The Insteon Hub 2 is not fully supported! Solved!

[CharlieWayne]

Claude,

the intrest in connecting the HUB after the PLM is because Insteon has interfaced the Amazon Echo only through their HUB. For the Echo to control a device, it must be done through their api and the device must be linked to the hub.

HS would only know if the Echo changed a device state by polling those devices. Its kind of hick, but hey you work with what ya got.

[Jon]

I would expect that having both a hub and a plm attached to the same homeseer instance and the same insteon network to be unnecessarily redundant. It would be much like having a laptop connect via two different wifi cards to the same wifi network.
In theory (and I know it's not this simple) the hub is a Ethernet based plm that also serves a gateway to the insteon cloud service. The cloud service (and maybe a lot in the app itself) is where the brains are located. This serves the same function as homeseer does (on a rudimentary level)
The way I understand the hub is that it's no more than a multi protocol bridge or gateway. It speaks two different Ethernet based API languages (original plm wrapped in IP, and the newer web API) and insteon and evidentially x10 too.
Since insteon protocol requires linking to a hub/plm in order to monitor and control devices you're going to have to link all devices to it. Why would you want to maintain that link database in two places? Why would you want to keep the plm if the hub does the same thing? It seems to me that so long as the hub and the plugin are fully functional and have their bugs worked out that the hub is a superior replacement to a plm. A lab based hub doesn't have the problems of either serial or USB. Your PC doesn't need to have a legacy serial port or a flaky USB to serial adapter. You're not limited by serial distances to locate the hub. You don't have to worry about USB distance limits or dropouts or driver issues.



--Jon Chuchla--

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[automateme]

Jon,

I am in complete agreement with you and would gladly replace my USB/Serial adapter and PLM with a Hub 2. I actually have one waiting for a good comfort level that it will be reliable. I may get bored at some point and just migrate over to try it. In my alternate scenario, the Hub 2 would be completely outside of Homeseer, and running in parallel with my HS3 environment, just to support the Harmony and Echo. As you suggested, unnecessarily redundant, but my HS3/Insteon reliability is my main concern right now. Harmony and Echo will be great for the future.

[claude]

Who has a v2 hub working?

I'm just surprised we haven't heard more from those with v2 hubs about their experience (chadg, madigan, CharlieWayne, others?). I suspect that HS + Insteon is a small community; I hope I'm wrong because support is proportional to user base.

Come on guys, give it up. We need you guinea pigs to tell us what works and what doesn't with the v2.

[CharlieWayne]

Before I do anything again with my hub, I need to contact Insteon so they will stop doing firmware updates. Every time they do these it wipes out all my settings and data. That's why I stopped testing this device and don't run it as my principal interface.

But also I am really behind on another speaker project which one of our Devs has done so much work in porting forward his scripts, I feel the need to finish that before taking on this hub again.

I did get the hub out from my closet today, so that's a big start. Lol.

If I recall also swapping from a PLM to the Hub was not that easy. It was almost as if I had to go through each and every device because the swap feature wasn't working well at the time. I dont recall all the details though as its been some time I can look through emails I sent mark.



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[claude]

Before I do anything again with my hub, I need to contact Insteon so they will stop doing firmware updates. Every time they do these it wipes out all my settings and data. That's why I stopped testing this device and don't run it as my principal interface.

But also I am really behind on another speaker project which one of our Devs has done so much work in porting forward his scripts, I feel the need to finish that before taking on this hub again.

I did get the hub out from my closet today, so that's a big start. Lol.

If I recall also swapping from a PLM to the Hub was not that easy. It was almost as if I had to go through each and every device because the swap feature wasn't working well at the time. I dont recall all the details though as its been some time I can look through emails I sent mark.

On the F/W update issue, you could simply put in a firewall rule blocking Insteon from pushing those pesky updates.

As far as swapping goes, maybe Mark can tell us if the logic has been improved since you last used it.

[madigan]

cs-12175's post on June 26th said: "... I replaced with the hub (2245) about a month ago... All was well enough until today, when I tried to add new insteon devices to my setup. I can not manually add, nor tap-add any new devices ..."

What is your experience with the v2 hub in that respect? How is it going in general so far?

Afraid I'm not too much help with specifics - I'm almost completely Z-wave. I only got into Insteon (I have serious problems with the company) because of Fanlincs. I've installed them awhile back and have not had to make any changes since then. I still have to install my ballast dimmer, but have no timetable for that (I hate pulling those troffers out of the ceiling).

