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Insteon
This page is a good starting point for MisterHouse and Insteon.
Note1: Only use MisterHouse distributions obtained from GitHub.
Note2: The Insteon syntax changed in November 2012. See Insteon Old Code.
Insteon is a protocol from Smart Labs who is closely related to Smarthome. Smart Labs manages Insteon as a protocol and will certify new products as being Insteon compatible. In practice, most Insteon compatible products are made by Smarthome, although a few other manufacturers do make some specialized products.
Insteon is comparable to X10, but has several features that make its protocol more reliable. Two major benefits over X10 are that Insteon commands are repeated in a mesh network and Insteon commands are acknowledged by the receiving device. Insteon Compared is a detailed comparison of Insteon to other home automation protocols.
Further discussions about the details of the Insteon protocol can be found on the Insteon Linking and Scenes page. The Insteon Details paper is a technical paper which describes many of the Insteon specifics in nauseating detail.
Besides MisterHouse ("MH"), there are a few options for Insteon support on windows but most are paid applications. For Linux or other nixes, MH contains the most complete implementation of the Insteon protocol and support for its hardware that we know about. In other words, this would be a fine page for "Linux home automation with Insteon."
These pages provide the basic outline for how to get started with MisterHouse and Insteon. They are user created and maintained. So if you see something wrong or you solve a problem not discussed here, please contribute to the wiki.
Most of the initial Insteon support documentation on these pages was written by Marc Merlin, so if you see a reference to the first person, it is likely referring to Marc.
The collection of Insteon related pages generally assume that you have already installed MH. For a detailed discussion of the requirements of MisterHouse or for instructions on how to install MisterHouse, please see the following pages: Installation / Configuration and Installation Instructions.
In short, to start using Insteon with MH you will need to:
- Obtain an Insteon PLM and Insteon devices you want to control
- Install the Insteon devices - See Insteon Installing Devices
- Download and install MH - See Installation / Configuration and Installation Instructions
- Configure MH for your setup - See Insteon Configuration, Installation / Configuration and Installation Instructions
- Add your Insteon devices to MH - See Insteon Configuration.
- Link your devices to MH - See Insteon Link to Interface
- Define Links and Scenes - See Insteon Links and Scenes
The only required item is a Power Link Modem ("PLM"). The PLM is the device that enables your computer to speak to the Insteon network. The similar sounding and less expensive Powerlinc Controller ("PLC") is NOT COMPATIBLE with MH and cannot be used by MH to control Insteon devices. See Insteon PLM for a more detailed discussion of the PLM.
See Insteon Supported Devices for a list of Insteon devices which are supported by MH and the related documentation for each device.
Other Insteon specific pages include:
- Insteon Devices Quirks and Hints - Instructions for configuring specific devices
- Insteon Linking and Scenes (this page also contains basics on that below)
- Insteon Compared - A comparison to other home automation protocols
- Insteon Controllers - A comparison of MH to other Insteon controllers
- Insteon Troubleshooting - Contains some troubleshooting techniques and sources for help.
- Insteon Supported Devices - A list of Insteon devices supported by MH
- Insteon for the X10 User - Discusses switching from X10 and mixed Insteon and X10 networks
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