dth930

Following up on a message from a few weeks ago. I have a failing HAI OmniPro2 security/automation system. Specifically, the network connectivity is failing. It doesn't seem like there's a simple replacement option, so it looks like I'm going to keep it in place for security and augment it with an Eisy for anything networked that needs to be automated. That being said, I'd still like to be able to see and use the security events from the HAI to trigger actions on the Eisy. I'd also like to be able to control the HAI from the Eisy. Is there a way to interface with the HAI via RS232? I didn't see anything in the nodeserver list, but I'm hoping someone may have done this before. - Dave

I am a long time HAI OmniPro user who has finally hit the end of the road with my failing and no-longer-supported system. I am also a UD customer from the early days and currently have an Eisy that I use for some Insteon and other basic HA tasks. I'm struggling to figure out the best course of action to replace my HAI system. Some of the things I have integrated with the HAI that I would need to duplicate in the new system include X10 and Insteon dimmers, Omnistat thermostats, Somfy shades, Russound CAM. I believe the closest thing to a true replacement would be the Elk M1 Gold. I could retain most of my existing functionality but it feels like I'm buying into a technology and system that's similar vintage to the HAI I'm replacing. I realize that Elk plans to continue supporting the M1 for the foreseeable future, but it still seems like it has a limited shelf life. Of course, I could integrate the Elk with the Eisy to bridge the gap for any new integration protocols and requirements. The security and home automation landscape has changed significantly since I installed the OmniPro. At the time, there were no panels with IP interfaces. But now maybe I should look at things differently. Rather than trying to replace the hardware architecture that I currently have, would I be better off installing a more traditional and lower cost security panel and use something like Envisalink to integrate with Eisy? Then I would have a modern and more capable platform to handle all HA tasks. Of course, this assumes that I can get the Eisy to support the legacy RS232 devices that I currently have in-use. I imagine I may need to replace the thermostats and possibly the Russound. Besides more setup complexity, the only other downside to this approach that I can see is that I'll no longer be able to run HA routines and macros from the security panels. Anything not triggered by security events will need to be initiated by the UD mobile or some other controller. I'm sure others have faced a similar design decision. Where did you end up? Are there any other factors that I should be considering when planning a path forward? - Dave

That looks about right. Thanks for the guidance. - Dave

I'm using an ISY994i in a legacy application with IR input triggering various Insteon lighting scenes. Moving forward, I'm trying to remove IR from my system and would like to trigger the scenes by sending network commands to the ISY. Is this possible? I'm successfully controlling device with the ISY over the network, but it's not clear how to use received network commands as conditions in a program or to set variables. Am I missing something obvious or is this not possible? - Dave

Thanks. It now completely makes sense to me and is helpful in interpreting the data from the event log. I ended up replacing all of my 2476Ds with 2477Ds and now I consistently get hops left=2 and an occasional 1. I probably still have some noise in the system, but everything is working reliably and is much better than it was. - Dave

Sorry... I don't think I asked my question about hops clearly. I understand what a hop is. My question is about what "Max Hops" and "Hops Left" mean. Are Max Hops then max hops taken for the message or the max hops allowed by the system? Are Hops Left the difference between max hops and hops taken? In other words, hops left=2 indicates a direct connection from the PLM to the device (message used 1 hop), though hops left=2,1,0 are all successful, in decreasing order of communication performance. My PLM identifies itself as 9.37.6c v61 Is that new, old or problematic? I suspect it's on the older side, but not sure what improvements I could expect by upgrading. On an interesting note, when I queried my PLM to get the version, the admin console suddenly started writing to all of the devices that were waiting for an update. Is it possible that the PLM was locked up and querying got it working again? - Dave

I'm a little unclear on what "Hops Left" means. What indicates successful communication and what indicates failure? Does Max Hops=3 & Hops Left=0 mean it tried to communicate 3 times and failed? And Max Hops=3 & Hops Left=3 means it communicated on the first try? Is it even possible for both to be the same? And when you say that 1 or 0 hops means communications issues, are you talking about the Hops Left value or the difference between Max Hops and Hops Left? Also - I have a mixture of dual-band and legacy devices. Would that contribute to the problem? Thanks for the clarification. - Dave

I just did some testing and Max Hops is always 3 and Hops Left is always 1 or 2. I've never seen 3. I saw 0 a few times too. These are all wired devices. None are battery powered. Most of the devices are within 10 feet of each other. What are the next steps? Replace the PLM? - Dave

Yes - both are 4.7.3.

For quite some time, my ISY was working great so I haven't looked at it in several months. Recently, I had a few 2476Ds fail so I replaced them with 2477Ds. That seemed to go fine... new dimmers are working. The weird thing is when I load the admin console, the ISY fails to communicate with several dimmers, and I'm not talking about the ones I replaced (those seem to work fine). They come up with a red ! in the device list. However, if I try to query them I can turn them on and off. When I do that, the red ! changes to the green 1011. I've tried making updates to those individual devices and I've also restored all devices, but neither of those actions seem to help. I still get lots of communications failures when loading the admin console. Everything appears to be working fine, but I'm concerned because I've never seen this before. I'm using a 994 with firmware 4.7.3. Any advice on how to troubleshoot? - Dave

Wow - those are great. I actually used the push-in Wago connectors for the installation but those look smaller and easier to use. I'll give them a try when I swap out these dimmers. If nothing else, they seem easier during replacement since the wires should remove more easily. - Dave

Thanks for the additional thoughts. I agree 100% with the benefits of whole-house surge protection... so much so that I've had one installed for as long as the Insteon devices have been around. I can't say how much it's saved me because I don't have "before and after" data, but I'm sure I'd see even more failures without it. - Dave

The dimmers I'm replacing are probably around that age - 6-8 years. I have a mixture of 2476s and 2477s. They all seem to be failing a few at a time. The difference with something like Hue is that the replacement is much easier when they do fail. But I agree that the shortcomings aren't worth the trade-off at this point. I was hoping to learn what the flashing LEDs indicated and that there would be a fix, but I guess I'm not in luck. I'll try replacing them and hope I get some more time out of the new ones. If the reliability has gotten better maybe that will work for me. - Dave

I have a number of Insteon dimmers - 2477 and 2476 that have been dying lately. They either just go dead with no LEDs on the dimmer and no control of the load or they start flashing both the LEDs on the dimmer and the load. In the latter case, there's no control available from the local buttons and neither a power cycle or a hard reset of the dimmer fixes the problem. Has anyone else had reliability issues like this with these dimmers? If so, is there a recommendation for a replacement product that works with ISY and is more reliable and long-lasting? I'm thinking something like Philips Hue, but am open to any other ideas. Right now I have 5 dimmers that would need to be replaced so I'm trying to making a decision before investing in them. I can easily replace them, but it seems that I have dimmers dying at least once a year and would prefer not to be constantly replacing them. - Dave