Controlling your Outdoor Lights from Indoors

Since we are now controlling our outdoor lights with Insteon, you can use any Insteon controller to turn your outdoor lights on and off. Where Insteon really shines is in its automatic dusk and dawn timers. Using a PLC (PowerLinc controller) you can setup some timers that will fire automatically in the evening when it is getting dark, and again in the morning when it is getting light. This means that you no longer have to spin the little mechanical timer to adjust it for the changing seasons.

You need to set some timers in your PLC to make the outdoor lights turn on and off. There are currently 3 different ways you can set timers in your PLC.

• SmartHome Timer Essentials is free software written by folks at SmartHome. It is great for occasional timer configuration changes.
• InHomeFree was written to be an alternative to Timer Essentials. It is a good replacement and is used by many people on the Net.
• Insteon Timer Configs is the only open source timer download software that we know of. If you are interested in taking even more control of your Insteon network, this open source project should help you get started.

Once you have your timers downloaded into your PLC, the PLC will continue to turn your lights on and off throughout the seasons at the right time every day. Your PC does not need to remain on for this work.

Need help with your outdoor lights or other Insteon problems? Head over to the forum and ask a question.