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I use Insteon dimmers and switches in my house. These replace the wall switch but look basically like a normal wall switch. They use a combination of power line

I use Insteon dimmers and switches in my house. These replace the wall switch but look basically like a normal wall switch. They use a combination of power line networking and RF mesh networking for automation. This is the second house I've had entirely outfitted with them and I love it. IMHO it's critical to maintain control at the wall switch - if I am walking into the kitchen and want to turn the lights on, I just hit the switch like any other house. But when I'm in bed and ready to go to sleep I can press one button in the app and all the lights turn off. Anyone with basic electrical skills can replace a switch in about 15 minutes. I did them all myself in my first house over the course of a few months, and when I moved I hired an electrician for a few hours to just do them all. The switches and dimmers are about $50 each, but they are highly reliable. I've had one failure out of about 40 total installed over the course of the 12 years I've been using it.

adanto6840 6y ago
I did this on a prior home and then removed almost all of them just prior to moving. I haven't re-installed them in the 4-years we've been at our new home simply because the "failure rate" was so frustrating to me. I don't mean hardware failure, I mean "intermittent, rare command failure" -- I've never experienced quite the same level of annoyance/rage from anything else, versus hitting a switch and having it either not turn on/off or having it be delayed by 1-second. Granted, that was relatively rare, but having a wall switch not work even just 2-in-100 is enough to give me serious pause. I did love & do miss the ability to turn all lights off from a bedside switch, to run scenes, etc. -- but I'm just not sure it's worth the trade-off.
- vonnieda 6y ago
  Are you saying you would hit the physical switch and it wouldn't activate? I don't think I've ever experienced that. Early on, I would have command failures when the dimmers were powerline only, but with the dual band ones (RF mesh + powerline) that they have been selling for the last 5+ years I don't think I've ever had an error.
  - adanto6840 6y ago
    Yep, exactly. It was pretty rare, and I think it mostly occurred on "3-way" switches that were capped/originally wired as 3-ways but changed to be normal switches with Insteon links to get the dual-switch functionality. It only takes once-a-month of hitting a physical switch, then having to do a "double-take" and re-hit it to get the light on, before the proverbial rage boils quickly. All of mine are indeed the newer style RF + powerline; I also had my Insteon hub fail once, which was frustrating because it required some re-pairing that didn't "just work" IIRC. I was using a dedicated Mac Mini running the Indigo macOS app. I may give it another go in my office at some point, we'll see.

adanto6840 6y ago

I did this on a prior home and then removed almost all of them just prior to moving. I haven't re-installed them in the 4-years we've been at our new home simply because the "failure rate" was so frustrating to me. I don't mean hardware failure, I mean "intermittent, rare command failure" -- I've never experienced quite the same level of annoyance/rage from anything else, versus hitting a switch and having it either not turn on/off or having it be delayed by 1-second. Granted, that was relatively rare, but having a wall switch not work even just 2-in-100 is enough to give me serious pause. I did love & do miss the ability to turn all lights off from a bedside switch, to run scenes, etc. -- but I'm just not sure it's worth the trade-off.

vonnieda 6y ago
Are you saying you would hit the physical switch and it wouldn't activate? I don't think I've ever experienced that. Early on, I would have command failures when the dimmers were powerline only, but with the dual band ones (RF mesh + powerline) that they have been selling for the last 5+ years I don't think I've ever had an error.
- adanto6840 6y ago
  Yep, exactly. It was pretty rare, and I think it mostly occurred on "3-way" switches that were capped/originally wired as 3-ways but changed to be normal switches with Insteon links to get the dual-switch functionality. It only takes once-a-month of hitting a physical switch, then having to do a "double-take" and re-hit it to get the light on, before the proverbial rage boils quickly. All of mine are indeed the newer style RF + powerline; I also had my Insteon hub fail once, which was frustrating because it required some re-pairing that didn't "just work" IIRC. I was using a dedicated Mac Mini running the Indigo macOS app. I may give it another go in my office at some point, we'll see.