All Apple All Day

We're just getting started with an Insteon home automation system. There are a few light switches in our house that I'd like to be able to control remotely (for example, our outdoor lights are accessible only from the garage), and there are others that I'd like to be able to control in tandem - for instance, setting "scenes" in our living room, dimming certain lights and turning others off when we watch a movie.  Just recently, however, Belkin announced some additions to their WeMo system - including light switches - that may make the system a plausible alternative to Insteon. Let's compare and contrast.

Who says we can't multitask? On to Project 3!  We made a return trip to Best Buy, and learned the prices had essentially doubled on most of their SmartHome Insteon products. ( I must have happened across a huge sale last time - and I have before/after photos of the pricing to prove I wasn't imagining things !) Anyway, I'm sure we'll be picking up most of this stuff at BBY, but in the meantime, it's off to eBay, where I picked up a 2414 SmartLinc central controller (retail $99) for $22. This will allow us to control all connected Insteon switches with an iOS device - which was the entire point of this enterprise from the start. The dimmer switches will be a bit more expensive, at $40-50 each, retail - and our home theater room alone is going to require 4. And a couple of LampLincs to make sure our table lamps get with the program. Back to eBay! We're also going to need (want) a KeyPadLinc in order to control "scenes" - i.e., "all

We don't own a videogame system. We do, however, own a 6-year-old who WISHES we owned a videogame system. So, every so often, he and I go to Best Buy to try out some games on Kinect or Move, and to look at electronics. Tonight, the little guy needed a break from his packed-away house, so inbetween Star Wars Kinect sessions at BBY, we noticed a large in-store display for home automation products, among which were Smarthome's Insteon line, which were running full "Lutron RadioRA2" style lighting control (granted, with a little less style ) from an iPad. With a central controller costing $99, keypads at $49, and dimmer switches at $29. I don't think I could have been more sold. It was, essentially, what I'd been looking for in a pro-install system, but designed to be added to existing homes, and controllable via iOS. And keypads, for full "scene" control! This is absolutely essential to Project 1 - overhead lights fade out, front-wall sconce