I’m using this page as a source for my information. When I’ve searched for anything related to Home Assistant and Insteon, I find links going back to that page. It’s like it’s the one source for info on the subject.
I bought an Insteon 2448A7 USB stick because the page said it was supported by HA. I thought, since it worked with HA, if I plugged it in, HA would see it and send me a message that it had discovered new integrations or devices. That didn’t happen.
I tried adding the Insteon integration. It asks for an IP address and other information for a hub and I don’t have it - that also indicates to me that this device is not considered a hub and that it’s the wrong thing to add. I’ve looked down the page even more and there are examples of other devices (but not this one) in configuration.yaml, but they require a USB path - which I don’t know for this device.
When I search for how to start the discovery process with HA, I find “How to add a device,” and that leads me, with 2 steps, back to the page I linked to above.
So how do I install this device so I can control Insteon devices with HA?
I received help on this directly from Tom Harris, who works with the Insteon integration for HA.
The 2248A7 is considered a PLM, so treat it as such. On the web interface, go to Supervisor and select the “System” tab at the top. Under the “Host” panel there’s a menu in the lower right that shows hardware info.
Here’s the result:
In this example, the Insteon controller is at ttyUSB2. When adding Insteon as an integration, pick “PLM” and, in this case, the USB address will be: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI-FT232R_USB_UART_A900EWXY-if00-port0.
Adding a note from my own experience on a Pi system using RetroPie: USB numbers can change if you change the USB plug a device is connected to. Using the longer address under /dev/serial/by-id takes you to the device directly, instead of looking through USB numbers.
From there, installation was easy. I don’t remember what else it was asking, but it was easy to get it to work out from there and my USB Insteon stick was connected.
(However, once I got it, and added a device, I was not getting any communication - still trying to work that out.)
Trying to help a friend setup HA with his Insteon devices. Using the 2448A7 USB device. I added the Insteon add-on integration. The USB stick shows up as 1 device. When I plug in a On/Off Outdoor Module next to the machine nothing is discovered. It is my understanding is that it would show up and ask me if I wanted to add. Since it didn’t I manually added it thru the Insteon Configuration button. Now the entity is there but will not control the module. I also went to the Developers Tools and the Insteon entity is not there. I’m lost on how to get the module discovered.
I’m on version 2021.12.1 of HA
I’m still sketchy on a lot of how to add Insteon devices - not at all sure how to troubleshoot it if something goes wrong. But one thing I have found is that devices do not just show up. In another thread I go over what I’ve been told and what has been working for me. But I have not seen anything discovered unless I use something like the procedure on that other thread.