Help for Insteon "Generic General Controller"

When I started with Home Assistant a few years ago I was able to bring on a household full of Insteon devices with little trouble, and up to now every has run smoothly.

But recently on of my switch/dimmers died (it happens sometimes) and I replaced it with a one I’d never unboxed and tried to add it to HA as I have done many times before.

The device added fine and it was recognized as an Insteon device. But it came in as a “Generic General Controller” device instead of a SwitchLinc. And it’s completely useless…it’s missing the expected properties, won’t accept link database records and sends no events to HA.

I tried another never unboxed switch and the exact same thing happened.

I have no idea what is going on with this. Help?

I figured it out, thanks to this post by @teharris1

In it he suggests trying to link the switch and the modem manually. I tried that but I didn’t realize that the modem needs to be in pairing mode first.

So for future generations, here is the process to enroll a “Generic General Controller” device into Home Assistant:

  1. delete the device from both HA and modem
  2. first put the modem into pairing mode
  3. then put the device into pairing mode
  4. re-enroll the device to HA
    (I did a few reboots as well but it may not have been necessary)

Arasmus and forum group:
I got your address from recently joining the HA forum. I'm hoping that you have some answers to my questions regarding integration of insteon systems and home assistant.
My current setup in a modest size home is Homeseer with many devices of differing flavors. These include Insteon, Z-wave, Zigbee, Phillips Hue (zigbee wwith its own modem), and old X10. The system is extensive with several insteon keybads, wall switches, modules (switch and dimmer0, and relay sensors (for outdoor light levels, and motion).
The entire system works flawlessly, and I'm only considering HA because of its extensive list of possible integrations (these are plugins for Homeseer), and flat panel displays for around the house. Also, the never-ending string of programmers with additions to HA (all the time).
My huge fear is moving my insteon devices into workable automations in HA.
Can you (or anyone provide a spot for me to look) provide me with some possibilities, difficulty in making this integration happen, and pit-falls (devices that won't work in HA, necessities of writing scripts, networking problems, etc. Also, startup issues with a power failure of HA and reboot.
I haven't seen a good list of steps necessary to begin this entire HA journey, and am fearful of a switchover from Homeseer to HA, Once I start the transition, there's no going back (all networks and device links are broken up into pieces.
Thaks very much for any help.
Best,
Peter Dawson
Portsmouth, NH

@Peter1269, my sense is that there are still a good number of users like myself using insteon in home assistant.

as a general assessment of the state of affairs: insteon mostly works in HA. it has a few rough edges and a few persistent warts/bugs. my sense is that there appears to have been a development push a few years ago, then progress dropped off i think around 2024 and since then there have been very few patches or improvements.

as to the topics you raise - each could be worthy of a long response: homeseer/home-assistant migration, insteon, z-wave, zigbee/hue, x10, automation/scripting, network problems, startup/shutdown issues, avoiding/managing power failures, etc.

at a meta level, i'll point out that you're posting on a stale thread (old and already marked as "solved") so you may not get as much response as you would opening up a new thread or better, multiple threads on each specific topic of interest. fyi, you've posted on a thread tagged with "insteon", though from your post it sounds like insteon is just one of a bunch of other brands/protocols you're using currently and may have questions about.

i wish you best of luck. i myself migrated about 3yrs ago to home assistant and i already had a lot of the same hardware as you (insteon, z-wave, zigbee, hue, ....). i'd be happy to help or share experiences, but i think you need to narrow down the topic to get real benefits from replies.

