Raspberry PI 3b+, serial hat, Insteon 2413S no HA joy

1

Hello All,

I am just getting starting putting my first Home Assistant system together and am running into trouble getting HA to talk to my Insteon 2413S (serial model) PLM.

I have the following setup:
Raspberry Pi 3b+
Wingoneer X230 RS232 Serial Port and Real-time Clock Pi hat
Insteon 2413S PLM

Tested and confirmed that the Raspberry PI sees the serial hat and that it can control the PLM and in turn control lights by testing with Raspbian and insteon-terminal.

So far so good.

Unfortunately, that is where my luck ends. I have tried many different configurations of Home Assistant and cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it to talk to the 2413S.

I currently have Home Assistant 0.111.2 and HassOS 4.10 freshly installed on my Raspberry.

Here is the log of the error:
Setup failed for insteon: Integration failed to initialize.
June 15, 2020, 11:15:21 PM – setup.py (ERROR)

Could not connect to Insteon modem
June 15, 2020, 11:15:21 PM – insteon (ERROR)

Setup of insteon is taking over 10 seconds.
June 15, 2020, 11:14:25 PM – main.py (WARNING)

My HA config:

-# Configure a default setup of Home Assistant (frontend, api, etc) default_config:

-# PLM configuration variables
insteon:
port: /dev/ttyAMA0

logger:
default: info
logs:
pyinsteon.topics: debug
pyinsteon.messages: debug
custom_components.insteon: debug

-# Text to speech
tts:

  • platform: google_translate

group: !include groups.yaml
automation: !include automations.yaml
script: !include scripts.yaml
scene: !include scenes.yaml

My Raspberry Pi config.txt:

-# For more options and information see -# http://rpf.io/configtxt -# Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details

-# HassOS - don’t change it!
disable_splash=1
kernel=u-boot.bin

-# uncomment for aarch64 bit support
#arm_64bit=1

-# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default “safe” mode
#hdmi_safe=1

-# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
-# and your display can output without overscan
-#disable_overscan=1

-# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
-# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
-#overscan_left=16
-#overscan_right=16
-#overscan_top=16
-#overscan_bottom=16

-# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display’s size minus
-# overscan.
-#framebuffer_width=1280
-#framebuffer_height=720

-# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

-# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
-#hdmi_group=1
-#hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_cvt=800 480 60 6
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87

-# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in
-# DMT (computer monitor) modes
-#hdmi_drive=2
-#hdmi_drive=2

-# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or
-# no display
-#config_hdmi_boost=4

-# uncomment for composite PAL
-#sdtv_mode=2

-#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
-#arm_freq=800

-# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
-#dtparam=i2c_arm=on
-#dtparam=i2s=on
-#dtparam=spi=on
dtparam=i2c_arm=on
dtparam=i2c1=on

-# Uncomment this to enable the lirc-rpi module
-#dtoverlay=lirc-rpi

-# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README

-# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
-#dtparam=audio=on

[all]
-#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d
-#max_framebuffers=2

-# Disable bluetooth because I don’t need it for Home Assistant
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

-# Disable Wifi because I don’t need it for Home Assistant
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi

-# Enable real time clock (rtc) on serial add-on card
dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,ds1307

I am not sure what I can do next to troubleshoot or test the system. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2

I don’t know much about the RPi but if you are using GPIO perhaps this link will help:

3

Hi teharris1,

I was just about to shutdown Home Assistant to try your suggestion when I noticed this panel appear on my HA for the first time: LampLinc Dimmer 3E.59.DF

Insteon_on_HA

I also confirmed that it turns the light on and off without problems. This is exciting for me since I’ve been trying to get this working for several weeks now.

I did upgrade to 0.111.3 since my original post this morning so maybe there was a fix in there? Either way I am happy and hoping that whatever kicked the 2413S into action keeps working!

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to respond and I will keep your suggestion in mind if things break again. Hoping not though!

–John_Beck

4

Sad to say but the Insteon PLM finally working with HA did not last through a reboot.

I also tried your suggestion teharris1 but that didn’t change anything, unfortunately.

Seeing it work even if only for a few minutes leaves me even more stumped now than I was before.

I think the problem is in how HassOS deals with the Raspberry’s serial hardware but I have no idea how to test or troubleshoot that.

Anyone have any advice?

5

Sorry, no. I am not familiar with the RPi enough. Based on the fact that it did connect it does not appear to be an issue with the insteon component rather an issue with how the RPi is exposing the port/device.

6

I agree. I think everything from the Home Assistant side on up is fine. This has to be something in HassOS. I just have no idea how to troubleshoot that.

Know of anyone I can contact on the HassOS team?

7

Just a little update:
Upon updating Home Assistant to 0.111.4, the Insteon serial PLM was recognized and started functioning again Unfortunately, just like the last time, it did not survive a reboot.

Other than that, I have had no luck in finding a solution.

8

@john_beck :

I know this is a year later, but I’m hoping this can help me.

I’m using an Insteon 2448A7 and it’s not doing a good job at communicating with a few devices. I’d like to hook up my older 2413S and use that. For one thing, it’s AC powered, so it probably can send a stronger signal than the 2448A7. Also, the 2413S worked with an ISY hub for a while to talk to the same devices I’m having issues with now.

I see you’ve also discussed this on GitHub as a bug issue that was resolved.

With the HAT you used, did you just connect the three lines from TX, RX, and GND? Or did you have to do more to make it work? And, after the bug was fixed, did HA still require all the work you did in the configuration file, or was HA able to see it without anything extra added to any config files?

9

I have a similar problem to yours-- do you have any solution to using 2413S with Raspberry Pi? I was thinking of a USB-Serial cable, naively, but wondering about the Hat solution.

10

Sorry for the late reply. The thread notifications go to an email account I don’t check very often.

I hope you both found some solutions in the meantime but in case not, I’ll reply anyway.

The serial hat I bought just stacked on the GPIO pins of the Raspberry PI itself and had the standard DB9 connector on it so I didn’t have to do anything with connecting individual wires.

I have a second RPI test rig that’s on loan to a friend but when I get it back I was going to try to add serial to it using the instructions in the link below. TBH though, the simplest thing might just be to use a serial Pi hat.

If you’re not using a pre-made serial Pi hat, the one thing to apparently watch out for is the signal voltage incompatibility in the TX and RX pins and the serial device. The link below covers what you need to do to solve that.

Edited link (This link seems more up-to-date):

Hope this helps.
–John

11

Adding: I recall there was an entry that needs to be added to the configuration file for HA but it’s been a while and I don’t recall it. I can look at my config when I am home if you are still having trouble.

–John