Insteon Home Automation Products Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,195 words · ~5 min read
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So today we're going to be having a look at it's not really it's sort of an
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unboxing like this is all the stuff that was in the box at a home automation
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product from Inson so right here this is
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the smart home hub so this guy right
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here communicates with your smartphone via Wi-Fi where they communicate with
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each other on RF and over power line but you have to actually have sort of the
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the uh the smart home thing that you can
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connect to Via your phone so this right here is an always on Outlet okay but
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this guy right here communicates with everything else so follow me and I'm
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going to show you guys how this works the starter kit comes with the Hub
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arrange extender as well as one dimmer module which you just plug into an
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outlet and then it dims whatever you plug into it preferably something like a
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lamp and not a computer or something like that so I have some of the breakers
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off in my house so things are a little dark so I'm going to put on
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my you can switch to infrared mode if you want so you guys can see what's
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going
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on everyone should have a hat like
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this so you can see here I have taken oh
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actually first of all come look over here so I put the
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extender in there so the range extender is right there which means throughout my
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entire house I should be able to access it with my phone and then there's a
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dimmer module around here somewhere I wish I could show you guys what that
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looks like I think it's upstairs anyway so here's a regular
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switch see regular We have replaced that with the
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inston switch so you can see right here it is a little bit sort of more more
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different from that one it's sort of bulky here at the back a lot of
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electronics going on in there so I'm going to go hit the breaker well okay
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something to bear in mind guys just be careful whenever you're playing around with these boxes make sure the power is
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off and make sure you know what you're doing uh I'll be back in just a moment
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so guys this gives you some idea of some of the cool stuff they have available so
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these remote controls can you can use without a smartphone um however you do
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still need the wireless transceiver module sorry sorry yeah so either a
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smartphone or something else can connect to it you can get thermostats there's
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another range EXT Wireless motion sensors um Door and
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Window sensors so you can have it do things like take a picture with your
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security camera when your front door opens every time um or you can have it
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uh turn on a light from dim to high when
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you um have a wireless motion sensor go
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off you can have it do things like oh scenes are cool so you can set up scenes
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so like if your living room you make a scene that changes all the lights in the
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living room so that maybe it leaves on one light over here and turns everything
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down when you're going to watch a movie so you just go scene movie done and it
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turns everything off so I'll show you guys what the app looks like I haven't
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actually tried the remote itself but check this out it should be fairly
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obvious which one's the high-tech one now that they're installed it logs into
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the inston software automatically so here's your favorites
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but there's a few different things so you can change some settings you can
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check in seriously cares um you can add devices so front door hall light there
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you go um there's my my movie time scene
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so check this out first of all it still functions as a normal
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switch see you can see it's just a rocker like it doesn't actually switch
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into position there you go and check
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this out so you go into the app you go to whatever devices you have frontal hor
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switch
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off and yay for demos that work until
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there we go front door on I haven't had it do that before so there you go on off
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uh I'm going to turn it on and then I'm going to go to the scene for movies
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because obviously I don't want this light right here on if I'm going to
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watch a movie right there so if I go scene movie
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time movie time on everything should go off if the whole
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house is done up but right now I only have one light switch done so um here
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hold on let me turn the light back on let me turn the light okay I guess I could just do this way um so there you
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go guys that's sort of the uh the concept here I'm going to set up a
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couple of different sorts of scenes and
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uh I'm going to do like a tech tips video about it but I think these things
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are pretty cool I believe they have oh Rumble no no no no my screwdriver bits
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please don't spill them um I believe they have things like uh recepticles
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although I'm not 100% sure about that I know they have things like water sensors
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so you can be like send me an email if the water sensor goes off and stuff like
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that but uh yeah check it out guys I mean this home automation thing is it's
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real it's coming it works I mean seriously like it works don't
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forget to subscribe F this Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other
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computer I mean this isn't a computer at all but whatever it's
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cool I should clarify guys there's lots of different kinds of switches so
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there's a dimmer wall switch which is not the kind that I have there that's an
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onoff switch and then there's also keypads with dimmers so you can set up different sorts of um what does this do
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replaces existing wall switch works like a conventional dimmer switch up and down
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also works as a remote controlled switch so you can uh works with any inst on
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remote control blah blah blah their keypad and switch so you can program
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stuff and send signals to other inston devices so you could set up scenes for
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an entire room like as you go into the living room one of your dimmer switches
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instead of using your phone or a remote control you could just go movie time and
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it would control everything else in the room or you could just go just this one
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and it would just control that very cool stuff