UPB (universal powerline bus) seems like a very robust & therefore useful protocol. I haven't used HAI/Omnilink but my understanding is that it is kind of a kludge by comparison. UPB devices are $$$ but having them work reliably is worth it. PLC (power line control) also seems very robust but my understanding is it comes from Europe (where it is widely used & supported) but PLC hardware is very hard to find from any US sources.
Experiences with UPB (powerline control), & possible other options
- Thread starter globramma
- Start date
DaAwesomeP
Member
To be honest I don't agree with your latter statement. UPB is not as robust as it sounds unless wiring is done 100% flawlessly in a setup. I have to press buttons sometimes 3 time to get a link or another device to turn on (there's no noise, just old and inconsistent wiring). Also, it's a dying protocol since nobody's really adopting it. Transmissions can only be sent and received one at a time, and it takes a long time to transmit and receive (you can't just press all the switches as quickly as you can). I honestly love the way they work, but I don't find them reliable. The cheaper switches (Simply Automated) physically jam easily (or at least mine do) and use the old UPB network (works fine, just older and incompatible with newer stuff). The nicer switches cost more $$$. My next installation will use some other (sadly but most likely) wireless solution.globramma said:
@DaAwesomeP, always appreciate having a perspective other than my own. I'm sure results do vary considerably depending on wiring configuration / quality / complexity, and # of UPB devices on the network. FWIW my setup so far consists of just 3 SAI (Simply Automated) 1-circuit dimmer switches. House is 1200 sq ft, 1 breaker panel w/ ~20 breakers, mix of older & newer wiring. (All of the UPB switches are on brand-new wire runs back to the panel.)
If you haven't already I strongly suggest you phone up an SAI tech and ask them to help you troubleshoot your setup. May be that some filters and/or phase-compensating devices clear your problems right up.
So far I have only used the RS232 interface to poll & program devices, and for some manual ON/OFF/FLASH/DIM testing. Has been 100% reliable so far, & the switches themselves in stand-alone operation also totally reliable to date. (Admittedly, that's only about 3 months.)
I do agree that the protocol's bandwidth & lack of full-duplex communication is at the bottom end of usable in the modern age. But in a world of ever-increasing RFI sources & interference I'd rather have a slow & reliable wire-line protocol than a fast-but-flaky wireless. (I would never use Z-wave for something like a security system, for example.)
As far as UPB being a dying protocol, that may be true, I'm not in a position to speak authoritatively. It does seem like there's a small but healthy ecosystem of competing vendors (SAI / Pulseworx) and if I'm not mistaken Leviton also makes (or perhaps just OEM's) some UPB devices.
For on-the-120V-wire signalling solutions, (aside from X10 which is beyond the pale -- waaay too flaky,) are there any other comparable alternatives to UPB in the US market?
If you haven't already I strongly suggest you phone up an SAI tech and ask them to help you troubleshoot your setup. May be that some filters and/or phase-compensating devices clear your problems right up.
So far I have only used the RS232 interface to poll & program devices, and for some manual ON/OFF/FLASH/DIM testing. Has been 100% reliable so far, & the switches themselves in stand-alone operation also totally reliable to date. (Admittedly, that's only about 3 months.)
I do agree that the protocol's bandwidth & lack of full-duplex communication is at the bottom end of usable in the modern age. But in a world of ever-increasing RFI sources & interference I'd rather have a slow & reliable wire-line protocol than a fast-but-flaky wireless. (I would never use Z-wave for something like a security system, for example.)
As far as UPB being a dying protocol, that may be true, I'm not in a position to speak authoritatively. It does seem like there's a small but healthy ecosystem of competing vendors (SAI / Pulseworx) and if I'm not mistaken Leviton also makes (or perhaps just OEM's) some UPB devices.
For on-the-120V-wire signalling solutions, (aside from X10 which is beyond the pale -- waaay too flaky,) are there any other comparable alternatives to UPB in the US market?
giesen said:
My understanding is that INSTEON began as a powerline-only protocol, but it was so janky and unreliable they had to "tack on" RF functionality, turning it into a hybrid / frankenstein. From the current INSTEON white paper we can see that on the powerline side INSTEON resembles X10. Particularly, the low signalling voltage (~5 volts) seems to be a key weakness. Whereas I believe UPB signals in the ~40 to 50 volt range, indeed UPB signals are so strong they often go all the way out to the transformer at the power pole & back again.
