Whats up?

I know i’ve been out for a while, but im not dead!  Ive moved all my home system over to the PLM system.  For a couple of reasons.  First the PLC SDM software is no longer supported. And many times that my program has stopped has been a cause of this.  Its still a great [...]

Getting / Setting Insteon information from the Venstar T1700 thermostat

We’ll after receiving back some of my hard earned money thru 2008. I shelved out the $159 for the Insteon T1700 thermostat. It can be found here. The device is quite small, which is fine and thinner that my orginary Honeywell one which was a real plus.  To install was also very simple. And technical [...]

Insteon I/O Linc for Garage

Hurray, My I/O linc arrived on Saturday 10th!!! The good news is that its setup and in place.  Setup was a breeze since I’m literally replacing two X10 products for one.  I love it! So the wiring is the same Here is my Garage contact I purchased separately before, now as part as a kit. [...]

More ways to speak to your Insteon Devices

Like many programs there is always more ways to do one thing. Here is another way I found to talk to my PLC what I’ve been able to get is that i’m sending the direct HEX (PLM) commands to the PLC. Which in turn makes  the processing faster. In my environment it helped a little [...]

Setting up Insteon groups via SDM or ’soft linking’ commands

If your looking to create groups using the simplehome.net utility click on the link below. Setting up Insteon groups via software or ’soft linking’ using Simplehome.nets utility Lets say you want to be able to link and create groups without having to use the Simplehome.net utility, this is how its done. Lets assume with the previous [...]

Reading data from a Insteon Controlinc doing custom functions PC programming

One of the best devices that I like which is included with the Starter kit is the ControlLinc.  This little device contains 5 set of buttons which dim,brighten and do other wonder things.  But after a while I wanted to have one button to run my ‘end of day’ scripts.   So after poking around I [...]

Setting up Insteon groups via software or ‘soft linking’ using Simplehome.nets utility

Insteon is great and is extremely fast when turning on / off devices, but lets say you want to turn on 10 lights all at the same time? This is what they call groups. Groups allow you to store in each individual device settings such as turn on, ramp rate commands, for a specific group [...]

Good free must have Insteon programs

A Quick list of good Insteon Programs SmartLabs Device Manager for the PLC (USB and Serial) – Install this one first. Contains the Windows drivers for USB / Serial devices for the PLC. InHomeFre – INSTEON Home Control Freeware Excellent tool for setting up new items for the PLC to recognize it, also excellent for [...]

Software: Get Insteon / Talking to your PC – Part 2

Part 2. As requested, here are some live examples,  this is of course using the SDM library in VB 2005, the same works for VB6. Since my blog is really about my home project, a VERY GOOD site,  which is the one I used to start which has lots of specs and examples in VB6 [...]

Software: Get Insteon / Talking to your PC – Part 1

Ok, Ive got switches turning on and off, but I want more!. More googling and browsing around the sites I found that there is even devices to talk and read what the insteon network is doing. This is also available for X10 but what really interested me was the ability to get the status of [...]