AdamCollins
Member
Hello all.
I've done a bit of lurking around here as well as some Googling here and there, but I have a few questions/thoughts that I'd like to get your opinion on, if that is not too much to ask. By all means, if I have missed something obvious on this site or elsewhere, please don't hesitate to tell me to go away and do some more reading.
I would like to gradually start controlling more and more things in my house with a PC. This is something that I will primarily be doing as hobby, because I think it's neat. So I'd like to start small, but in a way in which I can add more functionality as I have the time and money to do so. I am a programmer by trade, so I'd like to be able to write the software that will be controlling everything (this is the part that I find fun/neat). Also, I'm not at all comfortable with electrical work, so I'd prefer to use whatever requires the least amount of rewiring (I'm comfortable replacing light switches, but beyond that, I'd probably end up burning the house down).
My research so far has led me to believe that I should stay away from X10. I've got my eye on Insteon, but that is primarily due to the fact that I've already found some example code that I could build upon to start writing control software; I'm open to other suggestions, though.
Here is what I'm thinking of doing at this point:
I'd like to buy and install a couple Insteon light switches and a PLM. (Or is it the PLC? I'm not sure what the difference is exactly, or which one I'd need, or if paying for the SDK is required.) That way I could, for minimal effort/cost, get myself familiar with programming to the protocol Insteon uses. Once I become more comfortable with it, I could buy more switches/sensors/whatevers and expand the functionality of my software as I see fit. Does this sound reasonable, or is there something obvious that I am missing because I'm so new to all this?
Here are a couple of general questions I have:
I've done a bit of lurking around here as well as some Googling here and there, but I have a few questions/thoughts that I'd like to get your opinion on, if that is not too much to ask. By all means, if I have missed something obvious on this site or elsewhere, please don't hesitate to tell me to go away and do some more reading.
I would like to gradually start controlling more and more things in my house with a PC. This is something that I will primarily be doing as hobby, because I think it's neat. So I'd like to start small, but in a way in which I can add more functionality as I have the time and money to do so. I am a programmer by trade, so I'd like to be able to write the software that will be controlling everything (this is the part that I find fun/neat). Also, I'm not at all comfortable with electrical work, so I'd prefer to use whatever requires the least amount of rewiring (I'm comfortable replacing light switches, but beyond that, I'd probably end up burning the house down).
My research so far has led me to believe that I should stay away from X10. I've got my eye on Insteon, but that is primarily due to the fact that I've already found some example code that I could build upon to start writing control software; I'm open to other suggestions, though.
Here is what I'm thinking of doing at this point:
I'd like to buy and install a couple Insteon light switches and a PLM. (Or is it the PLC? I'm not sure what the difference is exactly, or which one I'd need, or if paying for the SDK is required.) That way I could, for minimal effort/cost, get myself familiar with programming to the protocol Insteon uses. Once I become more comfortable with it, I could buy more switches/sensors/whatevers and expand the functionality of my software as I see fit. Does this sound reasonable, or is there something obvious that I am missing because I'm so new to all this?
Here are a couple of general questions I have:
- I have quite a few compact florescent bulbs in my house, so I am guessing that Insteon dimmer switches (or some other equivalent) are out of the question. Would just plain old Insteon on/off switches work for these? Similarly, a few places that I might want to control have florescent tube lighting. Would these have any special requirements?
- A few rooms in my house have two light switches for the same light, each on a different side of the room. Would installing one Insteon switch be enough here, or would I need to replace both switches?
- Just a random paranoid thought here, because I don't know much about electrical wiring: let's say I write my control software in a stupid manner, and a situation arises in which it sends some arbitrarily large number of on/off commands per second to a switch. What would happen? Would the switch just stop responding? Would it respond as best it could until it caught fire and burned the house down? Would it work like a champ and give me a sweet rave party?