DDuff617,
I can't thank you enough for your (quick) response to my extensive list of query's. I'm also of a mind that there is / are no good answers to my long list of questions (with possible) pittfalls (confusion, lack of immediate help, frustration, wife screaming at me to return to Homeseer, etc).
With Homeseer, the forum has specific experts that only handle one area. The Insteon guru sits by his PC, and answers endless problems with his own "plugin."
I (again) can't thank you enough for your help, and I (if I) make the really significant transition, I will (try not to) bug you constantly. When first installing HA, it looks like it scans the entire house for installed devices, and makes a stab at identifying and integrating them to the HA platform. This would be my currently installed stuff (zigbee, Hue, zwave, x10, and a bunch of insteon (of all flavors).
I haven't studied all the automation stuff yet, and have a book on the way to begin a long knowledge process. When making an initial HA install (if I do (but likely), all the lights (necessary to run the house) will need to be automated. Many of these lights don't even have wall switches, but are run solely by Homeseer.
I wish there was a way to connect / install HA and be able to jump back and forth to Homeseer to run the house while making this transition. That way, I could take months/years to complete this move (to HA). I'm really impressed with the thousands of programmers and DIY tinkerers that keep adding knowledge to HA. This is why I'm looking hard at this big project (I'm a Purdue EE and love challenges).
I'll check back soon for any inputs you have. One last immediate question: using the green module for HA, will it startup on its own if the power is interrupted? My homeseer "geekom" mini-pc does that. I'm not a script person, and am not sure (without study) how to link the software to a startup after a power loss.
Thanks again,
Peter Dawson
Portsmouth, NH

ok here are a few additional random thoughts that you may find useful:

first, i know what homeseer is, but have no direct experience with it whatsoever. so keep that in mind w.r.t. any further thoughts/advice.

i suspect there is a home-assistant plugin for homeseer. there is possibly a homeseer integration in home-assistant. you might be able to use one or both of these to allow you to keep some of your older gear (including e.g. insteon stuff) working in homeseer, where it is relatively well-supported but still able to communicate to some degree back and forth with home-assistant (for example to trigger automations and things like that). so that's something to consider. this could be a semi-permanent solution or it could be a "stop-gap" to allow you to make a more gradual transition as you ascend the learning curve in home-assistant. this would spare you of the need to learn/do "everything all at once" and can shift home-automation from being a fun hobby to feeling more of a stressful full-time job.

to warn you of a possible barrier of confusion: the "official" homeseer integration for home-assistant is to support homeseer-brand devices like switches and things, as opposed to creating a connection to the homeseer platform. you may have to use the home assistant community platform (aka HACS) to find a 3rd party integration that allows you to connect home assistant to a running homeseer instance.

this forum is one source of help/advice that you've obviously already found. so that's good. structuring/tagging/categorization of posts here is a bit messy and has its own learning curve, however the depth of knowledge and the good will of a huge user community can be a great asset. other things you should know about: individual parts and pieces of home assistant (such as integrations, and as a specific example, the insteon integration) have their own github repositories and those repositories have documentation, plus they typically have "issues" areas where bugs/problems can be reported and discussed. finally, there is a very active discord where you can get near-real-time communication with an active user community. again discord and the home-asstant discord presence there has its own learning curve.

i'll say just a bit more about the home-assistant situation with insteon support, particularly since you mentioned that within the homeseer community, there was a specific expert helping out with insteon questions. my understanding is that there is one dedicated "owner" of the insteon integration in home-assistant - no doubt this was an efficient structure for getting things done, particularly when the integration was first developed. for reasons unknown to me, i gather that he has mostly not been participating in development or in this forum for the last two years or so. i personally opened a group of issues in github for the insteon integration, only to get no reply for multiple months, then eventually have all of them essentially be auto-closed due to them (essentially) getting no response from the integration owner. so that's a bit more detail behind my earlier comment about there having been a show of great promise of quality support a couple of years ago, followed by (mostly) nothing. despite that, i would say overall that the overall quality of the insteon integration is pretty good. what's missing are details like some aspects of devices not working correctly, typically for secondary functions like heartbeats and battery reporting. that's also why i suggested that you consider just leaving your homeseer system working with all your existing insteon gear.

it doesn't take that much to get started running a home-assistant server, then you can add to it by making it capable of handling various devices and protocols. i started with a small raspberry pi server and it has proved more than adequate for my needs (even with a big house and large/diverse set of devices). so i'd consider maybe starting out small and getting your feet wet and then week by week you can add more devices and support to home assistant. that's what i did. starting with insteon, then soon after adding z-wave, then migrating hue devices, then acquiring other zigbee devices, etc.

ok so enough rambling comments from me on this closed thread.... best of luck.

