A message from Steve at Smarthome.

Hi my name is Steve, I'm the National Sales & Training Manager for INSTEON at Smarthome. I have been an automation contractor and installer of these products for some time and for the last 2 ½ years I have been training dealer / installers on the INSTEON product line.

I have been following the threads here with interest and I would like to help clear up some information and lend a hand to those who need help. I would like to offer installation advice and troubleshooting tips for those that have had some troubles with their installs. I will not be answering developer protocol questions, but I can provide quick and efficient ways to install and program your INSTEON devices. I travel quite often for the company so I will not be monitoring the board on a regular basis but feel free to email me and I will do what I can to offer any support.

www.insteon.net is also a way to get in contact with me and our developer forum. We also post INSTEON training locations on this site. If you are not a Smarthome dealer and you would like to go to a training then plese contact me direct.

SteveL

Hi Steve and welcome. I am one of the people who is having trouble with upper memory locations in my PLM. (Local operation of devices in those memory locations does not get passed from the PLM to my ISY99i). I heard that a fix for this may have been found... can you confirm that this is in fact the case?

Hi Upstatemike,

There is some evidence of large installs that have hit the max point in the PLM. We do have PLM's with larger memory for those installs that go beyond the 417 links. There is a limitation even in the larger memory PLM after reaching a set number of links but we are always working to make the products better.
I do not have any more information i can give you at this point. We are working with Universal Devices to maximize it's potential.

SteveL

SteveL said:

Hi Upstatemike,

There is some evidence of large installs that have hit the max point in the PLM. We do have PLM's with larger memory for those installs that go beyond the 417 links. There is a limitation even in the larger memory PLM after reaching a set number of links but we are always working to make the products better.
I do not have any more information i can give you at this point. We are working with Universal Devices to maximize it's potential.

SteveL

Click to expand...

what is the number of links in the larger plm?

i should make the question clearer - what is the number of links in the larger plm when problems are encountered?

Is this meant to be the official Smarthome presence on the site? I could be interpreting the intro the wrong way, but it seems to imply the problems we have been discussing are from improper installation or setup. Unfortunately most of the problems I see fall under the "why don't the devices work like they should?" category and not the "how are the devices supposed to work?" category. I will post my questions anyway even though they are mostly protocol related.

1. Which devices/firmware versions can repeat extended commands? Are you currently shipping any devices that cannot repeat extended commands and if so why?
2. Are there any known bugs in current/recently shipped firmwares?
3. What solutions are available for people with legacy devices who wish to have a network that fully supports extended commands (besides adding more access points)?
4. Are there incompatibilities between i1/i2 devices or is i2 fully backwards compatible?
5. When the warranty was extended for devices with the "paddle issue" was it a manufacturer's warranty extension? If so then are all devices sold through dealers covered and if not can you really in good conscience leave those people out?

Sloop,

The larger memory works out to be 2,000 link, though we have see installs that fall short of that number.

az1324,

As I stated before, this is not a forum where I will be discussing developer level questions. I will be more than happy to take a phone call or take an email from you if you would like to discuss this further. I am not posting here as the official spokesperson for Smarthome, but rather an employee who has installed hundreds if not thousands of INSTEON devices with great success. I just programmed well over 100 devices with a dealer in Bell-Air, CA that were all new switches without a problem. I am hoping to gain some insite as to the problems that have been reported here. You may have a better handel on what other people are experiencing so I am hoping to gain information as well.

This is the link to the forum where developers would go to discussion these questions. http://www.insteon.net/developers-about.html.

I can be reached through www.insteon.net


Question 5. The extended warrantee is the same for dealers and non-dealers. If you have a switch with this problem it is covered.

SteveL

Steve,

That's good to hear about the warranty issue because there have been mixed reports on that.

I have to disagree that those questions are developer questions because I think every Insteon owner deserves to know if their network supports extended commands since it is a basic function and clearly described in the public whitepaper which implies it is supported by all devices. The same is true about public disclosure of firmware bugs which can cause troubleshooting nightmares that could be avoided if a public bug list was published. Every customer should know if their device is not performing 100% to spec and the manufacturer has the obligation to inform them. Furthermore, merely saying that a network is capable of being setup and configured so that there are no readily apparent problems does not give me enough piece of mind to be a happy customer or recommend the products to others.

I do thank you for your time in providing support and answers to the forum.

So SteveL, I have switched from insteon due to past problems, so you do not need to answer me if you do not want to, but please Correct me if I am wrong. You are directing people to the developers forum. You need to be a developer/ purchaser of a SDK to join this forum or are you offering to register non-developers with problems to ask questions there that will not be answered here?

Sorry for the delay, but I have been on a plane all day

We do have a presence on the developer’s forum from time to time. I was not suggesting that people go there for general problems they may be having. I would like to try to help if I can. Some points that may be of use.

The terms i1 and i2 has been used and there was a question of whether they will repeat messages to each other, the answer is yes.

One thing we have found in some installations is that the addition of more access points will greatly increase the messaging in some installations that are having problems.

In my house I had to actually put in 5 access points because I found a branch circuit that has a poor connection somewhere and even though I am an electrician I still haven’t gotten around to tracking it down. I have one access point on the PLM that my ISY is in, one in my guest house, one on a circuit for some outside lighting and two for the two phases in the house. With this setup I have not experienced any issues.

I can imagine that some installs with very few devices could benefit from the addition of access points. On the other hand I have done jobs with well in excess of 100 switches and everything worked fine without access points. That being said you should always use at least two access points.

And one more follow up to the switch warranty it was extended to a seven year warranty from date of purchase.
One question that has been asked was about returning switches to Smarthome that were purchased from a third party reseller that does not get processed directly through Smarthome. It is always a good idea to check with the reseller to see if they will process the return since they are the one with the order number. If a reseller does not want to take the return we would like to know about it. You still need to fall with in the time limits, 30 days for refund or credit. One year on most products that are found to be defective and two years on INSTEON devices unless they fall into the products with a 7 year warranty for switches that are found to be defective(paddle problem).

Hope this helps,

SteveL

Mustangcoupe,

In answer to your question. You can call me or email me direct and i will try to help with any questions of that nature.

SteveL

digger,

It would be helpful to know what application using extended messages you are referring to. Is there an application that you have tried using V.35 switches that isn't working?

SteveL

Digger,

Extended messages are for data base management for the most part. They can be uses to send other information but the main purpose is for data base management. In i1 devices we do not use extended messages but rather peek and poke as it is called. i2 was designed to make better use of this data base management. Once devices are programmed the standard messages are repeated by either version. It is not a fair statement to say that you need more access points to make the newer switches work.
There are plenty of installs with new switches that work just fine with 2 access points. Access points do help as another device that is repeating i2 signal. Access points are cheaper than a standard switch so if the goal is just to put more nodes on the line they are a more cost effective way to go. Some homes can benefit from more access points based on noisy areas of the house and loose electrical connections. Once your switches are programmed the communication between them is a standard message and thus repeated by all devices.

Hope this helps,

SteveL

There would not be any difference if i was using the ISY to program 3 switches in a house that only had three switches.
The same logic would say that you could not program a house with just one switch that is i1. That is not the case, most houses work fine whether you have 2 or 20 devices. In the cases where there is a signal issue there are tools to help those installations like access points. The only issue here is a small amount of time that will be shaved off the programming when using i2.

SteveL

You got it. And it is always a best practice to put an access point at the PLM also. That has been part of my standard install process from day one, it just made sense.