Hi all,
My whole house is controlled by INSTEON… switches, lights, lamps, TV etc. I would love to be able to link my Qolsys IQ Panel with the rest of the system somehow so I can, at the very least, have all the lights that are ON turn OFF when I arm the system and turn some on when I arrive home.
Someone suggested using a MiCasaVerde to bridge the panel and INSTEON together, but I do not know if the IQ Panel is even capable of this.
Is there anyone out there with any experience on interconnecting systems with different communication protocols?
FYI, I started with all Z-Wave switches and lights, but it just wasn’t reliable enough. I switched to INSTEON because it uses both powerless and wireless protocol. I am so invested in INSTEON that I don’t want to switch back to Z-Wave.
Is there any hope of getting the two to talk together?
As far as I know Qolsys still can’t work with other Z-Wave controllers so using Vera as a bridge wouldn’t work very well.
I think your best bet for integrating Qolsys and Insteon might be going back to the basics: dry contact/relay/switch outputs and inputs.
If you want Qolsys to send a command to your Insteon system use a Z-Wave switch that, when turned on/off, will activate a dry contact output. Connect that to an Insteon sensor/dry contact input that, when activated, will turn the Insteon lights on or off. Alarm.com would see this as a light switch. You can program an Alarm.com rule so that when the system is armed it will turn the switch on or off, activating the relay and causing Insteon system to react.
Is there anyone out there with any experience on interconnecting systems with different communication protocols?
I have a lot of experiencing interconnecting systems with different communication protocols but I have not tried integrating Insteon with Qolsys or any Alarm.com system.
There is an assortment of Z-Wave dry contact relay devices on the market. Here is one:
I have not tried using this with Qolsys. It seems like it should work but only trial and error with will tell. Use at your own risk, I’m not guaranteeing it would work with Qolsys.
Testing found that the Mimolite works with 2GIG but not with Qolsys.
P.S. when I’ve used this dry contact approach myself to integrate Alarm.com systems with other systems I’ve used a Z-Wave lamp module, a 12V transformer and an RBSNTTL (or HRBSN). Together they can perform the same dry contact output function as a MIMOlite but the MIMOlite (or something similar) is a much cleaner all-in-one solution. I only bring it up because I can say first-hand that lamp modules like this work with 2GIG/Qolsys whereas I’m assuming the MIMOlite will learn into Qolsys - having never tried it myself. I’ve always done it the way I did simply because I had those parts lying around the shop and I didn’t have a MIMOlite.
First, you need a dry contact output that can be controlled like it’s a Z-Wave light switch. A dry contact output is a like a light switch - it’s either open (breaking the circuit and not allowing current to flow) or closed (connecting the circuit and allowing current to flow through it). That’s how lights turn on and off when you flip a traditional light switch. A traditional light switch is a dry contact output that’s controlled manually by a person.
A relay is a mechanical switch that’s controlled electronically. When you give it electrical power it flips the switch, just like you would flip your light switch to turn your lights on and off. So a relay with a dry contact output is basically a light switch that can be flipped on and off (open and closed) electronically - in this case via Z-Wave.
Then you need a dry contact sensor that sends an Insteon signal when it senses the dry contact output has closed. You would wire the Insteon sensor’s dry contact input to the Z-wave relay’s dry contact output. It would go something like this…
Alarm.com tells the Qolsys panel to turn on the light switch (the relay).
The Qolsys panel sends a Z-Wave command to turn on the light switch (the relay).
The Z-Wave relay flips the switch which closes the dry contact output.
The Insteon sensor detects that its input has closed.
The Insteon sensor sends out an Insteon signal reporting what's happened.
The Insteon controller receives this signal and sends out a command to turn on the Insteon lights.
Let me know if that makes sense and what questions you have.
We tested a Mimolite with Qolsys and 2GIG. It works fine with 2GIG but it doesn’t work with Qolsys. It can’t be added to the Qolsys Z-Wave network. If you decide to use this dry contact method to integrate with your Insteon system then I suggest using the lamp module + RBSNTTL method that I’ve always used. It’s a little more work but it’s compatible with Qolsys.
You would need a Z-Wave lamp module, an Altronix RBSNTTL and a 12VDC power supply. Wire the C and NC outputs of the RBSNTTL to an Insteon sensor input and you can program that to trigger an Insteon scene.
Any insteon sensor with the proper input should work for this. Looks like something like this would give you a sensor input and yet another contact relay.
Well, I actually have this device now and I simply have the Zwave lamp module going to a power cord and then the power cord right into two ports on the Insteon device. It just doesn’t seem to be working reliably and lights go on and off like crazy. Why would I need RBSNTTL?
What about going into this? It is an Open/Close sensor but has 2 contacts:
What do you mean by power cord? Are you using a certain voltage transformer? Or are you plugging 120VAC into the Insteon sensor input?
The RBSNTTL was suggested to make use of the dry contact closure relay so you can simply wire that to GND and S for example on the device I linked. You could also do that with the external sensor input terminals on the device you linked, but you could not apply + - power to those terminals. They are looking for contact closure, not voltage.
On the drawing Ryan provided, you would connect the two loose ends labeled sensor input to the input terminals on the sensor you linked.
Take a look at the diagram of the Insteon IO Linc. I have the zwave lamp module connected to a 5v power adapter and then the power adapter plugged into the 5v and GND terminals of the IOLinc.
Well an easy thing to check would be to verify polarity is correct on your input wires.
But that otherwise sounds correct, unless there is something I am missing. Does this work in most circumstances and is acting strangely in addition? Or are you never getting proper function out of this method?
I thought Insteon runs z-wave @ 915MHz & Powerline technology @ 132KHz?
I know I’m late to the discussion, but I was also looking at Insteon. Insteon works great with the Amazon Echo and is MS Homekit compatible (so they say).
But if it’s going to be trouble, then I’ll start looking at different hubs.
Insteon uses a different wireless protocol. Integrating the two requires a hub that can do so (I think newer Veras communicate to both protocols) or use of relay contacts.
Qolsys secondary panel functions were not quite working yet, as of latest update. The framework is there in the latest patches, but the features are not fleshed out and do not currently work.
