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Thread: HPM icontrol help

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    Unhappy HPM icontrol help

    I have moved into my home about three years ago and the icontrol system by HPM is making my life a misery. I have a support person and have paid about $4000 to have it fixed without success. My system turns fans, lights and house alarm on at night. It sends numerous messages to my alarm people with panic button alert. Thus far both power packs have been replaced. After power pack replacement the system ran without a glitch for 2 months then back to the misery. The panels will also beep. Has anyone else had these problems? We do not know what to do to rectify this system? We have thought about rewiring the whole house with normal lighting which is expensive? Can we upgrade to another system. I realise that icontrol is no longer supported by HPM what are those with it in there homes supposed to do

    Advice please we are desperate and at the mercy of this system.



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    i'm not an electrician , but i wonder if the system could be converted to something like C Bus ?

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    A good way to get fast help would probably be to post in the Security Alarms section...not Automotive Technology

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruby27 View Post
    I have moved into my home about three years ago and the icontrol system by HPM is making my life a misery. I have a support person and have paid about $4000 to have it fixed without success. My system turns fans, lights and house alarm on at night. It sends numerous messages to my alarm people with panic button alert. Thus far both power packs have been replaced. After power pack replacement the system ran without a glitch for 2 months then back to the misery. The panels will also beep. Has anyone else had these problems? We do not know what to do to rectify this system? We have thought about rewiring the whole house with normal lighting which is expensive? Can we upgrade to another system. I realise that icontrol is no longer supported by HPM what are those with it in there homes supposed to do

    Advice please we are desperate and at the mercy of this system.
    I feel for you mate.... I hate it when the Electrical Reps come out and push Home Automation on us as Trades people.... Then you hear as in your post, that HPM have walked away from this product.

    Infact, HPM is now Legrand.

    Personally, i'm in 2 minds about Home Automation... really depends how far you want to go with it. If its just light control, then it has a place, but honestly, how many different ways do you need to turn a light on??? The old rocker switch works just fine.

    OK... in your situation, i would firstly see what HPM would do for you (maybe there will swap unit for unit until your issues are solved?? Then you only pay for the unit that fixed the problem)
    Second: Price up replacing all the HPM gear
    Third: Price up the cost of installing Dynalite (Philips) or Cbus to your existing wiring.

    I'm even not sure how icontrol is even wired.

    This is a classic example of architects and suppliers pushing untested products.
    Every client i know that has owned or Installed Home Automation, never wants to do it again.

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanboy View Post
    but honestly, how many different ways do you need to turn a light on??? The old rocker switch works just fine.

    Every client i know that has owned or Installed Home Automation, never wants to do it again.
    Well said

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    Its in the same vein as those Smart Remote Controls like the Pronto units.
    You pay between $1200 and $1600 for a remote control that will fail with in a year.
    And is so hard for the end user to reprogram or understand, that they just revert back to the OME remotes that came with their products.

    I hope you find an answer Ruby27... i'm not sure where you live, but i am pretty friendly with a Legrand/HPM Rep, PM me if you'd like his details.

    Interesting that your replacement power packs fixed the problem for a while......
    I guess you will be looking down this route. Perhaps there are after market power supplies that meet the same specs but have a better rating or are built from better components???
    I should imagine that anything to do with the power packs will be the cheapest option....
    As replacing the system will not be cheap... But might be necessary
    Last edited by ol' boy; 18-09-12 at 09:54 AM.

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    Thanks to those that have replied. The HPM rep is the person who services my system. Couldn't meet a nicer person but our family cannot continue to live at the mercy of this system-its automated alright working to its own program. I couldn't begin to describe how I loathe it. We have had an electrician over who thinks its too hard to rewire for normal lights due to solid construction of our house.

    Has anyone changed systems successfully???

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    The problem you have with the I control is the bus cable which is a figure 8 cable. Where every other system on the market uses a cat 5 cable as the bus between all the devices HPM in their wisdom decided a figure 8 bus was the way to go. I in the past had the pleasure of installing the HPM Oscar and while it was a steady reliable system I felt sorry for the customer as I knew that this system would have a limited life span.Had the system been designed with a cat 5 bus you would not have a problem in upgrading to Cbus or an equivalent Legrand system. If some one can set you up with another functional system utilising that Fig 8 bus please share!