Currently, Insteon is faster than Z-wave ...

[MSAUTO]

Hub 1 and Hub 2 work together

Jon,

I am in complete agreement with you and would gladly replace my USB/Serial adapter and PLM with a Hub 2. I actually have one waiting for a good comfort level that it will be reliable. I may get bored at some point and just migrate over to try it. In my alternate scenario, the Hub 2 would be completely outside of Homeseer, and running in parallel with my HS3 environment, just to support the Harmony and Echo. As you suggested, unnecessarily redundant, but my HS3/Insteon reliability is my main concern right now. Harmony and Echo will be great for the future.

I am running and have been running your alternate scenario for aprox 3 mnths with no problems at all.I use the hub 1 for vr with kinects and scheduling etc... and hub 2 with the insteon for hub app on phones and control panels and harmony hub as well as alexa.

[gustavo]

Hello everyone,

I'm new on this forum, I have been running IndigoDomo for the past 3 years, doing a overhaul on my system and trying out the HS3pro, since I'm one of the lucky ones with the 2 insteon hubs (HomeKit and Hub2) one easy communicates with alexa, another with siri.

I'm struggling trying to make the information go around and maybe you guys can help a poor newbie fellow here.

I'm using Insteon PLM Plug-in by Mark, and it is connected to Hub 2 via IP, great and cool, I can use it as a normal usb SmartHome PLM 2413U, but went I use Amazon Echo (Alexa) to turn Lights ON or OFF, this information is lost in the dust, like Alexa reaches the Hub, control the switch but HS3Pro has no idea that the state of that light has changed, I can get that status by pooling manually or create a event to pool status all the time but i don't think this is the solution.

Also im working on the GitHub Homebridge for the HS3Pro (no much success yet)

Thanks you so much for the attention, and Very much thanks to the Mark

[gustavo]

medigan,

how do you closed the loop from homeseer and siri, siri turn off using the hub, but how do you get homeseer to update the status of that device ?

thanks

[gustavo]

msauto,

have you look in to neeo remote, is one kickstarted project about to come out, I'm about to receive my (purchased a long time ago) looks very solid and has a clean cut.

[automateme]

I am running and have been running your alternate scenario for aprox 3 mnths with no problems at all.I use the hub 1 for vr with kinects and scheduling etc... and hub 2 with the insteon for hub app on phones and control panels and harmony hub as well as alexa.

Thanks for the info. Does everything stay in sync? If you control a light with the harmony, is the correct status reflected in HS? I will likely unbox my hub 2 and set it up in a couple of weeks to try all this.

[deckerchevy]

HELP..not really but I do need help! Not crazy urgent though!

Hey yall I went ahead and switched out my hub out to the new hub 2245 I believe so I could integrate the new Amazon Echo. I then sold my old hub to a friend of mine to get started on his own system. Well now unfortunately I can run insteon through their app and I can tell Alexa(even though she is stubborn) what to do and she does it. However I lost the ability for my HS3Pro to log into the hub anymore...so for the time being Im dead in the water with all my events etc. Has anyone been successful in getting the plugin to work? I would really like to be able to use the plugin and my homeseer again! Thank you! I shall now enjoy a frosty beverage while I wait.....

[claude]

Hey yall I went ahead and switched out my hub out to the new hub 2245 I believe so I could integrate the new Amazon Echo. I then sold my old hub to a friend of mine to get started on his own system. Well now unfortunately I can run insteon through their app and I can tell Alexa(even though she is stubborn) what to do and she does it. However I lost the ability for my HS3Pro to log into the hub anymore...so for the time being Im dead in the water with all my events etc. Has anyone been successful in getting the plugin to work? I would really like to be able to use the plugin and my homeseer again! Thank you! I shall now enjoy a frosty beverage while I wait.....

When you set up Echo with the Insteon hub, did you have to create credentials (id, pw)? If so, have you tried using the same with Mark's plugin? If all else fails, have you tried factory resetting the hub and accessing it from the plugin (without first accessing it from Echo)?

[deckerchevy]

When you integrate the echo it asks you to log in like you do a webpage....I have tried to use the same username/pwd but to no avail...nothing seems to work at this moment. I have tried to back up my homeseer and then uninstall/reinstall the plugin but that didnt work either...Im pretty much dead in the water at this point for some reason...