I cannot thank you enough. I'm carefully digesting your (really helpful) response, and am more inclined to make this jump knowing that you're "out there" if something goes up in smoke. This may seem crazy, but my entire house virtually depends on homeseer to run the place every day.
I'll do some hard research, read the book I've ordered, and start this fun project. The more I delve into HA, the more I see what's possible after the system is up and running (and my understanding is at a level of fixxing issues). The list of ideas and products that can run on HA is infinite.
best,
Peter
95 degrees around here in NH

Again, thanks for all the "rambling." This is most valuable info. For me. Looking at your inputs, and reading a new "HA for beginners" book, I'm thinking about your ideas regarding getting my feet wet.
How about this string of events. It's long, but possibly a good way to get a HA system running over time.

  1. Get a green HA module to start, and set it up with an account, etc. to get it going. This is just the "simple platform” stage with no integrations yet.
  2. Unplug my Homeseer system. This is my first step getting into the new green box.
  3. Start by plugging a brand new 800 series Zwave stick (never been used) into the green box. My old 500 series zwave stays on the Homeseer box, as I want to graduate to an 800 series zwave LR (long range) mesh net using Home Assistant. Many of my existing Zwave switches and stuff are 800 capable, and no Zwave device holds any programming from the homeseer stick. Zwave devices do not hold any programming information. All current programming and mesh network information are held on the 500 series homeseer stick, and are still plugged into the existing Homeseer Geekom mini-pc.
  4. Integrate the new 800 series zwave stick using HA's integration process. HA may recognize some of my existing devices, but probably not. This integration process is unknown to me but I’m reading about it.
  5. Pair some (or all) of my Zwave switches to the new green HA box to start a device database inside the green box. No automations yet.
  6. My Homeseer system (complete) stays unplugged during all the playing I'm now into, but is still ready to re-take the house at any time by simply unplugging the green, switching the ethernet wire back to the geekom PC, and plugging the geekom back in. The house should keep running normally until I'm ready to resume playing with the green box building an entire HA system.
  7. I next integrate the existing homeseer Zigbee stick into my green box. This Zigbee stick is already running on the homeseer system, and probably has programming (links) to a mesh network already set up and held by homeseer. I'm not sure how this will work, as I don't want to corrupt this currently programmed Zigbee stick (it's a simple USB plug-in antenna to the geekom box). Keep in mind, the Zwave setup into HA is using and programming a brand-new 800 series stick, where the Zigbee integration will be using a currently programmed (Homseer) stick/antenna. I'm hoping that this Zigbee stick will maintain its link database to the limited list of Zigbee switches already in my house. Keep in mind, I can still run back to my existing Homeseer system while not playing with Home Assistant. This will allow my learning as I go with Home Assistant, and will take time.
  8. I haven't delved into my Homeseer insteon system yet (for fear of a nightmare). I have a thread going right now with the homeseer guru who wrote and updates an insteon plugin for Homeseer. He's told me that the existing PLM has links and a key to the homeseer insteon plugin. In other words, for the homeseer insteon system to run, it needs to be using the existing PLM (already running for years). I have an old PLM in a box, but it’s not been programmed by the Homeseer insteon plugin. I could probably program this PLM using HA if I need to completely rebuild my insteon network inside of HA, but this would probably take hours with hours of frustration. This would only happen if my current PLM becomes corrupt during this entire Homeseer to HA process.
  9. My biggest fear is that plugging this PLM into the green HA box, and trying to pull all current insteon devices through this PLM and setting up a new Home Assistant (insteon system) may somehow corrupt the PLM and make it unusable in the running Homeseer system. That would effectively crash the entire homeseer system and my house would be crippled until all links are redone inside home assistant.
  10. This multi step process is to allow my gradual (over time) setup of an entire fully running HA system inside my house. It will be a replacement (duplicate) of my existing Homeseer system at first and would take a million hours.
  11. The follow-on will be my ability to expand this new HA system into new integrations, and touch screen wall controllers that are unavailable in Homeeer. HA has hundreds of integrations possible that I'm only now looking at with enthusiasm.
  12. What do you think of this "gradual" learning curve allowing my going back to homeseer when not playing with HA? I'm sure that glitches will happen, but that's what tinkering is for. This is a lot for you to absorb, and I’m deeply grateful as I have no good source of information except for youtube and books. The Homeseer guru doesn’t have any experience with Home Assistant and simply says “good luck.” He has been very supportive over many years tho.
  13. Thanks very much, Peter

