bigDvette

Oh, I had problems. 1 of my soft starts on my AC units died and some other stuff not to mention the thousands spent replacing switches and that's before all the time (which honestly, I enjoy problem solving so yeah). I have a claim with Tesla.

So tesla came out. a big issue with the flickering and reliability was there was a loose neutral on the main panel (after meter, before load center(s)) I suspected this and I checked neutral all the way to the gateways but not to the main panel because I had to turn off power to house and wasn't sure exactly how to test. I mean the lug had to be turned 3 more times (full turns) to lock it down. I knew when they came to replace my main breaker after meter because they broke a lug that they were going to forget to check all the torques again.

I am using the Inovelli White Switches 2-1 dimmer, fan module, canopy and waiting on the on/off w/humidity to come out. I detailed in another post my issues with the tesla powerwall and insteon switches / communication issues. I've been on insteon for like 20 years (maybe little less) and it has been great, but was showing it's age. I took the opportunity to move to what I assume will be the next generation to be around a while and decided to incur the pain of matter/thread. I am doing thread only if I can. I'm currently using some wifi for specific applications. I haven't replace some of my on/off switches, none of my leak sensors and have kept my keypad lincs.. Waiting for inovelli on/off with humidity for bathrooms, inovelli has an upcoming scene controller and since I'm ubiquity I may use their upcoming product release for leak sensors. I use elk for alarm panel, but may transition to ubiquity protect for alarm at some point. I currently would like to commission my matter light switches that are linked to insteon keypadlincs to manage the syncing of those buttons in eisy instead of home assistant automations and was trying to see how far I could take that, but it is working fine in HA. https://community.inovelli.com/t/my-journey-from-insteon-to-inovelli-and-matter-thread/18613

I’m pretty up on all the networking requirements for matter. I don’t think the matter dongle can work as a thread border router given the requirement to use thread is that you have to have a border router in the 5.9.1 release notes. My real reason for wanting to know if anybody’s gotten a device set up is because there’s no mention of whether or not the Zmatter / EISY need to be on the same vlan as the thread border router. With Home Assistant I had to make sure that the matter server was in the same vlan as the thread Apple border router. My assumption is the EISY is running its own matter server much like Home Assistant has to run its own matter server to provision devices. so far I haven’t been able to get matter servers talking to one other except in the same vlan and at the moment my EISY is not in the same vlan. United States. I’m kind of hoping I can use one of the Wi-Fi connections and stick the Wi-Fi adapter in the vlan of the matter servers instead of having to move the EISY to that vlan but there’s no information on how any of the networking works and a flat network simply doesn’t cut it with all these IOT devices

Has anyone got a matter device paired. I am looking forward to this because I am still using KPLs for scene controllers even though all my switches are now matter over thread. I was hoping to add the to Eisy and then put them in scenes to remove the automations I have built in Home Assistant to keep switch and KPL in sync. I too am getting the error reading QR code message. The 5.9.1 notes talk about wifi settings change, but I'm assuming it doesn't have to turn on the wifi radio as eisy is not acting as a TBR so it doesn't "need" a wifi signal like the TBR does to communicate with thread devices.

There are so many variables to all this. For instance, my main panel is separated from the electrical entrance to the house by probably 50ft of primary wire to the main panel and my secondary powerwall gateway is 75ft away. I also think it makes a difference if your wireless dual band devices are good. I have (had) a lot of switches all dual-band and that may have helped. I haven't seen any red blinking lights in a long time. Have you tried a new PLM? A failing PLM can also cause these problems. If you want to try one reach out, I bought a bunch of new stuff trying to solve this including new PLMs from insteon and won't be using them.

Yes this was investigated by a few of us. Impersonally have done a grid outage simulation and actually when on battery there was no flickering. There are lot of places to look for sure.

So Tesla came today. I could recreate my problem on the room I left Insteon switches in by lowering the backup threshold to 98% and letting the battery provide power for a bit, then raise the backup to 100% so the charger controller in the PW3 kicks on. I explained to him that I would see issues with flicker in the house even if the power wall for the guest house (all connected the same 400amp load center) was going from charge to discharge. I probably need to let it run a bit longer test wise, but the problem seems to now be gone. No flickering. I'm not saying this solves the communication issues and I will continue to monitor for that, but the flickering when going on and off charge seems to be better. The issue is what I suspected and was a loose neutral. They messed up my main breaker during the install and changed it out a few days later. The connection from that breaker to the 400amp load center that feeds both pw3 gateway was loose (like 3 turns of the lug loose). The guy was super honest about it being totally an install failure. I'll test the communication issues to see if they are less. He was pretty sure when we started the problem was either. 1) a loose neutral 2) an improperly bonded neutral to ground (either bad bond or that there was more than 1 bond to neutral). I had checked the double bonded issue myself in the panels and ensured the bonding lugs in the gateways were removed, but didn't want to mess with the high power load in the main panel and wasn't sure how to test (other than tightening) for a bad neutral as I have some big splice blocks as well. Anyway, if you see flickering, maybe check the neutrals as stuff I read in other forums also eluded to this.

What inovelli did you purchase. I installed 50 inovelli white series dimmers and in every room I installed them flickering has never happened again.

I don't think inovelli is magic. Depends on strip light. it does have some feature so you can set min dim and max brightness. Some LEDs don't like dimmers. I don't believe inovelli dimmers are meant to work with lights with transformers as a general rule of thumb.