From the INSTEON white paper (PDF):
DaAwesomeP
Member
I've been using 9 or so SAI devices across multiple breakers and subpanels for several years now. I have a non-addressable/fully automatic repeater between the subpanel and main panel. The reliabilty issues are between select switches that I have set to control the load of each other. I've had lots of issues getting the SAI switches to fit in standard US boxes with wires behind them. I've had jamming/spring issues with the single-rocker plates.globramma said:
I agree, but things have gotten much better since I installed my UPB stuff. Sadly such solutions are drying up.globramma said:
If the problems are reproducible & stable that is encouraging & probably points toward a problem with a specific wire path, i.e. maybe too many branches causing reflections, or a bad / old splice somewhere. Might be worth pulling the affected devices & putting them on a test bench w/ a short run of clean wire. If the problem goes away, there you go, time for new wiring.
I agree that the switches are bulky & a tight fit in standard boxes. Since I've been replacing knob&tube anyway (with 1940's era boxes) I've cut open the walls, at a minimum I install a 2-gang deep box which allows plenty of space. So far no issues with springs / jamming, admittedly these are young switches & haven't gotten more than 1000 cycles on any of them. I wonder if your physical switch problems may be related to cramming the switches into tight boxes. It may be that even a fraction of a millimeter of torsional strain on the outside metal case messes up the pivot / spring on the rocker.
DaAwesomeP
Member
If that's the solution, then I honestly don't even want to know.globramma said:
I think both of those reasons are causing the problems. I have some nice Leviton square-edged mount-and-snap-on cover plates that sort of get in the way and sit forward a little. The switches are hard to keep straight because of all of the wires and nuts crammed in behind.globramma said:
DaAwesomeP said:
Well, with due respect it seems like the flakiness could be legitimately in your house wiring, not in the UPB devices. I only mention that to balance the supposition that the problem is UPB itself, or a particular vendor's hardware implementation. So that others who may consider it don't take a wrong impression. No I'm not invested in UPB in any way, other than being an end-user who would like to see the technology continue.
DaAwesomeP said:
It's quite a few hours of messing around & dust, etc. to open up a wall & replace a box but I've found it's worth it in the long run. If you are invested in the property for a 5+ year timeframe. Not always possible of course.
globramma said:
Yes, Insteon is loosely based on X10, but with its deficiencies corrected. SmartHome added repeating, acknowledgements, and yes RF to improve reliability (and also enable the use of battery-powered RF-only devices, as well as some other devices like a 2-wire dimmer). I currently use it across 3 panels (main + 2 subs) and I can tell you I have NEVER had a comm problem. Only issue I have ever had was an outdoor plug-in module that I use for Xmas lights that seems to have killed a GFCI outlet. I replaced the outlet and have never had a problem since.
There's only two other major issues that I'm aware of with Insteon, the "all-on" issue which seems to be caused by the use of battery-powered Insteon motion detectors, and the use of crappy capacitors in the PLM module which makes it fail around the 2 year mark (which I believe has recently been corrected, but is also a relatively easy repair for anyone handy with a soldering iron). The build quality and feel of the Insteon switches/dimmers and the KPLs far exceeds many of the Z-Wave based solutions out there (I can't speak for UPB or RadioRA2)
I'd like to see you using an RF-only technology up here in Canada where 99% of construction (new and old) uses metal electrical boxes...
I've had 7 SAI switches and 1 HAI switch installed for many years. No reliability problems once an SAI passive coupler was installed. One switch failure over about 10 years. Never had a switch jam and never have to retry to get the switch to work. House was built in 2002. Lots of noise across the two legs in the panel (powerline Ethernet won't work) but the coupler solved that problem. As mentioned, they are a tight fit in the box which was a PITA when installing.
I love my UPB switches but will be replacing them at some point as they are not well-supported in the HA ecosystems that look to dominate going forward (Apple Homekit, Samsung SmartThings, Google Home, Amazon Echo). My UPB switches and HAI Omni have served me well but I think they belong to a fading era. People have built great DIY HA systems using them and I think a certain class of hobbyist will continue to do amazing stuff with them for many years to come but they are not going to be a mainstream consumer solution unless somebody releases a UPB hub with support for the emerging ecosystems.
I've had one Lutron dimmer installed for a couple of months that seems to be working well with HomeKit so that's what I'd use if I was going to add a switch today but mostly I'm just waiting on new options to appear.
I love my UPB switches but will be replacing them at some point as they are not well-supported in the HA ecosystems that look to dominate going forward (Apple Homekit, Samsung SmartThings, Google Home, Amazon Echo). My UPB switches and HAI Omni have served me well but I think they belong to a fading era. People have built great DIY HA systems using them and I think a certain class of hobbyist will continue to do amazing stuff with them for many years to come but they are not going to be a mainstream consumer solution unless somebody releases a UPB hub with support for the emerging ecosystems.
