Insteon_PLM on Hass.io, Anyone have it working?

[Daniel_Cook (Dan Cook)]

@teharris1

…the insteonplm module cannot be installed like that…you will have to wait until I can get it into the main distro.

This topic is admittedly pretty old, but I’m new to HA. I’m a long-time Insteon user looking to ditch my hub and most of its associated devices in favor of HA running on RPi. In fact I would’ve fully walked away from Insteon by now except that I’ve not found anything in the [ z-wave | zigbee ] world to match the design, feel, and responsiveness of the Insteon mini-remotes.

So my device needs are quite slim at this point: I want Insteon on/off mini remotes to trigger HA automations.

Q: is it the case that once I get an Insteon 2448A7 USB dongle into my RPi, the remaining work is:

1. add relevant lines to my configuration.yaml file
2. join my mini remotes to the USB dongle and vice versa
3. set up new automations with event handlers listening for insteon.button_on and insteon.button_off

If so, is Insteon missing from my manifest of configurable HA integrations simply because I don’t have the USB dongle installed yet?

[Daniel_Cook (Dan Cook)]

I’ve successfully integrated an Insteon LampLinc-style dimmer, via HA’s native support for my 2245 Hub, such that I can control the dimmer via HA and work it into automations.

However I can’t seem to trap events from my mini remotes. I can hear them chirp when I put them in linking mode and then call the HA insteon.add_all_link service, as if they’re responding to the link request. But that’s the limit of my progress.

Is that only possible via (a) using a PLM instead of a hub, and/or (b) running HA on something other than hass.io on a Raspberry Pi (so that I can install certain Python libraries)?

[teharris1]

Mini remotes do not appear as Entities in HA, they only trigger automations. For example,

- id: '1552262250942'
  alias: Mini Remote Lock Front Door
  trigger:
  - event_data:
      address: 1a2b3c
      button: b
    event_type: insteon.button_on
    platform: event
  condition: []
  action:
  - data:
      entity_id: lock.front_door_lock
    service: lock.lock

The example above will listen for mini-remote 1a2b3c button b.

[Daniel_Cook (Dan Cook)]

I’ve not seen anything come across the HA event stream of the type insteon.button_on, even after attempts at pairing. So I can’t set up automations as you recommend.

I suspect I need more progress on the pairing side before mini remote events will pass through HA via the 2245 hub.

[teharris1]

Put insteon in debug mode by using the following somewhere in your configuration.yaml file:

logger:
  default: info
  logs:
    insteonplm: debug
    homeassistant.components.insteon: debug

Then update the logs so I can see what devices the Hub knows about.

[teharris1]

Also, with the insteon component in debug mode, if you press the buttons on the remote, the log with catch them. This will confirm the Hub can see the remote’s buttons.

[Daniel_Cook (Dan Cook)]

OK, log sent to you via direct message.

[teharris1]

The mini-remote is a battery operated device and so it does not reply to device id requests. In order for HA to see the device you need to setup device override configuration as follows:

insteon:
  host: !secret hub_ip
  username: !secret hub_username
  password: !secret hub_password
  ip_port: 25105
  
  device_override:
    - address: 44899f  # 8 button mini remote
      cat: 0x00
      subcat: 0x1b
    - address: 449b4e  # 1 botton mini remote
      cat: 0x00
      subcat: 0x1c

Hopefully you saw this in the documentation for the Insteon component.

[Daniel_Cook (Dan Cook)]

@teharris1

Hopefully you saw this in the documentation for the Insteon component.

As you mentioned, this is a case of not “RTFM”-ing. I didn’t get down to that section of the documentation because I assumed I was still stuck on the pairing process.

Having now added overrides to my configuration.yaml I can trap and act on events generated by the mini remote. Thanks a bunch for the help, and for writing the module in the first place.

[teharris1]

Glad you figured it out.

[teharris1]

I have just released a significant update to the insteon component as a beta. It is available through a custom component to allow people to test without disrupting current implementations. The details are in this thread:

New Insteon version for beta testing - (Do not use since this is now in 0.111 and higher)

I have finally completed significant improvements to the Insteon component. It is based on a new underlying library called pyinsteon. There are a number of improvements and bug fixes. Unfortunately, this release can not be done incrementally so it is a significant change and I want to make sure it is well tested with real users as much as possible. In order to test the release without disrupting the current release, I have created a custom component. It is available on git hub: Please use th…

[gokuro]

I am working on migrating my HA insteon integration from Hub to PLM. I have the USB PLM connected and recognized by my test instance of HA running on a PI 3b+

I am stuck on how to get the PLM linked as controller/responder.

Some older posts refer to having to do this for every device but then I see mentions of plans to eliminate this step.

What is the current best practice. I have 20+ insteon devices

[crazeeeyez]

I have my ISY currently controlling all my Insteon devices. I, too, would like to move everything to HA + PLM (or USB) but can’t figure out how to link in HA. Help would be appreciated!

[gokuro]

I got an Insteon USB PLM working, much of what I learned is on this thread. Hard part was linking each device one by one.

Insteon Hub or PLM?

Yes I have device “PowerLinc USB Modem 22.3E.53” in HA. I was trying to use Indigo to avoid all the manual linking but I will try that as well as the HA reboot option as well.

Using USB PLM on Hassio on a raspberry PI3b, it has been very stable for about 3 weeks.

I just barely decided to pay the $5 a month for HA cloud service to get Alexa working. Working on moving off of the Insteon HUB that is handling all my Alexa integrations now.

The problem with having an Insteon HUB and PLLM via HA at the same time is that if the HUB controls a device the PLM never knows about it.

[vbphil (Philip D)]

I’m also wanting to migrate my Insteon network from ISY to HA. I’m waiting on receiving a new USB PLM so I’ve done nothing yet. My HA network is using the ISY integration.

1. One thought I had was to first replace the serial PLM I’m currenting using on the ISY with the new USB version. That will let ISY populate the new PLM.
2. Then, delete the ISY integration on HA.
3. Then, integrate the new PLM containing the Insteon Network into HA where HA will learn the network from the PLM.
4. One problem I see is that I will lose all my automations and scripts in HA that are currently using devices from the ISY integration.
5. I guess another option is to just integrate the new empty PLM into HA and manually, one by one, move Insteon devices over from ISY to HA fixing any scripts and automation problems on the way.
   Any ideas on how best to do this?

[crazeeeyez]

I really should come back to this at some point, but i’ve kinda decided to leave it alone. My PLM is working fine, I’ve backed it up, I have a POLISY with ISY running on it and spare USB PLMs. I figure I’ll move to one of those if my serial PLM or ISY994i dies. I’ve got all this hardware, may as well use it. As much as I don’t like having one more piece of hardware running and as a dependency, there are enough HA issues (usually self-inflicted) I run into to make me justify a dedicated box for my 75+ Insteon controls.

[captcurrent (jason hirsh)]

I have the USB PLM working fine…What I really liked was that I used this with Indigo. nd was able to import all the devices automatically