Insteon Mini remote not showing up anywhere

Third party integrations
1

What am I missing?

I go to Settings → Devices & Services → Insteon → Configure → Add Device

I click on the button on the remote and it says it was added

Screenshot 2024-11-13 105856

but it never shows up in the device list how can I use this why doesn’t it show up here? I’ve tried multiple times and it never shows in the device list.
I’m using the Powerlink USB modem. I also just recently added a Zigbee Coordinator so I don’t know if that is causing an issue.

I want to use the remote as a trigger for turning on/off a switch for a light.

FYI - I’m fairly new to HomeAssistant but I am a programmer with 30+ years of experience so I should be able to figure this out.

I was able to create other automations and scenes and even a helper toggle that I would like to trigger from this remove but I can’t figure out how to use this remote or where I can even find it after it says it was added.

Can anyone help me?

2

According to the docs, mini remotes don’t appear as HA enttities:

Pressing a button generates an event which you can use as a trigger for automations.

3

but how do I set this up? I don’t understand how to do this. for any other device I can add it as a trigger how can I use this remote?

4

I don’t use Insteon myself. These are the examples in the docs…

automation:
  # 4 or 8 button remote with button c pressed
  - alias: "Turn a light on"
    triggers:
      - trigger: event
        event_type: insteon.button_on
    event_data:
      address: 1a2b3c
      button: c
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: light.some_light
        state: "off"
    actions:
      - action: light.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: light.some_light

  # single button remote
  - alias: "Turn a light off"
    triggers:
      - trigger: event
        event_type: insteon.button_on
    event_data:
      address: 1a2b3c
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: light.some_light
        state: "off"
    actions:
      - action: light.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: light.some_light
5

I tried editing an existing automation to use this format and I get an error that says "malformed: extra keys not allowed @ data[‘event_data’]

description: "Turn off light"
mode: single
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: insteon.button_on
event_data:
  address: 3f0398
  button: a
conditions: []
actions:
  - type: turn_off
    device_id: a42d8c522f76ccffc9cae25579f336be
    entity_id: 199bef57e78db67a5c98aeafb46d9289
    domain: switch
    metadata:
      secondary: false
6

I think the Doc is misleading

I figured out how to add the trigger through the UI and then looked at the YAML and it showed this:

triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: insteon.button_on
    event_data:
      address: 3f0398
      button: a

that did work but it’s not consistent and the event isn’t always firing when the remote is pressed.

any suggestions for a better remote that I can use for this?

7

this worked for just a handfull of times and now I see nothing in the logs and can’t get the remote to do anything anymore.

8

Has anyone gotten these 2342-2 mini remotes to work? I can’t get any trigger from them at all.
I have HA running in a virtual machine. The 2 devices show up in my device list (eventually) with what I believe is the correct type => 2342-222 (0x00, 0x1a) and 2444A2WH8 (0x00, 0x12) . I’ve tried entering a manual event as shown by danhoeger above, but nothing works.
Jim Shipman

9

Same problem for me. Anyone have a solution?

10

I’m working on this now, too. If I watch the Events in Developer Tools, it does this.

event_type: insteon.button_on
data:
  address: 000000 # my mini-remote address
  group: 3
  button: c
origin: LOCAL
time_fired: "2025-07-18T03:12:09.136483+00:00"
context:
  id: 01K0DR93XGS99J71FXKJ38BT05
  parent_id: null
  user_id: null

So, to make it generic, I removed the group and button and did dual triggers for on and off to make this test automation which works. Sometimes it doesn’t register, but I have the same problem using a Hub 2 with HomeSeer, so I think that’s on the Insteon Hub and not HA.

alias: Insteon Mini-Remote
description: ""
triggers:
  - event_type: insteon.button_on
    event_data:
      address: 123456 # put your mini-remote address here 
    trigger: event
  - event_type: insteon.button_off
    event_data:
      address: 123456 # put your mini-remote address here
    trigger: event
actions:
  - action: notify.persistent_notification
    metadata: {}
    data:
      message: >-
        Insteon group {{ trigger.event.data.group }}, button {{
        trigger.event.data.button | upper }} {{ trigger.event.event_type }} pressed.

This works on one of my remotes, but the other does not emit any events even though it is firing events on HomeSeer through the Hub 2. Both are Insteon model 2342-2. After re-enrolling the other remote, it now fires, too.

I’ve also coded a “handler” that can call separate scripts or automations for each button + on/off, or you could put code right into the handler.