I've had one Lutron dimmer installed for a couple of months that seems to be working well with HomeKit so that's what I'd use if I was going to add a switch today but mostly I'm just waiting on new options to appear.
I have 31 Simply Automated (SA) UPB devices controlled by CQC (Charmed Quark Controller) Our home is 40+ years old, roughly 2500 square feet and has a 200amp electrical panel with a SA UPB phase coupler at the panel. I have been extremely pleased with the reliability of the SA devices (high WAF), started installing about 7 years ago replacing the X10 that I had prior. I only had 2 device failures and those were due to an indirect lightning strike behind my home last fall, lost the UPB PLM and an I/O device.
The beauty of the SA UPB devices (speaking only to SA as that is what I have) is that each device is a mini PLC unto itself and has capability to do things without any external hub or software for control. So once we get past sorting out any line noise issues (no different than getting Zwave or any of the other wireless or powerline protocols to work, each has their own unique set of challenges) UPB presents itself as a very robust self contained lighting (and device) control system. For example, one can program a switch to only come on at 50% load and have a timer set to automatically turn off at a preset delay. That same switch can be programmed to accept a double tap to turn it on at 100%. We have a his and hers walk in closets, I have a UPB I/O device with door sensors for each door, when the door is opened the I/O device turns on the light, if the door is not closed the light goes out automatically after 30 minutes otherwise it is turned off when the door is closed. I have multiple outdoor lights that can be controlled individually or all turned on by a single scene command. Scene commands are programmed into the UPB devices. My wife and I each have an 8 button mini controller on our night stands to control the bedroom lights as well as an All lights On / Off button that controls all lighting in the house (emergency situation or an easy all off
) None of these functions require a hub or other software to cause the examples above to occur. I've have 99.95% reliability (only hardwired control is 100% reliable) with no external dependencies.
My next UPB project is to hook up an UPB I/O device to my home theater receiver's trigger output to turn on/off the room's sub woofers. This also won't require anything else other than the I/O device and a UPB appliance module.
UPB, Zwave, and Insteon all require that there be both a hot and a neutral wire in the gang box as it requires constant power to work.
The beauty of the SA UPB devices (speaking only to SA as that is what I have) is that each device is a mini PLC unto itself and has capability to do things without any external hub or software for control. So once we get past sorting out any line noise issues (no different than getting Zwave or any of the other wireless or powerline protocols to work, each has their own unique set of challenges) UPB presents itself as a very robust self contained lighting (and device) control system. For example, one can program a switch to only come on at 50% load and have a timer set to automatically turn off at a preset delay. That same switch can be programmed to accept a double tap to turn it on at 100%. We have a his and hers walk in closets, I have a UPB I/O device with door sensors for each door, when the door is opened the I/O device turns on the light, if the door is not closed the light goes out automatically after 30 minutes otherwise it is turned off when the door is closed. I have multiple outdoor lights that can be controlled individually or all turned on by a single scene command. Scene commands are programmed into the UPB devices. My wife and I each have an 8 button mini controller on our night stands to control the bedroom lights as well as an All lights On / Off button that controls all lighting in the house (emergency situation or an easy all off
) None of these functions require a hub or other software to cause the examples above to occur. I've have 99.95% reliability (only hardwired control is 100% reliable) with no external dependencies.My next UPB project is to hook up an UPB I/O device to my home theater receiver's trigger output to turn on/off the room's sub woofers. This also won't require anything else other than the I/O device and a UPB appliance module.
UPB, Zwave, and Insteon all require that there be both a hot and a neutral wire in the gang box as it requires constant power to work.
fcwilt
Active Member
DaAwesomeP said:
PCS is still actively promoting UPB and new devices are being advertised.
As to the sticking I found it to be related to the profile of the pins on the rocker. I shaved the pins down a bit being sure to remove the little "step" and the problem went away.
Frederick
Thanks @tannebil and @batwater for reporting on your setups and experiences over long periods in some detail. I'm encouraged that I've chosen UPB, and SAI as a vendor, for my power-line control needs. More thoughts follow.
Like X10 before it, I agree that UPB (and many other proprietary protocols across the HA space) is a niche product. HA itself is still a niche market within the total houseing/consumer market. Huge swaths of apartment dwellers & renters can't or don't invest in hardware upgrades for a home. As I see it there is little future in totally-wireless HA solutions, wireless is OK for *some* purposes *some* of the time but some features need copper to work reliably. Aside from ever-increasing RFI there is just the battery-power problem; the more devices one has the more frequent one will be hunting down & replacing batteries.
