Insteon: Smarthomes For Everyone: The Do-It-Yourself Home Automation Technology
by Matthew Strebe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Matthew StrebeBrand: SmartLabs
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-02
ISBN: 1440133433
Number of pages: 324
Publisher: iUniverse
Product features:
- Step-by-step instructions on how to install and setup an INSTEON home automation network
- Learn how to link various devices to create custom scenes with lighting and appliances
- Use INSTEON products readily available from Smarthome
Book Reviews of Insteon: Smarthomes For Everyone: The Do-It-Yourself Home Automation Technology
Book Review: Five stars for the book--one for the publisher--AMENDED
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a great book. The author is obviously very enthusiastic about this technology and its application, which makes for a pretty engaging read. As a fellow technologist, I particularly enjoyed the fact that he went into the theory behind how not only INSTEON but other competing home automation systems work and why INSTEON is a superior, less expensive, more reliable protocol than competitors. He takes you through the basics of electrical wiring and working with electric through planning your system, ideas for use cases, installation, and a fairly comprehensive (as of the writing) list of available categories of devices, as well as touching on lessons he learned from using INSTEON in his own home.
While the subject matter was very good, the execution was terrible--an outcome I blame solely on the publisher. They actually used gray (dithered) type instead of pure black, screen shots were too blurry to be recognizable until the last chapter, and there were far too many unforgivable spelling and grammatical mistakes (e.g. your vs. you're, etc.). I mean come on people, you're based in a big ten college town. I'm pretty sure you could hire some English major to edit your books for minimum wage. It was extremely distracting and disappointing--so much so that I will probably try to avoid this publisher in the future.
So, to sum it up: I would definitely recommend this book as an introduction if you are considering installing INSTEON or are even just interested in learning about how it works. You'll gain enough of an idea of what's possible to begin deciding how you want to accomplish automation tasks in your home and have a game plan for getting started, although if you're anything like me, you may wince a little while reading.
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