This was driving me crazy. I kept getting the error: ValueError: could not convert string to float, but at seemingly random times and I couldn’t make sense of it.
Finally, I realized my mistake. When I started this I installed a new copy of OpenHAB 1.8.3 with only the InsteonPLM binding. If I didn’t wait long enough for all of the devices to phone home with their status, hass would receive a nice fat <state>Uninitialized</state> when it tried to retrieve the REST data. Since you can’t really convert Uninitialized to a float, well, that’s what happens. The few X10 devices I have left in my home caused me even bigger pain since those never update the controller with what’s happening. Finally, I installed and configured mapdb to restore all of the items on startup and my problem seems to have disappeared. I’m running both the dimmer and the switch components without any flaws now. Thank you chanders for all your work!
Also, I discovered that X10 dimmers need to be treated as switches, which I’m guessing has to do with the fact that X10 dimmers won’t wake up to just the dim level and require a separate ‘ON’ command to come alive. X10 never gets any easier.
I’d have done away with my X10 stuff long ago but I have an old house and I’m faced with the problem of not having neutral wires in the switch boxes. One of these days I’ll pick up a few of those Zwave switch modules, install some regular wall switches, and hopefully do away with X10 for good.
I’ve placed my order for a used 2244-224 Starter Kit and will have it delivered next Tuesday to test out the OpenHAB->Home Assistant Insteon PLM bridge.
Hi. New to home automation and recently bought the Insteon starter kit. I would also like to know where to download the custom component. Thanks in advance.
@camrun91 – did you ever figure out whether you could use this component to control a fan linc module? I have two fanlincs in my home which I would really like to get cleaner control of through HA (currently I have the fans set up as three switches each, one for each speed mode, but I’m looking for a cleaner solution).
There is now an insteon_local component. We are working on integration with other devices. Fan lincs may not be too hard. We can look into adding this.
That would be great. I’m using the insteon local component now for lights and switches in my home, and it’s working well. Though I really wish I could control both top and bottom outlets… with the Insteon (Local) Switch Home Assistant only seems to see the top outlet. Hopefully that’ll be a future addition, too.
Feel free to join us over on the gitter.im chat. We have a room there that is just for the insteon stuff. The more people we have in there the more we can actually get things added. I am not sure we even knew the outlets worked with the insteon_local. I will double check and see, do you have them added as switches or what?
Has anyone been able to get the custom OpenHAB-Insteon light component to show up in Home Assistant as a dimmer? Mine are all showing up as on/off switches. I followed the example code here exactly (and then tried tweaking it), but no luck. I’m wondering if something might have changed on the Home Assistant configuration side of things.
Can anyone confirm whether the Insteon 8 button keypads work with this component? Except for turning something on and off can you use the remaining buttons to activate scipts/scenes?
@Maaniac I recently asked the same question in the HASS Insteon Gitter chat and apparently it doesn’t however the guys developing this component agree that it would be a cool feature and are looking into it.
On a positive note they found that OpenHAS has implemented this so they are confident it is achievable.
The guys in that group appear to be passionate about Insteon and HASS so I believe there is a lot of potential for this component.
I just got a Pull Request done for a big update to the insteon_local component. I am hoping that this cleans up the performance and gets it to be more reliable for everyone. Once this is found to be fully stable I can work on possibly adding more features and devices. I will graduate this semester so hopefully I have a little more free time for this project after that.