What hardware do you use?

[ewelin]

What do you use in your house? All of the automation in my house is Insteon, nothing else. I like it for the most part. Only thing that I find annoying is if you turn off a light switch and then turn it back on right away, sometimes it'll turn right back off. Outside of that I really like it.

[ghostt]

What do you use in your house? All of the automation in my house is Insteon, nothing else. I like it for the most part. Only thing that I find annoying is if you turn off a light switch and then turn it back on right away, sometimes it'll turn right back off. Outside of that I really like it.

I'm a Smarthome fan as well, however I have a ton of the older pre-Insteon Switchlinc's (mostly 2384's with a few 2380's and 2385's thrown in for good measure). All total I have about 30 Switchlinc switches. Beyond light switches, I also make heavy use of ApplianceLinc's (for eyecandy kind of stuff - eg, lava lamps, blacklights, electric candles, etc). I also have DS10A magnetic contact sensors littered throughout the house. HCA knows when toilet seats are left up, for instance. ;)

I've been going nuts with motion sensors lately (Ebay is a wonderful thing for bulk hardware purchasing ;)) - I have an insane amount of MS14A's and MS16A's throughout the house, generally 3-4 per room (to ensure accuracy with HCA detecting occupancy in rooms). I found that 1 or 2 in a room often times wouldn't do the trick of the person is sitting very still (such as at a computer, watching TV, etc). I figure after another 6 months I'll have all the motion sensor stuff figured out.

I also use Smarthome's fancy thermostat as well (HCA works beautifully with it!). Utilizing HCA's weather functionality coupled with the X-10 compatible thermostat makes for never having to touch the thermostat again, ever. :)

Next up on the project list, whole-house full on voice activation, and maybe some star trek themed doors eventually.... :eek:

[mjl]

I've been going nuts with motion sensors lately (Ebay is a wonderful thing for bulk hardware purchasing ;)) - I have an insane amount of MS14A's and MS16A's throughout the house, generally 3-4 per room (to ensure accuracy with HCA detecting occupancy in rooms). I found that 1 or 2 in a room often times wouldn't do the trick of the person is sitting very still (such as at a computer, watching TV, etc). I figure after another 6 months I'll have all the motion sensor stuff figured out.

Regarding 3-4 motion sensor per room - did you notice any problems with sensors facing each other interfereing with each other? I have had some issues with multiple motion sensors in the same room when they face each other -they seem to trigger each other when there is actually no motion. As long as I set them up so that they are not in line-of-sight of each other, things seem to work fine. Now you have me wanting to check e-bay .... I could use some more sensors ;-).

[ghostt]

Regarding 3-4 motion sensor per room - did you notice any problems with sensors facing each other interfereing with each other? I have had some issues with multiple motion sensors in the same room when they face each other -they seem to trigger each other when there is actually no motion. As long as I set them up so that they are not in line-of-sight of each other, things seem to work fine. Now you have me wanting to check e-bay .... I could use some more sensors ;-).

Indeed, I did see similar problems when the motion sensors were pointing directly at each other. My final layout in most rooms are basically placing the sensors in each of the 4 corners to some degree, and having them all face the center of the room. This tends to get the best "total coverage" with minimal line-of-sight from sensor-to-sensor.

As for ebay, here's my regular search for cheapest motion sensors of all major model numbers that I use (ms12, ms14, ms16, etc):

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=%28ms12a%2Cms13a%2Cms14a%2Cms15a%2Cms1 6a%29&_sacat=0&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_sop=15&_odkw=ms12a%2Cms13a%2Cms14a%2Cms15a%2Cms16a%29&_osacat=0