Platform Openhabian
I purchased a Pi for openhab use but have not yet settled on the automation technology that I will use. Insteon is tempting because you can get the smoke bridge and garage door opener.
Which is the best choice for a beginner? Compatibility is my main conceorn as well as ease of setup. I know that I can add additional automation technologies at a latre date
My impression based on some postings here, and it could be completely wrong, that Insteon is falling behind.
Zigbee is attractive because there are lots of cheaper devices available but as a standard it isn’t perfect (two Zigbee devices are not guaranteed to be compatible with each other) and OH support for Zigbee is at the alpha/beta stage.
Zwave is more expensive but it is a solid standard and there are two bindings availble for use with OH to make them work.
I started with Zwave and don’t regret the decision.
Though keep in mind that you can get started with nothing and start playing around with OH configs without any hardware. there are lots of web based APIs and such you can interact with and you can model what you want to do with Items that are not connected to anything. This is how the Demo config works.
I agree @rlkoshak I use zwave when I’m lazy to come up with something. zwave is perhaps the most mature of the 3
Z-wave! I had same dilemma year ago, now I have at least one zwave device in each room 
What is the best Z-Wave USB hub that works with the Raspberry Pi?
I think I will go with Z-wave initially.
One question though is later down the line I would want to link in my smoke detectors using an Insteon smoke bridge (I don’t think z wave has a device to do this). Just to confirm I can add Insteon down the road and run it off the same Raspberry Pi?
Controller - Aeotech Z-Stick. There are multiple Zwave smoke detectors. Here is one -
You can use zwave and Insteon on the same device. But be aware, there are plenty of Zwave smoke/CO detectors to choose from as well. Garage door openers as well.
The main advantage of the Insteon smoke bridge is that it is compatible with my existing 6 smoke detectors.
What I am thinking of doing is just using Insteon for the smoke detector and using z-wave for everything else.
I will start with z-wave though and if I really like it I may bite the cost and replace with z-wave smoke detectors rather than buy insteon later.
Can anyone recommend a good openhab compatible zwave garage remote?
You might want to take a look at a tutorial I put together that includes garage doors, slide gate, and ties it in to Alexa. Everything is Zwave and fairly simple.
The great thing about openHAB is that you can use what ever is appropriate, or as in my case , what ever is cheap! I currently use X10, wifi (sonoff), and ZigBee ( in the form of Xiaomi). OpenHAB works with pretty much everything!
Thank you, great project. I think this will be my second project after I start with something basic (a light switch).