Though AmazonEcho, HomeKit, SmartThings, etc. are making inroads HA is still pretty immature. A lot of basic problems in the HA space are still "hard" and not yet solved. For example, presence detection alone, aside from all other data inputs -- not easy to implement with "5-nines" reliability. A "smart" home should not have to be told whether anyone is at home or not. But answering this question with 99.999% reliability, without any active input from a human being, isn't yet possible to do, not affordably.
For HA to really take off it needs become as ubiquitous and reliable as POTS (telephone) once was. One can buy an occupancy sensor for a room -- OK, maybe it's even a fancy dual-mode IR + microwave type unit that is 99% reliable. But by itself it is still not good enough to give an authoritative answer on whether someone is in a room. Say, for life-safety or security purposes. Would you trust an occupancy sensor alone to decide whether to arm an alarm system? What if someone is sleeping, what if the covers are thick & don't move. OK put strain gauges on the bed to see if someone's in bed. That'll work but it's not an off-the-shelf solution at all.
As a "hacker" type I'm definitely 2 standard deviations outside the mean, even within the HA space. I realized that to get what I want in the long run I -- a huge degree of interoperability & flexibility, as well as reliability and security -- I need to do it myself. In my case using OpenHAB. I looked at SmartThings and at MiCasaVerde & concluded that it is a bad joke to try to troubleshoot someone else's closed and often poor-quality firmware.
I think part of the future of HA may lie in highly advanced combined sensors with appropriate & configurable AI built into them. E.g. I would pay $200 or $300 for a single box the size of a tennis ball with a camera, mic, IR motion + microwave motion, + temperature + humidity + sizable CPU & firmware in it. That could be configured in multiple simultaneous "modes" for sensor feedback. E.g. the "occupancy sensor" mode would use AI routines to cross-verify sensor data before deciding whether someone was present. Was that motion a person or just a curtain blowing? The AI looks at the camera feed & detects not just motion in the frame but image-processes to see whether the object could conceivably be shaped like a human. To do this with 99.999% reliability outside of a laboratory setting is not an easy problem.
-----
Back to UPB and powerline control specifically, I think it is a particularly hard niche to be in because there's not *all that much* one can do with 120VAC power. It's not as "sexy" as Z-wave door locks & Amazon Echo. UPB does ON, OFF, DIM, TIMER, & grouped "scenes". By themselves these are useful, but not really a "killer app". And developing the reliable hardware to make them work is a lot harder than many low-voltage or wireless-only protocols. The 120V home wiring is inherently high-power and often full of potentially brutal noise, i.e. motor brush commutators, gigantic pulses from compressor cycling, continuous chop from fluorescent ballasts, etc. So at the engineering level it's hard to begin with, and it's made harder still by much stiffer (as they should be) regulatory requirements and certifications, everything needed to ensure that a UPB device won't shock a user, short out entirely, or cause a building fire.
I'd never have considered buying $80 to $130 light switch replacements for the stand-alone features of UPB. But integrated with a larger HA (OpenHAB as I mentioned,) the case becomes compelling. When I can have my UPB lights go on / off / dim not just on a timer, but according to whether I am at home, what season it is, and whether it's cloudy outside or not, that brings my lighting closer to a seamless integration with the way I live. Aside from lighting of course there is integration with any conceivable 120V device, e.g. HVAC equipment, pumps, etc. To be able to control it all with very high reliability, safely, *and* without having to run separate, cost-prohibitive and often physically-vulnerable low-voltage communication cable runs makes UPB compelling.
I want my HA system to be as reliable as my hot & cold running water and mechanical door locks are. I don't often think about those technologies, they "just work" because they have been engineered with high reliability to as a design criterion. I think a carefully-thought-out HA system that does not rely on cloud services, or even an internet connection, that has no wireless in any critical communications path, and that is built on reliable hardware can approach the "hands off" performance I seek.
Like X10 before it, I agree that UPB (and many other proprietary protocols across the HA space) is a niche product. HA itself is still a niche market within the total houseing/consumer market. Huge swaths of apartment dwellers & renters can't or don't invest in hardware upgrades for a home. As I see it there is little future in totally-wireless HA solutions, wireless is OK for *some* purposes *some* of the time but some features need copper to work reliably. Aside from ever-increasing RFI there is just the battery-power problem; the more devices one has the more frequent one will be hunting down & replacing batteries.
