Insteon or Zwave?

[nosebreaker]

I'm near Boston MA USA, and I'm trying to decide between Insteon and Zwave.  I plan to use 3-4 light dimmer modules, a few switch controllers, 3 appliance modules, and I'd like room to grow.  I'm planning on having 4 rooms with LinuxMCE systems when I am all finished.  I understand Zwave is typically for EU, but it seems to be available here too.

[hari]

hu? Z-wave is not typically for EU. It is just the best available in EU besides KNX/EIB.

br, Hari

[totallymaxed]

I'm near Boston MA USA, and I'm trying to decide between Insteon and Zwave.  I plan to use 3-4 light dimmer modules, a few switch controllers, 3 appliance modules, and I'd like room to grow.  I'm planning on having 4 rooms with LinuxMCE systems when I am all finished.  I understand Zwave is typically for EU, but it seems to be available here too.

In fact you have more Zwave products in the US than we do here in the EU... ;-)

[nosebreaker]

Ok, have you tried both?  Any differences?  Is one supported better than the other?

[totallymaxed]

Ok, have you tried both?  Any differences?  Is one supported better than the other?

Well Hari's Zwave driver is under active development and and now supports a large number of devices and is without doubt IMHO the most sophisticated control interface driver we have. We are using iit in our commercial installations and are very pleased with it in everyday use.

However that is not to say that Insteon is not worth looking at - but since I have no direct experience I will leave it to others to comment on their experiences with it.

Andrew

[krys]

one big difference that I have seen on other threads is that Insteon is compatible with X-10 and Z-wave is not. This will probably be a major deciding factor for me since x-10 switches are dirt cheap, you could drop the $$ on the insteon controller and use x-10 switches where you dont need the high dollar insteon ones.

[totallymaxed]

one big difference that I have seen on other threads is that Insteon is compatible with X-10 and Z-wave is not. This will probably be a major deciding factor for me since x-10 switches are dirt cheap, you could drop the $$ on the insteon controller and use x-10 switches where you dont need the high dollar insteon ones.

I agree thats a good point. In the end it will come down to cost & functionality... do you want full bi-directional capability so that devices can tell the Core that an event has happened and then the MD's can display that to you visually (External temp has dropped 5 degrees, back door is open, lights down stairs are all off etc etc). ZWave can do this and I believe Insteon devices can too with the current Insteon driver.

So it really comes back price & functioanality... and of course you can always change your mind later!

All the best

Andrew