I read on another thread…
“As of right now the current implementation of insteon in vera is only one way. So that is why when performing an action on the switch itself does not report the status back to Vera.”
… is this correct?
In other words… is Vera’s OS really at version 5 and it does not support Insteon in the way Insteon was designed to be from day 1? I’ve not seen ANY other software that claims Insteon support not read and display status messages … i.e. support 2-Way communications.
It’s pretty poor yes!
Somebody else got fed up of waiting and started their own plugin for it…
To be fair, I can’t say that I got fed up waiting. I got my Vera 3, and after a couple of hours of playing with it I found that the Insteon implementation didn’t meet my needs. When this happens, you have three choices 1) send it back, 2) complain loudly and hope that someone cares, or 3) do something about it. Option 3 sounded like the most fun and I had all of the bits and pieces pretty much in place.
Also, to be fair, I am sure the implementation on the Vera is exactly what management required. As a developer, I hate getting slammed for the short shortsightedness of management. What is there seems to work well for what it is. It is just that what it is is less than what I wanted. 
Nice explanation and keep up the good work. The more options we have, the better Vera gets!
[quote=“fba, post:3, topic:170331”]To be fair, I can’t say that I got fed up waiting. I got my Vera 3, and after a couple of hours of playing with it I found that the Insteon implementation didn’t meet my needs. When this happens, you have three choices 1) send it back, 2) complain loudly and hope that someone cares, or 3) do something about it. Option 3 sounded like the most fun and I had all of the bits and pieces pretty much in place.
Also, to be fair, I am sure the implementation on the Vera is exactly what management required. As a developer, I hate getting slammed for the short shortsightedness of management. What is there seems to work well for what it is. It is just that what it is is less than what I wanted. ;)[/quote]
IMO you are giving them WAY more “understanding” then they deserve.
I’ve used at least 5 apps that support Insteon… and they supported 2-way communications from Day 1. To be in version 5 of the app and not have it supported is inexcusable!
Vera’s main focus is ZWave, having Insteon support is just an added bonus even if it is basic.
My point is that supporting 2-way Insteon should have been zero effort over what they do support… the Insteon SDK provides it by default.
Your statement is like someone buying a 4 door BMW, and BMW not providing a back seat (or a way to buy one) and telling me that BMW’s focus is the driving experience so be happy they provide a driver seat!
I would hope that other programmers would understand the plight of their kind. That is the only reason that I cut them the slack. I will say that marketing should put a * next to “Insteon Support” with a disclaimer that it is only one way support for most things. (In my tests, there seemed to be 2-way support for the IOLinc.)
Also, I really don’t want to start a fight here… but…
While I agree that before claiming full Insteon support MCV should have implemented two way support, I once again have to come to their defense a bit. Implementing one-way Insteon support is painfully easy. There is a simple open source plmtool out there for Linux that does the one-way stuff. Once you introduce the two way support it gets orders of magnitude more complex. In addition, there is no Insteon supported SDK for Linux that I have ever seen. (Nothing is listed on the Insteon developer site.) So there really is a fair bit of effort to adding full two-way support. I would estimate the development time to be 1-2 man months to really get it in there and get it mostly right, followed by another couple of weeks of good testing to be sure it all works. And then you have to spend thousands of dollars to have a good test lab because there are so many quirks with all of the different revisions of devices out there. (And that assumes you can find somewhere to purchase the older devices.)
Again, I really don’t want to start a fight here. (There is nothing in it for me. ;D But if you read through the Insteon posts on this forum you will get the distinct impression that getting upset with MCV about the Insteon support is akin to kicking a brick wall. So, I would suggest that if the Vera is in its return window, and it really bothers you, then you should return it. (FWIW, I hear the ISY-99 is really great for Insteon gear, and I think it is cheaper than the Vera. However, I have never tried it, so YMMV.)
[quote=“garrettwp, post:6, topic:170331”]Vera’s main focus is ZWave, having Insteon support is just an added bonus even if it is basic.
Well my TRANE thermostat model TZEMT400AB32 is Z wave.
Pardon my ignorance but I fail to understand why I cannot control the fan cycle from Vera.
Shouldn’t I be able to do everything remotely on my PC that I can do by standing in front of my thermostat?
Isn’t that the goal of home automation?
I have five Insteon switches and one Insteon electrical outlet recepticle and have not had a problem with those and Vera.
Whoa whoa, my post was not intended to start a war. I was just stating that Vera’s main focus was Zwave and that insteon is just an after thought. As others were putting the blame 100% on MCV for not supporting everything insteon had to offer. As for your fan cycle issue, what version of firmware are you running? If you are running on UI4, it is a known bug and has been fixed in UI5.
I had the understanding that Vera will control basic INSTEON devices out of the box. Should you want to fully integrate INSTEON devices then you would need to purchase and connect a PowerLinc Modem - INSTEON USB Interface (Dual-Band) Item# 2413U . Can anyone chime in if this is not correct?
ULINKAV -
Without the PowerLinc Modem (PLM) the Vera can’t control any Insteon devices. With the PLM, the Vera has very basic support for Insteon. It can control things like light switches and IOLincs. However, when you manipulate an Insteon device (such as turning a light on or off) it won’t show up in the Vera dashboard until the Vera polls the device. This is what people mean by the Vera’s implementation being a “one-way” implementation.
Hope this helps!
Hi,
So, in order to properly control Insteon devices with Vera you will need a PLM gateway? What about with Vera lite? it doesn’t have an USB port to connect the PLM.
Thanks,
Vera Lite has one usb port, Vera 3 has two usb ports. A PLM is needed to talk to insteon devices.
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