My home it pretty well automated. By that, I mean that our security system, an Elk M1-gold, can control the house lighting, thermostats, and drip irrigation system. Lights come on and turn off automatically as necessary. The ELK uses a expander device which connects to an INSTEON controller. The INSTEON controller has the ability to turn on/off/dim any light in our house that has an INSTEON switch. When it works, it’s great. When it doesn’t work, it really sucks.
So then, why doesn’t it work? Well, it seems that the Smarthome engineers forgot to spec quality components as the failure rate of most of the INSTEON and ICON (a cheaper version of the INSTEON switches) is over 50%. That’s right, more than half of INSTEON switches have failed, they either do not turn off, or they will not turn on. Nice.