I haven't made the switch-over from an extensive Homeseer insteon network to HA, and am reading all info possible before I make this switch. From your description above, it looks like you had no problems until trying to install a new insteon device. I have lots of old (new in a box) insteon devices that I may want to incorporate into a new HA network. These are keypads, switches, etc.
How would I put the modem into "pariing" mode (once it's integrated into an HA network, and then import them into HA? Also, when you first imported your insteon system from HS to HA, did all the devices come across without glitches? In other words, did 6 button keypads work OK for new automations in HA? I'm still really afraid of this entire process of switching from HS to HA.
Thanks for any help

insteon is a bit quirky, as you are probably aware. then there are few additional quirks in terms of how the HA insteon integration works.

there are multiple types of devices you could be using a central controller including insteon PLM module (e.g. 2413U but there are a few other variants). or you could be using an insteon "hub". this is a mini computer/webserver with an integral powerline modem. you mentioned PLM in one of your posts above, so i'll assume you have something like a 2413U.

here are general roadmaps you could take:

plan a:
remove PLM device from homeseer. you can power-cycle it but do not reset it. connect it to your home-assistant server resulting in "all-at-once" migration.

home-assistant (and insteon integration) should auto-detect the presence of the modem, then will connect to it, then should autodetect your population of insteon devices that are already linked with the PLM.

big advantages of this approach: 1. all of your insteon devices were previously configured to talk to your PLM before. their basic configs won't change. thus you don't have to go all around your house to all your devices and physically access your devices to reset them and/or re-link them. 2. you won't have any problems related to startup with sparse mesh network, phase bridging, etc.

some disadvantages: the initial setup and auto-discovery is a slow (multi-hour, in my case at least) and opaque process. it is pretty daunting to do if you are learning home-assistant, the insteon integration, etc. all at the same time.

plan b:
leave insteon in place controlled by homeseer and gradually migrate to a (separate) home-assistant insteon system.

leave your working system on homeseer in place. leave the PLM device attached to homeseer. purchase (e-bay?) another insteon PLM and attach it to your home-assistant server. one at a time, take single devices or small subsets of your devices and delete them from your homeseer config, then factory-reset the devices, then re-link them to the home-assistant insteon controller. your homeseer network will gradually shrink. your home-assistant network will gradually grow.

advantages: 1. all your stuff in home-assistant will be clean and reset (no old/broken/forgotten links or other cruft hanging around). 2. start simple. test as you go. learn to use/control home-assistant and insteon integration starting with a small set of devices. weed out dead/unreliable/flaky devices as you go. 3. reduce disruptions in your house operation, your lights, your existing automations - since your original system mostly stays in place, at least initially.

