The door/window sensor, though, is obnoxiously large-it’s nearly 3.5 inches long. The old-school motion sensor, which runs on a 9-volt battery, even has jumpers and tiny dials that must be turned with a jeweler’s screwdriver (fortunately, these are present only for legacy installations-I didn’t need to fiddle with them). To link the motion and door/window sensors to the devices you want them to trigger, for example, you must press buttons and then listen for beeps and watch for flashing LEDs for confirmation that the pairing worked. Performing these steps felt like time-traveling to the early days of home automation. Finally, I added an open/close sensor to the front door and programmed it to turn on the lamp nearest the door. I programmed the motion detector to turn off the light after a couple minutes of inactivity, so I need never turn the bathroom light on and off. Insteon also offers in-wall switches, dimmers, and scene controllers.Īfter I set up the living room, I installed an LED bulb and a motion detector in the bathroom. The company just announced that it has joined the Works with Nest program. Fortunately, you’re not limited to Insteon’s thermostat. On the other hand, it’s aesthetically ugly compared to just about any modern thermostat on the market, it lacks a touchscreen user interface, and it doesn’t support heat pumps or three-stage HVAC systems. On the one hand, it supports advanced features such as support for two-stage heating and cooling systems, duct dampers, and remote sensors. I wasn’t able to test the thermostat, but it represents another weak spot in the Insteon ecosystem. If you buy an Insteon starter kit, make sure that it comes with the latest Insteon hub, as this kit does. Insteon also sent a pair of 60-watt-equivalent LED light bulbs (these are very expensive at $30 each-that’s twice the cost of the GE and Cree bulbs recently reviewed). The Connected Kit consists of Insteon’s latest hub, which you hard-wire to your home router/Internet gateway a standard-definition pan/tilt security camera motion, door/window, and leak sensors and a wired thermostat.

Setup insteon camera without hub