We all learned alot and I for one am also very happy. @teharris1 sold (at least one if not many) Nabu Casa subscriptions. And the fact that I finally did subscribe to Nabu Casa has opened a whole new world for me at my house.
There was no way I would be able to get my wife off of “Alexa, do this” … no way.
And it is there, easy-peasy. And the insteon demise caused me to do it.
Now I am here today, removing many, many other integrations to Alexa. They already existed in Home Assistant and work perfectly. Broadlink, Vizio TV, Stereos, etc. And no more worry about name collisions … where Alexa says “A few things share that name, which one did you want?” And my wife yells “The f*&(*& TV damn it” and then calls me names.
Things are coming together like they should … one app to rule them all!
This has been a great thread, and has definitely helped me as newer HA user looking for further insteon integration. I don’t recall if this question was asked here, but there has been looks of discussion in different groups. Schedules! I have lots of inconsistent behaviour, some nights some scheduled lights come on so nights no lights turn on. Every night seems different, I’ve looked through the previous panel by addeing the custom code my .yaml file but didn’t see anything obvious? This this new version address that, is there another way that we can clear the existing hub schedules?
@teharris1 there are not enough thank you’s for 18 months of time into this, so thank you, thank you. I’ve looked at using HA for a couple of years now but it was missing this, and a kick in the pants from Insteon.
There is no known way to change any of the hub configurations now that the app is dead. This includes, schedules, network configuration, and authentication. SmartLabs did not expose those items locally. If they are causing an issue one option is to factory reset the hub and relink all of your devices. This will not hurt the hub as was reported earlier in some forums but it does wipe it clean.
If you do that the username/password is printed on the bottom of the Hub and you would need to relink all of your devices to the Hub. You would also want to build automation in Home Assistant to replace your Hub schedules. Trust me when I say this is a big leap forward. HA has a lot more functionality to their schedules than the Insteon app did.
Ahh… reading above maybe my problem is with the scenes…
I am trying to use my switches to turn on and off certain cameras (That I now have working again as foscam)… but the switches do not turn one and off…
I assume when the new update comes out I need to flash a new SDCard… not clear how to update… sorry only have 2-3 days experience here.
Parenthetically, I actually have a new/unused Insteon Hub, which i got when my old one went bad… was able to repair the bad capacitor in the old one and kept the replacement they sent me.
I finally bit the bullet and reset the hub - at least I think I did… I tried it 3 times just to be sure. It doesn’t exactly exhibit the same behavior as stated in the reset procedure:
Factory Reset Insteon Hub (2014)
Disconnect Insteon Hub from power
Press and hold the set button while reconnecting power. Insteon Hub will emit a long beep.
When the long beep ends, release the set button. Insteon Hub will double-beep and after 30 seconds, Insteon Hub will beep again.
Power cycle Insteon Hub by disconnecting and then reconnecting it to power.
… for me anyway. On step 3 I get a single beep (not double) followed by a double-beep at ~ 30 sec (or more what I would call a double chirp).
Anyway when I go back to HA after all my devices/entities are still there and they are operational… if I load the all link db from the hub itself there is only 1 device I played with removing and readding after the reset to make sure i wasnt nuts.
This seems like it’s too good to be true - I thought I was going to have relink everything. Is it because the devices still have the link as the hub as controller… and the hub itself it just acting like a modem for HA now?
hi looks like you found your way to thread that’s mainly geared toward beta testing - as for the update you wont need to reflash any media or anything - just wait for the update in the notifications on your HA home page when the production update becomes available and follow the prompts from there
Thanks for the response and clarification, I thought this might the answer but have been avoiding doing this as I have a lot of keypads linked to multi device scenes. I do see the value and increased capabilities i’ll get using HA to control Insteon.
I have one more question regarding keypads, over the years I have switched a few from 8 to 6 and 6 to 8. HA doesn’t seem to detect these changes and displays the wrong number of buttons. Will resetting everything correct this issue? Or is there a way to change the configuration using the new control panel?
@kenrok1 Unfortunately it is too good to be true if you really did reset the Hub. HA caches the devices so that is why you still see them.
What you did was remove all device links from the Hub but the devices still know about the Hub because they were not reset. So while the commands sent from the Hub to the device work you will have issues when the device is changed manually and HA seeing those changes. I strongly recommend relinking all of your devices. Sorry.
FYI, on Wednday of this week 2022.5.0 will be rolled out which will make it a lot easier to link devices to the modem (PLM or Hub)
Hi @teharris1,
I have installed HA Beta 2022.5.0b5 and now see the Insteon panel. The issue I have is…with the new HA feature to be able to hide a switch and have it create a light entity, which I have employed, I do not see the hidden switch entities in the new Insteon panel…
fascinating - I understand what you’re saying with devices changed manually, but it seems like HA is getting the status (condition) updates from the device - except for those members in a legacy scene that are linked together. Example I have 2 light switches that are linked together -if I turn on one or the other both turn on and vice versa (where each is a controller and responder). and only the condition of the one that was physically operated is showing in the HA dashboard … but everything else appears to be working exactly as it should. I’ll wait until Wed and see what the change brings. Thanks!
on another note - trying to delete old links I can see how to change the in-use status but not remove… playing around with some other systems that appear to “delete” the link it looks like its ID remains but it changes the in-use to No and all the values to 0 including the target address to 00.00.00 - so i’ve been doing just that to clean up old links (changing the values in the insteon panel and then writing back to the device).
Yes, that is the method for removing links. Links are technically not deleted from a device, the are marked as unused. Then the next change to the ALDB may overwrite that record. But in_use = no is the same as deleting the record.
Regarding the visibility of the state changes at the device, when you look at your Modem’s ALDB do yo still see links there or is the list empty?
It does read insteon_devices.json but that is just a caching mechanism so that we don’t need to reload all of the device info on each restart of HA. No Insteon device is supposed to recognize any message that comes from a device not in its All-Link Database. It is a security concern. If they did then you could simply listen for a neighbor’s Insteon traffic, figureout the addresses, add them to your modem, and have your modem control those devices. So the fact that this is working is a violation of the Insteon dev principles. Would not be the first time I saw SmartLabs violate their own design but it is surprising. I have a theory why this is happening but would want to look into it more.
I still suggest relinking all of your devices to your modem. I know it takes time but it will likely avoid other issue.
well the devices do have the address of the hub in their ALDB - just not the other way around
If I went to the device ALDB and removed the Hub address there wouldn’t be any means to communicate with it, even if the Hub still “knows” it. I confirmed this on that one device I linked by leaving it’s address on the hub (before the hub was reset), but deleting the hubs address from it. I did not factory reset the LampLinc dimmer, as I left a mini remote paired with it the whole time which continued to function.
I do still plan on following your relinking suggestion - in due time
This is a little weird… After latest updates I now see Garage light switch, which is hidden & exposed as a light, but not fireplace or living room switch (hidden)/lights…
After a few updates this morning (several HACS integrations, an HA add-on and HA 2022.5.0b6) and a restart, the panel is now fully populated but does require a browser page reload (using Edge) every time I navigate to it. Firefox is fine.
