Re: [mh] Insteon Branch

[Eloy P. <pe...@ch...>]

Hi Troy,

On 01/24/2011 11:26 AM, Troy Carpenter wrote:

> Ok, my fault for not paying attention…lots of travel and other reasons.
>
> I’ve gone back through my emails and filtered on “Insteon Branch”, but I
> can’t find any intro post on how to use the branch, and why I would
> need/want to switch to it.
>
> I have an Insteon PLM, but no Insteon devices…Instead I have a house
> full of older X10 Switchlincs and a few other X10 devices (including a
> W800 for X10 motion sensors). Some of my older Switchlincs are starting
> to fail, so I’m thinking of replacing them with newer Intsteon models.
>
> It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the system. The web page is
> reporting 2.105 (no SVN revision number, so I guess the last svn update
> I did was to the 105 release). I just did an update to my source
> directory (different than my install directory), which is on trunk, and
> it says it downloaded revision 1820. I have not merged that into my
> install directory yet.
>
> So, if someone could please give me a quick rundown on why I should use
> Insteon branch and how, that would be greatly appreciated. The Wiki
> doesn’t seem to have any information on the Insteon Branch…unless I
> missed that too.

I can offer my (limited) perspective...

I started running MisterHouse for the first time back in July of last 
year after I purchased about a dozen INSTEON switches and a couple of 
INSTEON motion sensors. Following the instructions in the wiki I didn't 
install the last official release (2.105) but SVN trunk, which was the 
recommended code to use for INSTEON.

Everything ran relatively well, but since there was a rewrite of the MH 
INSTEON stack underway by Gregg Liming, any bug found in the INSTEON 
stack in trunk had a slim chance of getting fixed. In addition, there 
was little point in learning (from a programming point of view) the old 
stack because it is going to go away at some point in the future.

For these reasons, and to try to help with the new code by testing and 
reporting problems, I decided to switch from trunk to the "insteon" branch.

I have extremely happy with the "insteon" branch. Everything that I need 
to work seems to be working flawlessly. Also, Gregg is very on top of 
the code in this branch and has been a machine coding things up and 
fixing bugs when somebody reports them. It is also obvious that he has 
put a lot of thought into the design of the new stack.

I don't know that there is any advantage in running this branch for 
someone that does not have INSTEON devices, though. As I understand it, 
the X10 stuff is unchanged, but I may be wrong.

In terms of documentation, there isn't a lot written. Part of the reason 
I think is that the existing wiki pages that document things for the 
INSTEON code in the trunk still apply, for the most part, to the new 
INSTEON code. .mht items do need to be migrated to a new syntax, which 
is explained here:

http://misterhouse.wikispaces.com/Insteon+Redux

Lately I have seen a few people make the switch to the "insteon" branch, 
so I guess more and more people are migrating to it, which is a good thing.

Cheers,

Eloy Paris.-