TL;DR - Does the ISY994 integration poll for status updates, and conversely, does the PLM integration have instant status updates? Is there any major advantage/disadvantage between the two?
I’m installing a connected outlet in our master bathroom so that my girlfriend doesn’t need to worry if she leaves her straightening/curling iron on. Due to the proximity of the electrical box to the counter backsplash and the GFCI end of the hair dryer, which is almost always used at the same time as the hair straightener, to be able to plug both in at the same time the outlet needs to be installed ground-up (which IMO is the proper way to install an outlet anyway, and my grandfather who was an electrician for something like 50 years agrees, but I digress…) The hair dryer has to be plugged in to the upper receptacle, and the straightener can then be plugged into the lower. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate a single Z-Wave or Zigbee outlet that has the necessary receptacle controllable (bottom receptacle when installed ground-up, top receptacle when installed ground-down). Therefore, the best option I could find is the dual-controlled Insteon outlet.
I do not currently have any other Insteon devices, and I’m primarily concerned with the control/integration with Home Assistant. I’m not really looking at the Insteon Hub because the only supported devices are fans, lights, and switches (I have to plans to add Insteon sensors, but I’d like to keep my options open - unless there is a significant advantage to the Hub integration), so I’m trying to choose between using the Insteon PLM integration with the 2413U, or the ISY994 integration.
It seems the ISY994 has a few advantages - I like the idea of maintaining control of devices outside of Home Assistant, for redundancy if there are any issues. I’m also interested in the idea of offloading Z-Wave control; I’m running Hass.io in a VM so I’m currently using VirtualHere on a RPi to be able to mount a HUSBZB-1 plugged into the RPi to Hass.io, however occasionally the mount points change and I have to reboot HASS to get Z-Wave working again. Also, I have a HSM200 (EZMultiPli) sensor which I’m unable to control the light portion of and I’m hoping I would be able to with the ISY994.
My big concern with the ISY994 is that I’m assuming the integration is poll-based for status updates. So if a switch/outlet is powered on/off from the device itself Home Assistant won’t know about it until a poll occurs. I assume with the PLM being connected “directly” (in reality that would also use VirtualHere) that status updates would be instant. For mu current use-case instant status updates aren’t required but once I get Insteon set up I may expand the scope of devices I’m using. My big hesitation is with the PLM is that it seems people have had some stability issues, even after the recent overhaul.
Are my assumptions correct in that the ISY994 does not get instant status updates? Between the two, what would you recommend - or is there a better solution that I’ve overlooked?
I use the INSTEON On/Off Outlet with a PLM. The insteon_plm component controls both the upper and lower outlets independently. I am bias however, since I am one of the developers of the insteon_plm component. I own an hub but there are issues with it not providing real time updates. I don’t own an ISY but I hear good things about them. I did not go that way because the PLM seams simpler.
EDIT: I can confirm that the insteon_plm module does provide real time status updates directly from the device messages. It does not poll.
BTW, not sure what stability issues you are referring to with the current update. There is one thread open with two separate issues related to specific devices. One is the leak sensor which is in fact a bug. The other is a motion sensor that is very new and so not fully supported. But based on the current information it works in HA if you tell HA it is the older model. Not sure what other issues you may be referring to but if you are hearing something I would like to get it addressed.
Thank you for your response. I know you recently contributed a big update to the PLM integration, and the two issues you referred to were the only issues I’ve seen since that update. I am thinking the PLM integration is the way to go, unless the ISY also gives instant status updates.
I just checked the ISY code in HA. Per the following lines of code, it does not poll which indicates it gets its update from a subscription:
@property
def should_poll(self) -> bool:
"""No polling required since we're using the subscription."""
return False
This should give you pretty good comfort that the ISY gives real time updates. The ISY uses a PLM connected to it to talk with Insteon devies so it should know the status real time and based on the above code, I am very confident it would provide those real time updates to HA.
Thanks for looking into this! I really need to spend some time familiarizing myself more with the behind-the-scenes aspects of Home Assistant. When I was on SmartThings I could knock out SmartApps/Device Handlers in my sleep…
Hopefully someone with an ISY will chime in, otherwise I guess I’ll have to try both out for a little bit and decide.
Changes to device status are reported via the ISY very quickly. In a test a moment ago, it took roughly 5 seconds for the HA interface to update. Having not used the PLM integration (i.e., non-ISY), I cannot compare (dis)advantages, but I can say that the ISY integration is highly robust.
I would not encourage you to rely on the ISY for zwave at this time, unless you are willing to install and work with the 5.0x Alphas and Betas. The current official firmware does not handle all zwave devices well.
Another option to consider is the insteon-mqtt bridge I created: New Insteon PLM modem integration option via MQTT. It updates HASS status in less than a second in my tests and handles scene updates as well (it knows the insteon scenes so all the devices in the scene update in HASS at the same time).
UPDATE: For anyone else trying to make the same decision.
I got the ISY mainly so that I could test the Z-Wave portion. As @hads514 said, status updates are basically instantaneous. In my testing, the HA interface shows changes in less than 1 second. I tested Z-Wave with a bunch of the ISY alpha firmwares and one of them was able to properly control the LED portion of the HSM200 (EZMultiPli) sensor, which I was very excited about. Unfortunately, for my Z-Wave locks the ISY component does not include all of the information I need in the event_data (When the lock is locked/unlocked, for example, an ALARM control even is fired, but the action and fmtAct are not included, which specify if the lock was locked from the inside or outside). The information is all there in the Home Assistant log, but I haven’t figured out a way to trigger an automation from that. Because of that, I haven’t migrated any Z-Wave devices to the ISY.
I am doing something really cool with the ISY though, which I believe would not be possible with the PLM component (@teharris1 please correct me if I’m wrong). With the ISY I’m able to control the brightness of the LED indicators on the Insteon outlet, so I created a Program on the ISY to generate a “custom device” to be able to switch on/off the status LEDs in Home Assistant. The end result is that when our house goes into “sleep” mode the LED indicators automatically turn off to maintain darkness.
The ISY has been very stable, with the exception of a couple times the PLM couldn’t communicate with the outlet. Both times unplugging and plugging the PLM back in fixed the issue. Currently the PLM is plugged into a PDU with surge-protection, so that may be causing interference.
The ISY is know for its stability. The PLM is known to be the weak point of the Insteon system; discussions of an update to that device by more than one party have not led anywhere.
Insteon plug-in devices should not follow a surge protector. You can overlook this on some of the dual-band devices if they are close enough to other nodes for RF communication; as the PLM is powerline only, that is likely causing problems for you. Your PLM will die after two years; it just needs to be part of the budget. At 18 months, buy a spare to save some aggravation.