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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=589210221-28072005>I'm in
the same boat. We are moving. My current HAI gear is staying with
this house. We are going to miss the automation until I get something else
installed. The new home currently has a DSC 832 prewired. We are
also looking at Zwave in addition to UPB and Insteon. I would really
prefer ALC, but rewiring the house is not practical. Have about 6 months
before I have to start buying things.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> hai-users-bounces@tssi.com
[mailto:hai-users-bounces@tssi.com]<B>On Behalf Of </B>Justin
Matlock<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, July 28, 2005 3:50 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
hai-users@tssi.com<BR><B>Subject:</B> [Hai-users] Smarthome Insteon vs. HAI
UPB<BR><BR></FONT></DIV><FONT
face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px">Okay... So there seem to be a lot of new technologies
out there these days that are replacing X10.<BR><BR>HAI just started shipping
their UPB dimmers, and SmartHome just started shipping their Insteon
SwitchLinc dimmers.<BR><BR>Other than the obvious “HAI supports their own
switches in firmware” issue (I suspect they’ll be adding Insteon support),
does anyone have any opinions on either switch type? I’ve got such a mix
right now — ACT, Compose, SwitchLinc — and I need to start consolidating to a
single brand/type because of the weird mismatches between brands (as far as
scenes/etc goes).<BR><BR>I’ve played with Insteon — I just ordered (but have
yet to install) two dimmer switches. I’ve been playing with the actual
lamp modules for quite some time now, and have been very impressed with the
reliability (they turn on *every* time I hit the button) and the scenes.
Also, the X10 compatibility makes them work with my existing HAI OP2
without adding any extra modules. In fact, they act just like regular
SwitchLinc 2-way switches when you program an X10 address into
them.<BR><BR>What would be the benefit to going with HAI-UPB products?
It’s not price, since UPB is more expensive than Insteon switches (even
via Worthington); they’re about equals on that. Insteon has better
looking switches (IMHO), and the ability to change the LED color pipes is a
really nifty (but useless) feature that I like.<BR><BR>Rather than use
straightforward scenes, it looks like HAI has adopted the weird Compose
‘rooms’ concept, which I still haven’t found terribly useful. It seems much
easier to just assign individual addresses to each scene like SwitchLinc and
Insteon do... On the flipside, perhaps I’m not understanding exactly how
to implement the HAI-UPB scene/room/master functions...<BR><BR>Of course, I
have no idea how Insteon will integrate with the OP2 (or if it will) since it
doesn’t have visible addressing (there’s no “a1”, “a2”, etc). But SmartHome
says the home controller will be able to “download” the scene information from
the existing switches in the house once an interface is installed (no idea how
they plan on doing that one)...<BR><BR>Comments?
Thoughts?<BR><BR>Justin</SPAN></FONT> </BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>