Since doing the 0.46 update I’ve been having issues with the web front end not updating properly for many of my insteon devices. Using insteon_local and up until I updated it worked great. Now it takes an hour to maybe get the proper status of lights/switches. Logs are full of stuff like this:
Jun 6 16:36:56 house hass[5954]: 2017-06-06 16:36:56 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.helpers.entity] Update of light.mark_office is taking over 10 seconds
But repeated for pretty much every insteon device. From the looks of the web interface not many of them ever successfully update.
No one else is having problems with insteon_local ?
I’ve jumped through a ton of hoops so far and nothing I do seems to make much of a difference. I rolled back, I stripped down my configs to bare minimum, I tossed it all and did a complete fresh install and just a very basic setup with nothing but the insteon_local stuff … the interface works great to control things, it just rarely updates correctly (which pretty much sucks when it comes to trying to do automations with anything). The even stranger this is that I see the state changes in the logs, but the interface never shows the results and more often than not any automations tied to them don’t fire.
I’m guessing maybe people are just not using insteon around here … I have a hard time believing I’m the only user having these types of issues. I’ve got things sort of working as expected now, but doing any sort of automation with insteon is pretty painful due to this, sometimes automation actions can take > 1 full minute before they complete because of this super long response time.
Is it an HA problem? Is it an Insteon issue? Have I done something bad in my setup? I have 24 Insteon devices (that HA can talk to) so maybe I’m just the minority here or something … but it really really feels like we’ve got some race conditions happening with the insteon_local component.
Logs are full of stuff like this (and I can confirm that sometimes it can take minutes or even up to forever for some updates to happen):
│2017-06-12 14:03:14 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.light] Updating insteon_local light took longer than the scheduled update interval 0:00:30 │
20│2017-06-12 14:03:14 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.switch] Updating insteon_local switch took longer than the scheduled update interval 0:00:30
Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can here me …
@Gerk
I just noticed a huge number of this same type of error in the HA log as well. I know that this post has been here for a while but I have been working a lot with no time to play. I have a large number of insteon devices in my home and I really need this part of HA to work. I was using OH but there was a real loss of traction on the Insteon interface with a departure of one of the key contributors so I jumped ship there. I just need a solution that works. I am willing to help out any way I can but I am not a programmer but have a little hardware background. If you have anything that you have found I would be interested and I will share as well.
I’ve been noticing similar issues for a while. I just hadn’t been motivated enough to try to figure it out until now and ran across your post. It’s frustrated me to the point I’m almost ready to see what other people are using and either find a different way to interface Insteon with Hass (maybe ISY is better than the hub?) or replace the Insteon stuff
I could be wrong but I think that insteon_local requires polling which is pretty hard to make responsive. If you buy the PLM modem (usb or serial) and use that, the modem is an Insteon device and you pair it with all the other devices so it’s notified right away of any state changes.
I actually have the wireless USB stick for Insteon which I used previously with a different software. Unfortunately, Hass is running in a VM for me currently, though I may be able to get them talking with some tweaking.
Not sure. I’m starting to work on adding insteon smoke bridge support. Once I figure out how to do that, I can help add fanlinc if you’re willing to test it. Not sure what the ETA on that is though, might be a few weeks.
Oh, no hurry. I gotta find time to get this talking to my VM and convert my Insteon lights and stuff over to see if it performs better. Between school, work, and fatherhood, I only sporadically find time to tinker with my HA projects
Hey @lizaoreo - I forgot to update this with a reply. I decided not to try and modify the insteon PLM module as it really couldn’t do some of the things I wanted to. So I build a different system that is an Insteon <-> MQTT bridge which allows HASS to talk to Insteon devices (including fanlinc) via MQTT and get immediate updates - but it does require a PLM modem. Here’s the thread: New Insteon PLM modem integration option via MQTT
I no longer use HA but out of interest I ended up finding out that the hub I was using (the non homekit version) was just terrible all around. I ended up also getting a PLM modem and using it, albeit with OH. Works much better, so if you’re using one of their non-homekit modems that might be the issue.
@TD22057 Amusingly, I missed this reply and just found it when I was tinkering and started wondering if there was a different option using MQTT (been doing a lot more with it and it’s pretty cool). I started by seeing if PowerHome, my previous HA solution, supported MQTT and when it didn’t I came here and looked for Insteon/MQTT to see if I could find something. I was actually starting to save up for an ISY to get around the issues, but a software solution would be much preferred, especially since I already have a few PLMs laying around.
I think it’s caused by limitations of the hub being accessed locally. It’s just not designed for the polling we do for status and such.
Probably the best solutions for Insteon will be a PLM and @TD22057’s MQTT service or using a ISY.
I believe next time we move when we buy our own place I’ll be transitioning to Z-wave as it seems to be more DIY friendly while Insteon seems to be walling off more, sadly.