disadvantages: 1. more work overall. each device has to be physically manipulated. 2. insteon is a dual-band (wireless/powerline) mesh network. you may experience situations where starting with just one device will not give you robust comms. therefore you sometimes need to be "strategic" in terms of picking the first few devices to migrate. 3. requires that you purchase more gear (an additional insteon PLM), but otoh, when you finally complete your slow migration, you'll end up having a backup.

other general caveats:

oldest-generation insteon devices actually use a version of insteon protocol that is a bit less robust. devices can either fail to work or often they'll work for basic commands but when you go to do something more complicated (like re-linking them or editing links to other devices), you'll experience problems.

insteon was originally a powerline only protocol, then evolved to be a dual-band where there are two parallel mesh networks with multiple bridge-points - one powerline-based and one wireless. so its good to be mindful in general whether you're dealing with powerline-only devices (typically older hardware), dual-band devices, or wireless-only devices (typically sensors).

the powerline part of the insteon network has an additional quirk that the two separate powerline phases of a normal (for the US, at least) "split-phase" power system are partitioned and typically can't pass powerline signals. ...or sometimes they can, but with greatly reduced S/N since the signal path goes outside your house to the nearest transformer and back. fortunately, the fix for this is pretty easy if you have multiple dual-band devices on your network and at least one or two on each of the two phases, then you'll have effectively "bridged" your two phases. but (particularly with plan b above) you may not reach this happy place until after you've succeeded in linking several devices across both phases.

if your insteon system was reliable and working well under homeseer, chances are it will migrate fairly smoothly and will then work fairly well within home-assistant. if you have any troublesome/unreliable devices, incorrectly-linked devices, devices reporting low-battery, devices that don't provide healthy heartbeats, etc. i strongly recommend you diagnose and fix (or replace?) before starting the migration process, because multi-fault diagnosis can be hard in the best of cases, but is harder still when you're working with unfamiliar tools and climbing the learning-curve.

docs on the insteon integration (and underlying pyinsteon package) are pretty sparse. many topics are simply not touched on at all, so you have to learn by experimentation or by mining forums for clues. good news: it's all open source so you can always fall back to reading (python) source code.

PS: this is getting to be a wide-ranging/rambling thread and as we discussed, was marked as "solved" months ago, so is probably being mostly ignored by others - i suggest if you hit snags or have specific questions, you open new specific threads with descriptive titles/tags.

Once again, I can't thank you enough for all the time spent on my behalf. As you probably were, I'm afraid of making this huge step of basically shutting down HS after thousands of hours over many years of programming and system building. My wife is raising the volume level regarding my Homeseer system (and starting all over (with HA)). "Why are you breaking something that works perfectly." I'm at 695 entities in HS (keep in mind that most devices have several entities), and about 100 events.
One of my other reasons for a switch to HA is developing a new zwave mesh with 800 LR series capability. I'll probably need to start from scratch with a new 800 stick (which I've already purchased). I'm reading about starting a network with a new zwave stick in HA. Zwave devices don't have any internal keys or programming memory that will induce errors (cause problems) with starting a new 800 network (as far as I know). Insteon devices on the contrary are programmed via their links to the hub (as you know). I'm using the simple plugin hub for insteon.
I've seen forum comments about problems when pulling a new (out of the box) insteon device and trying to import it into HA. This is obviously another worry.
I like your idea of pulling all insteon devices at once into HA and praying for the best. As you said, my old devices (insteon) are many years in use, but rarely fail. Many are PLM only (no RF), and I'm aware (from old X10 days) of jumping the phases of power. Noise for all PLM devices (communications) is a huge problem (transformers, fans, PC's etc.). I've used filters all over the place to keep the noise down.
I'm getting closer to buying a Green HA module, but still have lots of study to do. Once I turn on the green, I'm probably in for a long ride until I have a working house again. I'm hoping that Phillips Hue comes across OK, and I'm in the process of tweaking "scenes" in that Phillips hub so I can hopefully use each scene in HA events (automations).
It looks like the Home assistant UI allows building simple if-then-else automations (events) just like Homeseer. I'm afraid of getting into lots of YAML as I've just started reading books about this stuff. All my HS stuff is obviously built on events that use their event-builder that's pretty simple. Lots of "virtual" devices have been created to act as flags, are simple "toggle" devices to set.
Did you find that the HA event editor worked similarly to Homeseer? This is a really important step (necessity) to get me going in HA once a jump is made, as easy event building will allow me to pretty much duplicate those that are already in my HS system. I want to get into building wall touch-screen displays and utilize the plugings (templates) from 1000's of forum members once I get trained.
Thanks as always,
Peter