Though AmazonEcho, HomeKit, SmartThings, etc. are making inroads HA is still pretty immature. A lot of basic problems in the HA space are still "hard" and not yet solved. For example, presence detection alone, aside from all other data inputs -- not easy to implement with "5-nines" reliability. A "smart" home should not have to be told whether anyone is at home or not. But answering this question with 99.999% reliability, without any active input from a human being, isn't yet possible to do, not affordably.
For HA to really take off it needs become as ubiquitous and reliable as POTS (telephone) once was. One can buy an occupancy sensor for a room -- OK, maybe it's even a fancy dual-mode IR + microwave type unit that is 99% reliable. But by itself it is still not good enough to give an authoritative answer on whether someone is in a room. Say, for life-safety or security purposes. Would you trust an occupancy sensor alone to decide whether to arm an alarm system? What if someone is sleeping, what if the covers are thick & don't move. OK put strain gauges on the bed to see if someone's in bed. That'll work but it's not an off-the-shelf solution at all.
As a "hacker" type I'm definitely 2 standard deviations outside the mean, even within the HA space. I realized that to get what I want in the long run I -- a huge degree of interoperability & flexibility, as well as reliability and security -- I need to do it myself. In my case using OpenHAB. I looked at SmartThings and at MiCasaVerde & concluded that it is a bad joke to try to troubleshoot someone else's closed and often poor-quality firmware.
I think part of the future of HA may lie in highly advanced combined sensors with appropriate & configurable AI built into them. E.g. I would pay $200 or $300 for a single box the size of a tennis ball with a camera, mic, IR motion + microwave motion, + temperature + humidity + sizable CPU & firmware in it. That could be configured in multiple simultaneous "modes" for sensor feedback. E.g. the "occupancy sensor" mode would use AI routines to cross-verify sensor data before deciding whether someone was present. Was that motion a person or just a curtain blowing? The AI looks at the camera feed & detects not just motion in the frame but image-processes to see whether the object could conceivably be shaped like a human. To do this with 99.999% reliability outside of a laboratory setting is not an easy problem.
-----
Back to UPB and powerline control specifically, I think it is a particularly hard niche to be in because there's not *all that much* one can do with 120VAC power. It's not as "sexy" as Z-wave door locks & Amazon Echo. UPB does ON, OFF, DIM, TIMER, & grouped "scenes". By themselves these are useful, but not really a "killer app". And developing the reliable hardware to make them work is a lot harder than many low-voltage or wireless-only protocols. The 120V home wiring is inherently high-power and often full of potentially brutal noise, i.e. motor brush commutators, gigantic pulses from compressor cycling, continuous chop from fluorescent ballasts, etc. So at the engineering level it's hard to begin with, and it's made harder still by much stiffer (as they should be) regulatory requirements and certifications, everything needed to ensure that a UPB device won't shock a user, short out entirely, or cause a building fire.
I'd never have considered buying $80 to $130 light switch replacements for the stand-alone features of UPB. But integrated with a larger HA (OpenHAB as I mentioned,) the case becomes compelling. When I can have my UPB lights go on / off / dim not just on a timer, but according to whether I am at home, what season it is, and whether it's cloudy outside or not, that brings my lighting closer to a seamless integration with the way I live. Aside from lighting of course there is integration with any conceivable 120V device, e.g. HVAC equipment, pumps, etc. To be able to control it all with very high reliability, safely, *and* without having to run separate, cost-prohibitive and often physically-vulnerable low-voltage communication cable runs makes UPB compelling.
I want my HA system to be as reliable as my hot & cold running water and mechanical door locks are. I don't often think about those technologies, they "just work" because they have been engineered with high reliability to as a design criterion. I think a carefully-thought-out HA system that does not rely on cloud services, or even an internet connection, that has no wireless in any critical communications path, and that is built on reliable hardware can approach the "hands off" performance I seek.
This! I get robust basic dial tone level of reliability but can also automate as you describe. CQC in my case is the automation Mortar to the device control Bricks that I've built my HA house on. The automation software is the translation layer that bridges between the disparate device control platforms.globramma said:
The above is why I switched from Logitech Media Server and software based Squeezebox players ( a Frankenstein setup to be certain) to Sonos for whole house audio, it just works, period.
Geeze, can't really use the dial tone metaphor anymore as my house phone is VoIP via Astrix on a Raspberry Pi so is actually less reliable than UPB but I tolerate because it serves a purpose and is very cost effective. I like the running water one although we just had a boil water alert due to a power failure at a water treatment plant. Okay how about as reliable as the sun rising every morning, yeah that's it, because if it doesn't none of this matters...