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    That was my fear Secure-T
    I had only been familiar with Oscar, which i knew was Fig 8.
    I wasn't sure about Icontrol... Mmmm what a mess.

    I have no idea what i'd suggest. You are really going to have to do some research on different Home Automation Systems...

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    Default Integration of HPM's Icontrol

    Hi James, I saw you had a post regarding HPM's iControl. We have this at my house and I recently saw a house that had the lighting system linked into the RTI system. I also have a Control 4 system. So I was wondering what sort of integration you have done as the iControl is a good system but as it is a little limited at the house.

    Regards Wayne

    Quote Originally Posted by AutomationSpecialist View Post
    Hi

    I know this is an older post from 2012 however I could not see if you had resolved your issue.

    My company is a specialist in updating older lighting systems and maintaining ones that seem to be useless.

    Are you still in the house and require assistance?

    Also HPM is still being manufactured and is quite serviceable so if you need any assistance let me know and is if it is worth your while.

    James

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruby27 View Post
    I have moved into my home about three years ago and the icontrol system by HPM is making my life a misery. I have a support person and have paid about $4000 to have it fixed without success. My system turns fans, lights and house alarm on at night. It sends numerous messages to my alarm people with panic button alert. Thus far both power packs have been replaced. After power pack replacement the system ran without a glitch for 2 months then back to the misery. The panels will also beep. Has anyone else had these problems? We do not know what to do to rectify this system? We have thought about rewiring the whole house with normal lighting which is expensive? Can we upgrade to another system. I realise that icontrol is no longer supported by HPM what are those with it in there homes supposed to do

    Advice please we are desperate and at the mercy of this system.
    Hi just saw your post and if you are still having issues I might be able to help.

    There was an issue with Icontrol power supplies that could cause the system to become unstable. The issue was due to supply brown outs. I have come across a few installs where the main 240v was measured to be less than 215v or less, this means that the 22VDC supply was too low and caused the system to lockup and operate as you indicated. These issues were mainly at dinnertime when stoves were being used and also if there were large air conditioners running. Most times complaints to the power company resulted in them changing transformer taps (by law they have to supply power within a certain range).
    If no luck then I have skirted problem by using a true on line battery backup as these units run all the time and keep supply regulated. A normal battery backup could work but the 3 -5 cycle changeover time can also cause issues.
    The Icontrol is a good system and normally is very reliable. Where I live I look after 200 installed systems and if I had to rely on them to make a living I would be in deep trouble.

    If you really want to change it is possible to use the same cable and replace the switches and the switch modules by a system called KNX, it uses the same cable. Very easy changeover. I would suggest this system as it is open source and is manufactured world wide. There are over 130 different manufacturers and all work together on the same bus.

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    Smile iControl support

    Ammoy, great to see somebody at last supporting how good the iControl iBAS system is/was. My system has been operating trouble free for 11yrs....but!!

    My only regret is installing a system where you did not get a copy of the operating software from day one....never again. In fact I wouldn't have installed the system if I had known this at the time.

    My problem was the installer had my system records stored on his laptop....guess what? yes the laptop was lost, failed whatever. I found this out a year or two later when wanting to make some tweaks to the system, as that was something else that wasn't really explained to the purchaser that you really need to live with the initial settings for a few months before fine tuning and alterations.

    Long story short, I managed to get a copy of the software a few years ago which I've installed but have never bothered to access the system and make the changes I thought so important back then...but now I've the urge to do just that but find I'm missing the serial inter-connect cable (D9-RJ45). By chance do you or any reader have the pin-out for this cable as the last thing I want to do is run into problems and start questioning is it a comms error due to wiring or "fat" fingers etc. I'm guessing the software will be a bit of a pig anyway so really want to eliminate question marks over cabling.
    Thanks

    BriB

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