DDuff667
Home Assistant questions
June 11, 2026

I can’t thank you enough for all the time spent providing me information on my completing a successful transition from Homeseer to Home Assistant. This process promises to be both challenging, and a bit daunting for me as our entire house runs on Homeseer.
At last check, I have about 600 entities, and 300 events (keep in mind that some devices and sensors have many entities contained within). Most of the entities aren’t used in events (humidity, vibration, etc).
My intention is to use an old “homeseer hometroller” (windows 11) to run Home Assistant on. I think that this mini-pc has plenty of robustness to handle all HA needs. What do you think?
My alternative is to get an HA green, but this G2 from Homeseer should work. It’s an HT-Plus-G2 that was sent to me by Tyler at Homeseer over a year ago, and has never been used (it does have a new license on it which I don’t need). My current Homeseer HS4 is running on a Geekom mini-PC and works fine.
I’ve studied your extensive letter to me (thanks again for both letters you constructed), and I’m also reading 3 books that I’ve bought. The best one is over 300 pages. The YAML book is a bit confusing, but it appears that using the normal HA user interface to build events will probably suffice until I get into more complex integrations.
As you know, most of my initial fears rest on the integration of my extensive insteon system. You’ve covered in detail several insteon quirks and methods of bringing insteon onboard my new HA setup. I very much appreciate that info (I’ve read your note about 3 times).
The option you mentioned of slowly bringing a new HA system into my home is both intriguing, and would allow lots of time for me to “train-up” on Home Assistant as I went. Unfortunately, many of my events are based on insteon triggers (6 button keypads located around the house and sensors (I/O transmitters). Also, lots of Mark Sandler’s X10/insteon entities. Several lamp and wall switches are also included.
This “fact” makes it very difficult for me to begin construction of a new home control setup. My other devices are about 25 phillips hue light bulbs and light strips, several zigbee switches, and about 30 Zwave nodes. Also, several old X10 switches which will need zwave updates (these are not X10/insteon conversions).
My question and open for comments is the following:

  1. Can I start a setup with the Homeseer hometroller computer without jeopardizing my current Homeseer system? In other words, can I install HA on the hometroller with an ethernet connection and also plugging in Zwave and Zigbee dongles? I would not “integrate devices” to the new HA setup yet. I just want to see what comes in (is recognized) by Home Assistant without “damaging” my homeseer running system. I understand that integrating any device (at all) will wreck the ongoing homeseer setup.
  2. Before eventually dragging in my Zwave and Zigbee devices, do I need to completely delete these nodes from the mesh network(s) that are running in Homeseer? In other words, use the homeseer zwave plugin to delete them completely in homeseer. This does not apply to my Phillips Hue light bulbs.
  3. I’ve seen youtube and book information that Phillips Hue can be brought on using its own hub (I have a square one). This would appear in Home Assistant as one “device” with lots of entities (all the light bulbs). I see that I cannot form groups inside the Phillips hue hub once it’s integrated into Home Assistant. Phillips Hue hub would be a “standalone” device.
  4. Another Phillips Hue possibility based on my reading is to bring each light bulb in as separate devices. Then creating HA groups and scenes would be possible inside HA (completely remove the white Phillips Hue hub altogether).
    I’m not sure how this is done, as each bulb is a Zigbee device. It’s probably a matter of simply integrating each bulb inside the HA integration command structure, and naming them as separates based on their location in the house. True?
    I’m sorry for all this rambling, but I’m trying to answer all questions before taking the major step of “unplugging Homeseer” for the first time in many years. Once this is taken down, there’s no going back and my wife keeps telling me to just leave the entire system alone. HS runs every inch of our house.
    Thanks again,
    Peter Dawson
    Portsmouth, NH

