Retaining my Insteon investment, replacing houselinc

1

I have a lot of Insteon and since they stopped supporting/enhancing houselinc I have been hurting.

It is still early but I think I found a potential platform.

Using Insteon Hub 2014 and Stringify for logic.

I now just use OH 1.8.3 without logging or persistence (because these activities were frying my uSD cards on rpi).
I no longer use OH logic - it’s all either direct links or Stringify for conditional stuff.
I no longer use OH persistence and instead I log everything to “the cloud” (I have access to free, excellent cloud history and reporting through my employer).
I no longer use OH for user interface - I just use the Insteon app or Alexa.

So what do I use OH 1.8.3 for?

Mapping everything between binding platforms, including Insteon, MyQ Garage Door, Ecobee Thermostat, & MQTT (that’s how I historize to “the cloud”).

It really is just sitting int he background unifying all my disparate platforms.

I was loosing too much time learning OH scripting, losing uSD cards to rpi, bouncing back and forth between OH1.8 & OH2.

I went back to OH 1.8.3 because it seemed like the stable path.

Now I just have an items file - nothing in rules, scripts, persistance, etc.

I am going to to try this for a year and see how it works out.
@Bernd_Pfrommer
@dan_pfrommer

I still use Insteon Terminal for testing.

You other insteon guys might want to look at stringify and/or Amazon Echo if you haven’t yet.
I’ve only had it a couple weeks and just moved back to OH1.8.3 in this limited fashion since last weekend but my OH administration might be just adding new stuff I buy to my.items.

Time will tell but I’m feeling like I’m going to have a lot less hassle.

2

Stringify looks pretty cool, too bad it doesn’t support Android yet or I’d check it out. I think it supports the platforms I currently have: Netatmo, Ecobee, Rachio. I don’t see Insteon listed how are you connecting it to Stringify?

Hopefully they will integrate Google Home

3

Stringify and Insteon 2014 Hub (2245-222) do work with each other.

I had never heard of Stringify and was awaiting IfTTT support as an option but that didn’t happen and then I discovered Stringify from some Insteon email.

Stringify Ecobee support is dumb because you can only set a few things, so…

With OH1.8 we have WAY more Ecobee integration and OH1.8 can sync that to Insteon devices so…

Same with MyQ Garage door opener - OH1.8 is better.

My plan is to only Stringify to Insteon.

If I need anything from Ecobee, MyQ, etc I will sync it to an Insteon device.

It might even be possible to sync things to an Insteon scene or “virtual device”(versus using an actual devices) - I haven’t explored that yet.

Openhab has uniquely tackled the in depth integration that Ecobee, MyQ and probably others are resisting with other “partners”.

Sincerely, Jeff Tapia

4

It is available (in beta) now:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.stringify.stringify