Insteon devices function perfectly well without the cloud. I have several dozen ...

gregmac · on April 22, 2022

> The cloud-connected hub to enable remote control was a bolt-on, and by far the least reliable part of their ecosystem.

Not only that, but least useful? I never understood the use case for why you'd want remote lighting control.

Better: set up automations.

* Outside lights go on when it's dark, until ~11pm.

* Outside lights also turn on with motion

* Some inside lights turn on when it gets dark IF no lights have been manually changed in the past few hours

* Inside lights turn off later in the night if they were turned on automatically AND haven't been adjusted manually since

These rules worked exceedingly well for me: We never came home to a dark house. If we were away, we didn't have to do anything yet the house didn't look like we were away. If we were home, the lights weren't "changing by themselves" (high spouse-acceptance-factor importance).

dan_sss · on April 24, 2022

>>> * Some inside lights turn on when it gets dark IF no lights have been manually changed in the past few hours

>>> * Inside lights turn off later in the night if they were turned on automatically AND haven't been adjusted manually since

Out of curiosity, how exactly do you accomplish this? How do you make sure IF no lights have been manually changed or if the lights were turned on automatically? Do you use iOS ShortCuts/ Automations? How do you persist states in them then?

bradstewart · on April 26, 2022

I do this with HomeAssistant. You can specify conditions before taking action, which can include "is this thing still in the state it was when the last automation ran".