a few quick point-by-point replies:
RE: running HA on former homeseer hardware. if it previously ran windows, i'm guessing it is probably using some variant of intel processor, and i suspect that you can install and run HomeAssistant Operating System (HAOS) if you choose to do so. if you can get HAOS running smoothly you should be all set. keep HA green as a fallback option - a fairly inexpensive fallback plan if you need it.

RE: YAML programming. in the "early years" of HA, knowing YAML was kind of important. otoh, i think many people can and do adopt and use HA these days and almost never touch YAML. even editing dashboards, creating automations, etc. can usually be done without having to edit YAML directly. you'll be better off and will have a deeper understanding of some things if you do know yaml, i'm just mentioning this because the HA world is changing fast, and for example, a book published in 2024-2025 might already be getting kind of old relative to fast development in HA.

RE: "diving in" to insteon in HA. this will be in some ways a riskier and more stressful way to go but it sounds like you're up for the challenge. also its basically what i did myself.

as to your questions:

  1. don't have a real answer to this because i'm just not familiar with details of homeseer, the homeseer hometroller platform etc. some things to sort out to maybe formulate your own answer: can you fully backup your homeseer system (such that you can do a complete recovery from "bare-metal")? if so, then the if you save a snapshot of the initial state of your system, then this would seem to place a floor on how bad things could get before you could choose to "punt" and just restore and start over. if this is a real concern for you (and you value your own time), i would possilby reconsider buying an HA green system and leaving your homeseer system up and running while you migrate.

  2. so i'll flip this question around slightly: is it possible to do an "all-at-once" migration by simply removing the interface device from your old system and plugging it into home-assistant? probably. i did basically this method of moving my insteon devices and my z-wave devices to home-assistant. for zigbee, my answer is similar. i had a small number of zigbee devices before migrating to home-assistant. they happened to all be hue devices and i was using the hue hub. so that made it relatively easy to just connect the hub to home-assistant and start using it, gaining immediate control of my hue devices. so if you can do that kind of migration, the answer is no, you don't need to delete individual devices from your mesh. likewise for z-wave if devices are already working with your interface device (z-stick or whatever), then you'll probably find you can just move your interface device to HA and mostly it will "do the right thing". you need to start up the HA z-wave integration, point it at your interface device (or typically it wlll auto-discover) and then if things go well, it will start talking to the interface and auto-discover all the connected devices. it may likely want to "re-interview" the devices. this may take some time to finish. it may require waiting for some sleeping devices to awaken, but it should work.

3-4. sounds like what i did. mentioned above. i later moved my devices to ZWA-2 interface and removed and retired my hue hub. i have mostly good things to say about hue gear, but i was looking for general zigbee support, so i was kind of looking to move away from reliance on hue including hue app and hue-specific features, so i moved to just using vanilla zigbee via the home assistant zha integration and it has been very solid. all my hue gear still works perfectly. it opens me up to being able to use nice devices from brands like aqara. but i think you could be very happy sticking with hue as well if that's what you chose.

Hi again,
Your responses are of huge importance to me, as reading books and YouTube many times only brush the cap of my concerns (that are lurking inside the bottle). Just to add a bit of detail and better identify my question(s), I have a “spare” hometroller sitting beside my Geekom Mini-PC.
This homeseer hometroller has never been used, and is loaded with HS4 (and an unused license). I plan to wipe HS4 from it, and start by downloading (completely) the HA platform. This hometroller will forever now be for HA (and I still have my Geekom running Homeseer full time).

