My recommendation about using Insteon today is at the bottom.

Insteon features

These are just some of the awesome features that the Insteon protocol has

• real instant device status reporting (see footnote below)
• It broadcasts over rf and powerline to reduce interference issues and be able to communicate further. (patented, which is why no one else does it)
• syn/ack capabilities
• Retry capabilities
• Error detection and correction
• Keeps track of how many times the message has been broadcasted to keep from causing an infinite broadcast storm
• Is p2p so a hub controller isn’t required for devices to work together or for communications to go through. One example of this is linking two switches for a 3 way switch. You don’t need a controller to do it
• Is a mesh setup, so one node going down doesn’t break a link to half of your devices (a slight dig at zwave).
• The PLM control module has a link records limit of 992, so you’re very unlikely to hit the device limit
• Higher data rate and lower latency

Dimmer and switch revision numbers

There have been many revisions of the 2477D dimmer, and 2477S switch, over time. They are up into the 8.x territory. I have yet to find a public revision list, but one thing I do know is that the 7.x set of revisions have a slightly off-white paddle that doesn’t match the other Insteon revisions or any other switch out there.

(Insteon picture here)

Some other changes between revisions have been related to the size of the status LEDs, the internal capacitors, and at one point they switched the 2477S from using the exact some body and LED system as the 2477D to only having on/off LEDs.

Drawbacks

Although I love Insteon, I do have to point out their drawbacks.

• If you want a uniform system throughout your house, their device range is limited.
• If you have switches linked for direct control of each other (virtual 3-way sort of setup), the receiver device won’t broadcast its change and Home Assistant and probably other controllers don’t poll devices for status updates.
• The 7.x revision switches and dimmers aren’t a standard shade of white
• They’re too expensive buying new these days. You can even get good quality new z-wave switches for less than used insteon switches
• Their older USB PLMs have a known capacitor issue. I don’t know if the newer ones still have that.
• Who knows what will happen with the company now that it is customer owned after the bankruptcy.

My Insteon recommendation

Sadly, at this point I don’t think I can recommend Insteon to beginners to home automation anymore. I’m still pretty much all in with them for some of the reasons mentioned above, but with the prices, state of the company and the state of z-wave, I can’t recommend Insteon for people just diving in to home automation today. I’m currently considering pulling them out of places where I’m not directly using them in virtual 3-ways or with p2p sensor communication.

footnote: “real” instant status reports

When a switch paddle is pressed, Insteon will immediately report the status change to the controller. This sounds like an obvious thing to do, but that functionality is patented, I believe by SmartLabs, Inc, and many z-wave switches don’t do it. Some z-wave switches have licensed it, I think some have ignored the patent, and others do a pseudo instant report. They do this by sending a networking frame saying “hey controller, I have changed, please ask me for a status update” The controller will then reach out for the status, and then the switch will tell it that it has been turned on. Switches that don’t do instant status updates have a noticeably longer delay in reaction time to support that back and forth communnication. For most, this won’t be an issue. For me, I notice this during some automation.

Switches are one of the staples of every automation system, and there’s a lot to consider:

• what sort of load you’ll have on the switch
• how your wiring is
• multi-way switching
• switch vs dimmer
• leading edge vs trailing edge dimmers

Switch loading

Lighting

Your first thought about switches will more than likely be about lights. When it comes to switching lights, there are a few things to keep in mind. Light switches and dimmers will always have a max load rating. For light switches and dimmers, they’ll have separate max watt rating for LED vs incadescent bulbs. These matter because dimming bulbs generates extra heat at the switch that needs to be dissipated. Some switches will even have breakway tabs on either end of the switch to force separation between switches, and even more max watt ratings depending on if you leave the tabs on one or both sides of the switch. You definitely want to pay attention to that for safety. This will usually be around 150W for LED and 600W for incadescent bulbs.

Fluorescent lights

Just a note, Fluorescent lights do not play well with dimmer switches! You need to use an on/off only switch with Fluorescent bulbs

Variable speed ceiling fans

Ceiling fan smart switches often look very similar/exactly the same as a light dimmer, however the internals are different. You should not use a light dimming switch as a variable speed fan controller! Read this post if you want to fully understand why not. I use a z-wave homeseer hs-fc200+ to control my ceiling fans.

Exhaust fans

Any switch that supports high amperage resistive loads should work fine with exhaust fans.

Other switched loads

You may also have switches for other things…

Your existing electrical wiring

If you’re lucky, your wire goes from your electrical panel to the switch and then on to the switched fixture. If you’re unlucky, your wire goes from your electrical panel to the switched fixture and then the hot wire goes to the switch.

Smart switches require electricity to run. If your neutral wire goes to the switch, you can tie your switch in with the neutral wire and have it powered separately from the power for the switched fixture.

If you have the first setup, you can use any switch you want. If you no neutral at the switch, your options become more limited.

multi-way switching

There are several different ways that smart switches do multi-way switching.

Insteon

• Two switches. One controls the light, the other controls nothing
• The switches are linked as controllers to each other
• For me, the response of the dummy switch has always been instant
• requires a neutral wire and paying attention to how you reuse your traveler wires for powering the second switch

Lutron

• One normal switch, one pico switch
• Pico is like a TV remote. You can get a faceplate to put in a normal outlet
• doesn’t require a neutral wire

Z-Wave

• One switch controls the light
• Often work with a traveler wire for dummy switches
• I have not tried any z-wave 3-way switching

Leading edge vs trailing edge dimmers

A/C switch dimmers work by cutting off part of the AC waveform so that light bulbs don’t get full power causing them to dim. If you think of the AC waveform as a bell, there are two ways to cut off part of the waveform. As it goes from 0 to the peak (leading-edge), or from peak to 0 (trailing edge).

Leading edge dimmers:

• most common
• usually have a minimum load rating

Leading edge dimmers are the most common type of dimmers. They work by They are meant to be used with incandescent bulbs. Trailing edge dimmers are much harder to find and much more expensive. Lutron is an example of a company that makes them.

If you want some more in-depth details, read: https://www.artisticcontrols.com/articles/leading-edge-dimmer-vs-trailing-edge-dimmer/

My setup

I’ve used:

• Insteon
• GE switches
• Zooz zen30

When I first started wiring my place up, Insteon was the big player in town that was still reasonably priced. I’m now moving more towards Z-Wave devices. See my Insteon blog post for more information on them.

If you have any questions, I recommend visiting /r/homeautomation on reddit. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on there, and I visit it nearly every day. You can also message me on there, /u/thatdiveguy.

I’m still working on getting my thoughts organized and it’ll probably be another month or two before all sections under HA Advice will be filled in. I think I’ll use the posts section to document new technologies as I try them out.

I would also like to mention, everything I say on here is my own opinion. I make no money from running this and I have not tried to contact or been in contact with any of these companies about getting deals. I’ve paid for everything I use.