My ISY994i pro is starting to glitch and I'd very much like to not be dependent on UDI for yet another piece of hardware that I'll just have to replace in a few years.
I see my two main choices are 1) Use a PLM directly or 2) Get a Hub 2 and then integrate HA with the Hub.
I'd rather integrate directly with the PLM but it seems native Insteon scene management may be an issue unless this has been implemented in HA since. Otherwise if I want native scene management, I'd have to go Hub 2 which kind of sucks since that's the only thing I'd be using the Hub for.
Has anyone done an ISY to HA migration with stories to share?
Last summer, I migrated my Insteon setup from UDI ISY994i to using Home Assistant directly. With the Insteon integration, I realized that my ISY994i was no longer needed.
My Insteon PLM 2413S connects directly to Home Assistant through an interface cable.
I only have two Insteon scenes at the moment but they work well for me. I highly recommend this method of using the Insteon integration and connecting the PLM to HA.
Have you progressed on this decision? Have you found more info on this? I have about 55 Insteon devices throughout the house and purchased a 1 Port FTDI USB to Serial Adapter Cable from StartTech.com and a DB9 to RJ45 Modular Adapter from StarTech to be able to plug my Insteon serial PLM directly into my HA Rasberry Pi.
But then I started reading some thing about stability issues and the featureset and got cold feet.
Have you done it?
A Hub 2245-222 has an ethernet interface, at least that is all I use.
Connect it, look in router for it’s IP address. Reserve that address for the hub.
Install integration using that IP and the user/password on the bottom of the Hub.
I left ISY behind probably 6+ years ago. This was the perfect setup for me with about similar number of switches, dimmers, fanlincs, etc. All work fine.
Years ago when Insteon2MQTT first came out, it was only for use with a serial interface. I wrote a driver for it to use the 2245-222. It was from that experience that I found that it uses a circular buffer between the Ethernet and the internal PLM, and the 2245-222 itself sometimes inserts messages into that buffer. One has to poll the buffer quite frequently to track its messages. Things work around 95% of the time, but it is very difficult to track the messages in that buffer in a way that no message is ever lost. Using a serial PLM is a much better way.
I have HA installed at two different locations. Both had an ISY994i.
I decided to to migrate one of them away from the UD integration to the HA Insteon Integration. This seemed to work well, but, as I remember, there was some funkiness with the scenes. This system has a serial PLM. I had to build a special cable with a serial-to-usb.
In the other system, I have some programs that are a bit complex and I have concerns that they will be difficult to port to HA. For now, I’ll go by the adage, “If it works, don’t fixit.”
All in all, they both work well enough.
On another note, I have a USB PLM as a spare that I thought I’d use as a backup. Alas, I have not found a way to copy the data base of the working one into the spare. Something to do with the fact that the two PLMs have different Insteon addresses. I was hoping the Insteon Terminal could do it for me. If it can, I can’t figure it out.