  1. My question is: Can I download HA on the small hometroller (after wiping it clean), and if I start the HA program, will it immediately start rummaging through all my devices scattered throughout my house? I would not “integrate” any of them yet, but just start the software and look around.
    I cannot have this new HA software disrupting my Zwave, Zigbee, insteon, and Phillips Hue devices (and mesh networks) already running in the house (being used by Homeseer). I’d unplug homeseer before starting the new HA software (if it won’t disrupt my devices), and I’d like to get a look at what (HA) discovers for devices located in my house. Will this make a mess of Homeseer? This is my main (most important) question. I’d restart homeseer once this test of HA is complete.
    Your answers and details about Phillips Hue and its white “hub” are perfect. I’ll probably leave the hub out of it, and simply have HA discover each bulb around the house if that’s OK. Sounds like it based on your description.
    I’d like to have an open “ready” Zigbee system that will “take” any and all newcomers to the zigbee game. I’d rather not have a “Hue” and a regular zigbee system like I do right now.
    One last query: Many of my Zwave devices are 500 series (old) and are being used with Homeseer. Some of my newer devices are LR (800 series). I want to start a new 800 LR network and understand that his 800 network is completely different in structure than the old mesh net (the stick talks to each device independently rather than bouncing all over the place).
    I’m thinking that I’ll need to completely collapse my homeseer mesh network (delete all nodes individually using the homeseer plugin). The same is probably true of all the Phillips Hue bulbs running inside the Phillips Hue (white hub).
    How will HA construct a new Zwave network that can combine old zwave devices (non 800 series Lr), and newer devices that are LR compatible? I don’t want to make a mess out of Zwave stuff trying to do both old and new networks.
    I’m sorry to keep this nonstop babble going, but my study and prep for this upgrade is a bit scary.
    I’m really glad that you helped me out with the YAML fright. Writing code is not my forte, and I understand that formatting is most of the game (with Yaml). I do have a new YAML book to refer to. My thick “bible” is “Building Smart Home Automation Solutions with Home Assistant.” (Marco Carvalho 2023 publish 330 pages).
    Best,
    Peter

One last note,
I looked at all the initiation process and necessities of successfully loading and starting HA on my mini-Geekom PC (that's now running Homeseer). The process looks a bit daunting, so in order to learn and become proficient at all using HA, I simply bought an HA green. The Amazon $220 is worth the zero headaches and probable failures (and frustration) trying to get a mini-PC going with HA. I am not trained as a Windows programmer tinkering with internal processes. My result would probably be completely destroying my windows OS inside that PC.
I'll get the green going once I become a bit more trained on writing automations in HA, When I make the jump away from HS, I need to immediately get a zwave and zigbee net structure going. This includes automation(s). The insteon thing is also an immediate necessity as keypads and wall switches use insteon as triggers for automations.
Thanks for all the time you've spent already on my behalf. I recognize that you're probably figuring it's time for me to get off the board, and dive into the pool.
Best ,
Peter

I just wanted to thank you agan for all the information and time you took on my behalf. I'm slowly getting trained using a couple of zwave switches and lights to develop simple automations before I start moving the entire homeseer home system into HA. This way it'll be much more simple for me to write 300 automations (like I have in HS), and then be able to develop wall controllers, etc.
Best,
Peter

I’m into my 4th week of transferring all my homeseer system into HA, and it’s been a long road. Fortunately, as you said, most of the old insteon switches transferred OK including 3 keyboards. The I/O modules didn’t fair as well, and I’m going to get zigbee stuff around that problem.
Lots of X10 stuff that I’m having to replace with inovelli (expensive) 2-wire switches, and zigbee switches, etc.
I’ve spent many hours (as you probably did) using books and youtube to learn HA. Still getting into dashboard design as a new learning process. About 30 Phillips Hue still to go.
Thanks again,
Peter