Homeseer/Insteon changes over the last few years

[DanWheeler]

I think I've been away too long and have missed some things. I guess that's a good thing. Things have been stable.

I have HS2 and a 2412U. I never paid for an insteon plug-in. It was included with HS2. Has that changed? Does HS not natively support Insteon anymore?

Any updates on the history or reasoning behind the change would be appreciated. I looked around but couldn't find anything.

thanks,
Dan

[Rupp]

I think I've been away too long and have missed some things. I guess that's a good thing. Things have been stable.

I have HS2 and a 2412U. I never paid for an insteon plug-in. It was included with HS2. Has that changed? Does HS not natively support Insteon anymore?

Any updates on the history or reasoning behind the change would be appreciated. I looked around but couldn't find anything.

thanks,
Dan

Yes, HomeSeer still has a very old Insteon plugin that may work with the 2412U but it hasn't been developed for a very long time since Mark (A 3rd party Insteon developer) took over the plugin and advanced it to an all encompassing plugin to handle all of the Insteon hardware.

[DanWheeler]

thanks, Rupp. So am I stuck on HS2 with the old plug-in unless I want to purchase the new Insteon plug-in with HS3?

I was just trying to figure out if the Insteon plug-in I have (the free one included with HS2) would support one of the SmartHome wireless Insteon thermostats.

Dan

[Rupp]

thanks, Rupp. So am I stuck on HS2 with the old plug-in unless I want to purchase the new Insteon plug-in with HS3?

I was just trying to figure out if the Insteon plug-in I have (the free one included with HS2) would support one of the SmartHome wireless Insteon thermostats.

Dan

Yea, you would need to move to Marks for any new functionality.
HomeSeer turned this plugin over a few years back.

[Krumpy]

In this case I support that Homeseer Technologies exits the support of Insteon. The development of such a plugin is pretty much a full time job and obviously HST can not spend that much time on each plugin.

Mark and Bob have invested a lot of time in these plugins and should be compensated for their time. Only challenge now is that's BOb has not released a HS3 plugin nor will commit to any time frame. So the ISY is in complete limbo. If this continues, then this will come to the end of Homeseer for me as I can move most of my automation into the Elk and ISY, and all other functionality can be managed via Cinemarsolutions MLserver product. That in itself does not sit right with me as I fully want to use the Homeseer products.

Mark does an awesome job in supporting his plugin.

[bdraper]

In this case I support that Homeseer Technologies exits the support of Insteon. The development of such a plugin is pretty much a full time job and obviously HST can not spend that much time on each plugin.

Mark and Bob have invested a lot of time in these plugins and should be compensated for their time. Only challenge now is that's BOb has not released a HS3 plugin nor will commit to any time frame. So the ISY is in complete limbo. If this continues, then this will come to the end of Homeseer for me as I can move most of my automation into the Elk and ISY, and all other functionality can be managed via Cinemarsolutions MLserver product. That in itself does not sit right with me as I fully want to use the Homeseer products.

Mark does an awesome job in supporting his plugin.

I agree Mark does a great job supporting his plugin. However with Homeseer exiting support for the Insteon side, they picked up Zwave.

[Madcodger]

In this case I support that Homeseer Technologies exits the support of Insteon. The development of such a plugin is pretty much a full time job and obviously HST can not spend that much time on each plugin.

Mark and Bob have invested a lot of time in these plugins and should be compensated for their time. Only challenge now is that's BOb has not released a HS3 plugin nor will commit to any time frame. So the ISY is in complete limbo. If this continues, then this will come to the end of Homeseer for me as I can move most of my automation into the Elk and ISY, and all other functionality can be managed via Cinemarsolutions MLserver product. That in itself does not sit right with me as I fully want to use the Homeseer products.

Mark does an awesome job in supporting his plugin.

I would just like for the ISY / Insteon situation to be better understood in terms of a path forward. I, too, use an ISY and HAVE moved almost everything over to the ISY and Elk. I would LIKE to use HomeSeer again, with hopefully the stability that is supposed to exist with HS3. I have purchased a HS3 upgrade and other potentially useful plugins (upgrades and new) but without ISY support I am unable to get much use out of this HS3 purchase. I am willing to pay a reasonable premium for an ISY plugin for HS3, if that would help speed things along.

[mnsandler]

thanks, Rupp. So am I stuck on HS2 with the old plug-in unless I want to purchase the new Insteon plug-in with HS3?

I was just trying to figure out if the Insteon plug-in I have (the free one included with HS2) would support one of the SmartHome wireless Insteon thermostats.

Dan

Dan,

my insteon plugin doesn't support tstats. you would need the Sage Insteon tstat plugin in addition to mine. but the only working pair right now is for HS2.

There is no hs3 sage plugin yet

[kuntakintay]

Dan,

my insteon plugin doesn't support tstats. you would need the Sage Insteon tstat plugin in addition to mine. but the only working pair right now is for HS2.

There is no hs3 sage plugin yet

Mark,

Are you in touch at all with the developer that created the SAGE plugin? I know there are at least 5-10 of us of us stuck without HVAC control since upgrading to hs3 due to the lack of insteon thermostat support, and I have 3 of them (and initially had zwave ones that were flaky with hs 2) so would really prefer NOT to have to buy another set of 3 zwave thermostats yet again.

Anything you can do to either find out status on development for a solution, or consideration of including them in your plugin would be greatly appreciated. Heck I would even be semi comfortable helping out with coding or testing - albeit I am not the best C# C++ programmer out there (still involved with development, just not actively coding - managing the coders...)

Thanks,
Toby

[swanie2000]

Hi Toby,
I am in the same boat, I have 2 sage insteon thermostats that are useless in HS3. I would also be more than happy to help beta test the thermostats if Mark added them to his plugin. I am sure Mark could do it, but I suspect there is a deeper reason why he is staying away from the thermostats. Maybe he doesn't want to step on Tom's toes?

What I did, this last weekend, was to install a program called VirtualBox on my HS3 machine. It allowed me to run a virtual machine, inside my HS3 machine.

So I created a new VIRTUAL machine. I loaded a new copy of windows, and fully updated it. Then I downloaded and installed HS2pro. I installed the insteon plugin, and the thermostat plugin.

Finally I used my spare PLM, on a spare serial port, and created the needed events to control the thermostat via my keypadlinc's.

I know this is not the best solution, and HS2 cannot talk to HS3, but for me, it is a happy mid way point, until the sage insteon plugin is developed.

Michael

[mnsandler]

have you guys tried Jon00 hs2 to hs3 plugin it might help in the short term

I don't know what else to say, Tom (of Sage) hasn't returned my emails either. Something must be going on that we are unaware of.

[bdraper]

Looks like Tom posted in several forums today, see http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=18

[Rupp]

He posted here stating that he was not going to port the Sage plugin to HS3 and is offering the code for a cost.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=160165

[kuntakintay]

He posted here stating that he was not going to port the Sage plugin to HS3 and is offering the code for a cost.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=160165

Thx. I dropped him an email. Thats really a bummer, but unfortunately it seems to be the norm... I am hoping w that news Mark will reconsider supporting through the plugin. I just really am at a loss here what to do besides go back to zwave and have been there before and wasnt a good place to be. Mark?

[CharlieWayne]

Not sure if the OP seen that there IS active development for a HS3 Insteon Tstat plugin.

Check over on Sages forum and you will find the new Dev. Its still unknown if the new Dev will get his own HS Forum to discuss the new HS3 plugin but for now were using Sages forum.