I’m running HAOS on a Pi 4 and have an Insteon 2448A7 on it, but I’m having trouble with it communicating with the two Insteon devices I’ve set up so far. What’s odd is that the 2448A7 can read the device states when HA reboots, but that’s it. (This tells me that the devices must be using RF and not just the power line for communication.) I did a factory reset on the 2413S and tried to add it to my Insteon network on HA. I gave it the address and used 0x03 for the category and 0x11 for the subcategory (according to Insteon). When I submit that to HA, it says the information is saved, but I don’t see the 2413S added as a device. (If possible, I’d love to add it this way - it’d be the easiest and I’m thinking the PLM can work as a signal booster and might send things out by RF and power line.)
I have an Insteon 2413S PLM and I’d like to use it as well. That modem worked for years controlling the devices while attached to an ISY 994i hub, so I know it works. However, due to clutter (both in configurations and in number of gadgets and plugs and power strips and entangled cables and…), I would REALLY prefer to eliminate the ISY and work with just HA on my Pi 4.
The problem is the 2413S PLM only has an AC plug and an RJ45 jack. I know I can’t connect that to an RJ45 on a Pi. I’m assuming I need something else on the Pi. Either some kind of USB to RS232 converter or maybe I need a HAT for the Pi. And, of course, once I add any kind of device like that, there are likely driver issues.
I’ve seen references to people using a 2413S PLM with HA and it looks like they’re talking about using them on a Pi. I might have missed something, though. I’ve seen a lot of comments about how Insteon hubs are unreliable or flakey with HA, so I’d rather not use one of them and I’d rather not have to order something else to make an Insteon network work.
Is there any way I can use this 2413S with my HA system?
Sorry for the late response on this. Let me break this down into a few items:
Using the 2413S: As you already identified, unless you an get the RS232 port to show up as a com port this will not work.
2448A7: I use this device myself and it works great. There are a couple of reasons your 2448A7 modem may not be seeing updates from the devices:
a. Perhaps the it is an RF to powerline issue. If so you can get a range extender: Range Extender — Insteon
b. The default links are not setup. This is a little more tricky to explain but in order for the modem to see updates from the device, it should be a responder of the device. I have created a process to configure the device and modem All-Link Databases by calling the insteon.add_default_links service. You can find more info in the documentation
Adding the 2413S as a device in HA is not a meaningful exercise unless you can make #1 above work.
Would be curious to know how to connect a serial plm to a pc also.
I have an isy 994 right now (running the integration) , but it seems to be slowly dying and if home assistant can use the PLM then I don’t see a reason to buy the polisy to keep insteon going. I’m using the serial PLM now, have a spare new in the box serial PLM and an Old insteon hub so I should be good until there are decent alternatives for the fanlinc and keypadlincs.
I’m running HAOS on proxmox so it may be a challenge to passthrough hardware, but I’ll try.
I’ll have to dig up a usb to serial adapter and try that.
Other than that I have no idea how to connect the PLM to the PC.
I’d like to bump this.
Like ImaginaryTango, I’d like to eliminate my ISY, as no matter what I do with Java and the ISY Launcher JWS, I can’t get into the admin console on my ISY. - I am NOT looking to remedy this, just saying.
Has anyone had luck using the serial PLC with Insteon’s DB9 to RJ45 serial cable, and connecting that to an RPi4 using a USB to DB9 serial adapter? I know my PLC works fine, as I’m using it via the ISY and the ISY integration, and I’m not having any issues commanding devices or receiving status updates from all devices. If it’s working for you, is it plug&play, or do I need to set up some kind of helper script or add-on to make it work?
So I made a move and bought a Shugart DB-9 to USB serial adapter from Amazon, and connected that to the DB-9 to RJ-45 cable plugged into the 2413S, and it works. I didn’t have to do anything other than link my devices into HA via the Insteon integration.
Now I just have to go thru and change all my automations from the ISY to Insteon integrations. It’s worth it, IMO.
Similar situation here. Also trying to connect the 2413S directly to HA. Based on some of the lastest posts, I decided to try a USB-to-RS232 Cable plugged into a RS232-to-RJ45 cable. Successfully passed through the USB-to-RS232 cable to HA Docker container (as far as I can tell). but continuously get a “Unknown Error” when trying to add the Insteon PLM integration. When I used an improperly passed-through USB-to-RS232 port, it fails immediately, but when I got that part resolved (again, as far as I can tell) it takes 10-15 seconds to ultimately fail, which leads me to believe that the port is now passed-through correctly, and the error lies somewhere else.
Can someone who got this combination working pease provide a little feedback? My USB-to-RS232 cable is the Prolific PL2303 chipset. What chipset did you use? FTDI? At first I used the RJ45 cable as-is, then realized the pinout was wrong. Re-terminated with proper pinout (using pins 1, 7 & 8 on the RJ45), according to Insteon PLM documentation (and verified continuity throughout with multimeter). Also matches pinout with another tutorial I found online for this exact same configuration. I haven’t damaged the PLM from using the wrong pinout. It still works fine when reconnected to the ISY. But direct connection, always “Unknown error” and absolutely zero reference or clues in the logs.
The only thing left that makes much sense to me at all is if this PL2303 chipset is somehow incompatible or not supported in Unraid or HA (couldn’t find much of anything anywhere on that topic, either). Can anyone provide some clues or guidance? I would really love to eliminate the now redundant and no-longer-supported (by the manufacturer) ISY994i.
Would also like to know what chipset people have used successfully when connecting a serial PLM to HAOS. I’ve been putting off taking the ISY out of my network because I just don’t have much time to tinker so any info I can get ahead of time would be awesome. Thanks
Ok, so I finally got this working just last night. I ended up buying an FTDI-based RS232 adapter, but got the same (unsuccessful) results.
https://arachnoid.com/insteon_rescue/
This is one of the tutorials I had consulted, but what ended up making this work, was I actually had to reverse the TX & RX pins on the RJ45-to-RS-232 cable (pin 2 & 3 on theRS-232/DB9 end).
Ultimately, I got it working with the FTDI adapter, but I suspect it would have also worked with the Prolific one as well, now that I sorted the pinout on the other cable. I never got an indication that the serial adapter was the issue. Since I have both cables, I’ll be sure to try it with the Proflific one this weekend and report back to the group. Until then, if you need to use a Prolific one, I’d say I’m 90% confident that one will work also, once you get the pinout right on the RJ45-side of the cable.
Also for information purposes, I recently switched from a HassOS VM to Docker Container, and the latter is where I got this working. Depending on your configuration in that regard, the method to passthrough the USB-to-Serial cable will be different, but either configuration should work just the same. I’m confident of that. Feel free to ask me any additional questions you may have. I would have liked to have such a resource a few weeks ago when I started on this. My ISY994iZW is now officially unplugged and unused, saving a few watts of constant power drain, and eliminating a extra failure-point.
Regarding the mentioned reversal of pin 2 & 3, at least for my configuration the interconnect specified in the referenced link worked correctly for me.
Migrating off the ISY994 as well with a 2413S. If anyone can send me an explicit parts list to go from USB to the modem’s RJ45, I’d really appreciate it. (Or if anyone wants to make a few $ assembling a cable for me, PM me and I’ll be happy to support a reasonable overhead.)