More INSTEON quality control issues!

[Lagerhead]

You are a developer and SH sells your product. Yet they do NOT tell you of changes they make that would affect your product and thus their sales as well. UNREAL.......... can they get any dumber?

Viewed from the outside, these are symptoms of colossal mismanagement.

[Quoting others:] I would guess that if you compare the test plans of Leviton and Smarthome, Leviton would come out on top. They have been making electrical devices for nearly 100 years so they have a formula.

Not necessarily would Leviton come out on top. It is very easy for a 100-year-old enterprise to "forget" what matters in product quality, and it is commonplace for a younger, more agile and *committed* enterprise to understand and implement the elements of business success.

[Quoting others:] You probably saw the same thing at HP where they have been doing the same thing for a long time and there was a plan for every product roll out. We do have a 100+ step plan for introducing new products including testing in homes and in the lab. We have not invested in "test-to-failure" services from external companies due to the high costs.

SH knows what it takes, but apparently lacks the commitment to make it happen.

 

[Xpendable]

Let me understand this.....

You are a developer and SH sells your product. Yet they do NOT tell you of changes they make that would affect your product and thus their sales as well.

That is correct; they do not.

 

[WayneW]

Let me understand this.....

You are a developer and SH sells your product. Yet they do NOT tell you of changes they make that would affect your product and thus their sales as well.

That is correct; they do not.

I believe that UDI (the ISY maker) is the only company able to pierce the SH veil. I do not believe that SH ever provided assistance to Dave at PowerHome or any of the other shareware developers. I am not a developer myself and have no access to their SDK website, but I have heard that it is essentially abandoned/useless/peer-to-peer only and has been for years (once they got the first batch of believers money?).

 

[Xpendable]

I believe that UDI (the ISY maker) is the only company able to pierce the SH veil. I do not believe that SH ever provided assistance to Dave at PowerHome or any of the other shareware developers. I am not a developer myself and have no access to their SDK website, but I have heard that it is essentially abandoned/useless/peer-to-peer only and has been for years (once they got the first batch of believers money?).

Yep, that's correct. The SDK website no longer has any input, annoucements, feedback, or responses from Smarthome. They now state that the SDK forum is for developer peer-to-peer only. And yes, the SDK forum is pretty much abandoned. There is only a new post once in a great while, and often there are never any replies. If you ask a question on there, chances are it will fall on deaf ears. It's most certainly NOT worth the $199 they now charge for the SDK. It's a rip off if you ask me.

 

[KenM]

I'm halting my Insteon upgrade and will not purchase another Insteon product until I see how this gets resolved. I am also halting all Insteon development at this time. We'll have to see what happens.

Regarding that INSTEON SDK membership, I decided to stop trying to support the PLC (InHomefre) over a year ago and am waiting to hear about the 'rumored' PLC replacement . I still have three PLCs that I would like to trade in for the mythical 'less buggy' reworked model. I do use a USB PLC to control my two existing X10 flood lights (those things have been working well for about ten years now - good for them!), other than that I have been Z-Wave/Homeseer for about 2.5 years.

This whole INSTEON I1/I2 thing (my own hallucination ) is a result of the original INSTEON devices having a design error that prevented them from being fully compliant with the published protocol (extended messaging was broken). Now you have installations with many I1 devices that do not repeat the 'newer' I2 signals because the I2 signals appear as noise to the older devices. Funny, the I2 commands seem less reliable, hum...? I am reminded of a grade school saying that I heard once; "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive".

The whole INSTEON protocol, as currently implemented, is way, way too complicated. A single light switch has to be a rather complicated signal processor (mini computer). That is where the Firmware issues come in. Someone who is into the 'probability of failure' aspect of electronic devices could explain that last part better. With Z-Wave, all the switch has to do is listen for its address. I cannot speak for the other protocols. The INSTEON protocol CAN work, but it needs much MORE engineering support and much, much LESS marketing support.

My personal good news, is that I have been using the first generation Vizia-RF devices since they became available (about two years ago). I have had zero, repeat, zero, hardware failures to date. That alone, to me, justifies the premium price. I guess you could call me one of the 'early adopter' INSTEON, walking wounded (about $600.00 wounded). My 'early adopter' experience with the Vizia-RF devices was much more enjoyable, dang! They all work right out of the box!

I could go on with this but I would not be adding much to the OP's statement/question, other than I agree.



Ken

edit corrected spelling

 

[BLH]

Ken; I have a feeling this replacement PLC maybe a long way from now. The new HouseLinc2 is now using a specially configured [think it is a device table] PLM. Yes there is a HL2 USB PLM.
Also it still will not take downloaded timers and run on its own.

My new completely redesigned ApplianceLinc Modules actually don't sputter with my known problem load. Problem is they messed something up when they added I2 support or so it looks.

 

[gatchel]

I am so glad I put the brakes on full blown insteon adoption in my house. I still have a few devices on an experimental level and even have purchased a few used devices from others to have as spares. Smarthome definitely hasn't proven to me that they are a reputable company to deal with as far as powerline devices go. Time to start searching out other options also...

I see the moderator at Techmall deleted your post about this problem in Trevor's thread. Did Trevor ever answer you or was it deleted before he saw it?

NOPE! No feedback at this point, it figures. I checked both of my emails and even the junk folders. For those here at CT who didn't see it. I was simply asking if they were extending the warranties on any devices sold during the sale with the current i2 problems, what I thought was an honest question.

