Well, I guess it's about time. The Frigidaire microwave I bought at the same time had to be replaced last fall. Nice quality control, guys. I remember when companies like Frigidaire and Maytag had good reputations for durability.

    But that wasn't the end of it.

    Those of you who have followed my X10 home automation articles know that I have a love/hate thing going for these devices. Or rather, like Frigidaire, I'm annoyed by the sub-standard quality of X10 hardware in general.


    Building a whole-house X10 controller

    Submitted by Steve on Fri, 08/25/2006 - 11:10am
    X10 transmitters and tabletop controllers are nice but to really explore the potential of X10 you need a central controller. If you've scanned the X10 ecommerce sites you've probably seen a few, along with their frightening price tags. Most of them are basically just PCs running a closed-source application. You've already got a PC so why invest in another one?


    Insteon - The Next Generation

    Submitted by Steve on Thu, 08/24/2006 - 8:34pm
    There have been times when I've been so fed up with an annoying X10 glitch that I've wanted to chuck it all and move back to the toggle switch world. But I'm so used to the convenience of X10 that this Luddite rebelliousness lasts about three seconds.

    In the past few years new technologies challenging X10's low cost and DIY-ability have become available. With the exception of dark horses like UPB, HomePlug, CeBus and a couple of others, and of course the hyper-expensive dedicated control line stuff, most newer home automation devices have abandoned problematic powerline protocols and adopted short-range wireless. The latter group includes Insteon, ZigBee, Z-Wave and Bluetooth. Wireless has become so reliable, pervasive and the hardware has gotten small enough that wireless is a natural for home automation.


    Now the Bad and the Ugly

    Submitted by Steve on Thu, 08/24/2006 - 3:46pm
    So if X10 is the coolest thing since the pop top beercan, why isn't it more popular? If X10 devices have been on retail shelves since 1978, why doesn't your house have them?

    For one thing, X10 has always lived in the hobbyist's domain. The devices were first marketed through Radio Shack stores and are pretty much only available through mail order. Even today I talk to professional electricians who've never heard of X10.

    Secondly, when a client asks an architect for a home automation system for his new seven-figure McMansion, he's going to get a five-figure home automation system, complete with dedicated control lines, a basement master panel/punchboard and probably lots of disappointment when he needs to replace a proprietary switch twenty years from now.


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