I recently purchased a timerlinc (not to be used as an insteon device yet) and a new appliancelinc. I also had a Lamplinc that failed about a month ago that was recently replaced with the newer version.

I have no respect for companies like this... and their people who try to cover things up that are well known.

Well I guess I'll have to figure out some other place to spend that new Obama stimulus money

 

[electron]

They deleted your post because you were asking a simple warranty question? I have been trying hard not to get involved with this, but IMO, SmartHome's attitude towards these problems is no longer acceptable.

I strongly recommend for SmartHome to start responding to some of the comments in this thread, as I am considering making this issue more public. It's understandable that 'early adopters' should be (and are) willing to put up with issues, but it's obvious that this is much bigger than a simple early adopter issue.

SmartHome: Don't Seagate this situation!

 

[electron]

If those kind of posts are being deleted before SmartHome actually sees them, then the moderator should be fired ASAP. If Customer Service isn't pushing these reports up the chain, then the CS staff should be fired as well (eventho I refuse to believe that's the issue here, usually it's the other way around where Customer Service reports are ignored by their managers/CEOs).

Whatever the real truth is, all these actions affect the public's perception of the SmartHome/INSTEON brand. SmartHome has 2 options here, either do what they are doing, and keep making more people unhappy, hurt themselves financially in the process, OR listen to some of the feedback to see how the public is seeing this situation, and do something about it.

I honestly believe that SmartHome WANTS these problems to be fixed, but their current approach is not working. Maybe they are working on engineering a new generation of hardware (as some other posts seem to have implied) which will fix many of these issues, but censoring and ignoring CURRENT customer issues is not going to work. These same customers that are being 'punished' for having faith in INSTEON are usually also the ones that would spend money on upgrading and/or purchasing new INSTEON hardware. I can think of MANY people who have migrated away from INSTEON, and even more that are strongly considering it.

It would be great if SmartHome would considering participating in one of our chat sessions. While it might be a little negative at first (but civilized), if they are truly serious about fixing this, they will listen to our comments, and tell us how they are going to fix this. Once they take these steps, I am sure a lot of the negativity would disappear.

 

[Lagerhead]

Do you think the upper management at SH is aware of the perception of the problems if CS is not pushing the feedback up the chain and if the questions and comments are deleted or attacked by the forum moderator?

In any organization it is upper management's *responsibility* and *obligation* to know. When they can't do so personally, they need to have effective systems and the right people in place to ensure that the organization scrupulously follows management policy. "Tone at the top" is a well-known, crucial determinant of organizational behavior. This is one of the reasons we have Sarbanes-Oxley .

Many times the moderator deletes the posts stating it is a User to User forum and not for contacting SH.

Right, my posts have been edited and there is no record or mention of the edits on the board. But this is just more evidence of mismanagement.

 

[BLH]

I am seeing failing OutletLincs being reported on their forum and when the person calls Smarthome Customer Service they say it hardly happens and doesn't need to be investigated. OH isn't that the way it was with the paddles on the switches?

Though my findings with the new ApplianceLincs where sent to Smarthome by UDI. I am beginning to think it may not do much good.

 

[upstatemike]

I am getting tired of this and all of the products in my life that are half developed, full of bugs, not scalable, and generally not ready for prime time. I think my go forward strategy is to stick with mature products only: UPB, HAI, and SONOS. I think this will cover everything I want to do and remove a whole lot of stress from my life.

 

[electron]

Does this moderator work for SmartHome? If not, maybe it's time to send the SH staff an email with a link to this thread. A single person, not working for SmartHome, should not be able to change SmartHome's reputation like this.

 

[KenM]

It would be great if SmartHome would considering participating in one of our chat sessions. While it might be a little negative at first (but civilized), if they are truly serious about fixing this, they will listen to our comments, and tell us how they are going to fix this. Once they take these steps, I am sure a lot of the negativity would disappear.

I TRULY believe that the INSTEON protocol can work. When I was developing my little software routine (Inhomefre), I had better than 99% reliability over several weeks of monitoring every INSTEON command in my house. I figured out that the CFLs in my kitchen would play heck with the PLC. I suspect that the noise problem could be cured with smarter Firmware. I still think that a 'stand alone' solution like a programmable/down loadable 'PLC' would be a money maker. I am also still waiting for the rumored reworked PLC. I am also willing to write software for a reliable PLC and, heck, give it away for free (complete with a money back guarantee ) That comes with a proviso that any hardware that I need to program for would be provided as a loaner. I'm an incurable HA'er. I would do that for them.

Firmware... In this case, it is Assembly level language, with commands like 'load register A with the contents of F01C'. I cannot fault anyone (other than QA) for getting that wrong on the first few attempts. I once, spent a full six months, translating a Assembly language driver for a nine track tape machine into VAX FORTRAN. I did not ask why, I just did it. The end result was that I figured out, programming in a very low level language is a royal nightmare.

I switched from INSTEON to Z-Wave after I figured out that, at the time, the attitude of SH was basically, "we screwed up, so ... make the rubes buy our new stuff". I am hoping they are over that part.



ken

 

[claymahaffey]

The sad thing is that I really want Insteon to work...mainly because I really like my Elk-ISY99 combo for controlling them. Insteon + UDI is working pretty well for me now (that I replaced the initial 10+% failed units.)

I guess I'll plan on switching to another platform when/if UDI comes out with another controller to manage it.

I agree with the general sentiment...enough is enough.

...Maybe we can get Michel at UDI to buy INSTEON from SmartHome. That would be awesome.