I’ve covered all the things I’ve done in previous posts. yes to all of them. I have moved away from this by moving all my automation except 1 room (waiting for Tesla to come out) to inovelli matter / thread dimmers. No flickering. i have filters in the Powerwall / power side, TVSS noise suppressors with emi filtering. Added them, removed them … I can confirm it is when the inverters / chargers turn on and off or when the load is very low on the batteries. if you turn off batteries problem disappears. its hard to isolate the pw3 as the same lines that charge the batteries also are used for discharge. I have a bigger problem that I effectively have 2 Powerwall systems off a single meter so i need power and communications to flow across the system and filtering at the interior panel filters out signals from coming down (noise) but also up. i think the Insteon components are susceptible to either small changes in frequency or voltage as you can see the status leds flicker as well. Then you get to communication issues which I was able to address by moving my plm far away (electrically) from the panel. I have so many dual devices I assume it was just working. The only time it really got Christmas light weird as the routine I use to change all the led brightness of switches at night and back in morning. Lots of commands.

Communication issues applies to all this filter conversation. the flickering of the loads attached to dimmers is not really affected by any of the filter recommendations.

I mean maybe the breaker, could be a loose neutral or you could have a grounded neutral (I found one of those when rewiring all my switches). My situation was the whole house, every can light, under counter light, sconce would flicker occasionally (never constantly) and only when the battery is doing this stupid charge process that turns inverter on and off every minute or so trying to top up the battery. If I set backup to 99% is does it less because evidentially 100% is 99.9 +.1 and you only need to lose .1 to make it kick back on the charger but 99% is like 99.5 and comes back on at 98.9. i also had red blinking less lights on my switches showing comm issues. I had like 75 dimmer switches. Now that they are almost all gone I have no comm issues with these remaining KPLs which now control no loads directly or the remaining switchoinc, outletlinc or wireless devices.

If you go to inovelli.com there is only one version of white(matter) dimmer switch. If you have eisy I would try the red version that is zwave if you want to put in to your automation.

Sorry, I am not using these with ISY. They do have zwave versions of these switches I have not tried as. I get no flickering with these switches.

I haven’t seen anything on zwave. It is definitely only dimmers and KPL dimmers. On/off no problem. I can also see the leds in the kpl lighly flicker. My belief is the triac based dimmers are sensitive to some noise and are susceptible to phase changes. The pw3 must be generating noise in to the ac current but my ups and my monitoring don’t show voltage drops so maybe it’s here is some phase inversion when charging? If I set battery back to make it not charge it stops flickering. So the inverter kicking on and off must be causing the issues. I’ve left Insteon in 1 room so if Tesla ever comes out we can look at the problem.

Not for me. I took apart every light switch box in my house and changed to inovelli matter switches. As I went I tested every circuit and did find a neutral load wire that must be grounded somewhere. I removed it and checked everything and still get flickering. the new switches do not blink. I have left my KPLs in the loop for now to give all my leak sensors a dual channel path and to do some scene controlling but mine are hooked to a load. I am going to leave 1 room Insteon only for when Tesla come out. I tried the little devices you wore between neutral and load to reduce flicker but I’m wondering if I should have tried working in front of the switch. I’m still playing with options to remove flickering. My communication and errors have calmed down once I moved the ppm to the furthest location electrically from the powerwall3.

I didn’t go zwave, I’m going to hop over to matter and thread and go all in home assistant on lighting control and deal with all the ugly new tech issues in favor of future development potential . I’ve been happy with Insteon and isy for 20 years but running dual plugins to get apple home devices … has been a lot of work so moving programs to HA. Already have stuff I like better with what I have had with Insteon, but finding ways around them until matter binding is implemented.

Where is this setting? I don’t think I see that setting in the Tesla 1 app.

I started ripping out my 40 or so Insteon dimmers and putting in inovelli matter dimmers. no flicker. It isn’t Insteon’s fault as I’ve had some of these since 2004 with no problems but writing on wall with Insteon so make the change now is my decision.

Tesla says they can come look at it at the earliest date of March 31. What a joke. Told them they are on notice for damage and so far I have a failed soft start AC unit, a few automation devices. I know for sure it only happens when batteries are in this charging / not-charging loop trying to get to reserve. Ive had to set batteries below 100% as they never seem to get to 100%. when neither battery is in this charge / non-charge loop there is no flickering.

I would appreciate any help or advice you have. I’m convinced it is made worse by having backup at 100%. When backup at 100% the charging / not charging graph looks like left side of the picture attached. At 98% it doesn’t do the same thing and looks like left. Essentially I don’t ever see my batteries get to 100% and the constant switching on and off charger creates some of flickering and noise.

I've also seen that it is worse when lightly loaded. At moment mine are in background mode only so always lightly used. The flickers seem to happen when it shows it is lightly discharging and then recharging. I don't know why it needs to do this 2 times a minute, but whatever. Anyway, when it does a calibration and goes totally battery so all load on the batteries the flickering completely stops. It's really annoying, I have like 15-keypadlincs and 35-2477D dimmers. All of them with loads attached flicker occasionally. I've divided my problem in 2 parts. 1) Communication reliability - this doesn't seem too bad but I'm convinced my micro on-off problem is related to the batteries as only the v.43 versions have the problem and all of them have the problem. The .48 versions do not. My PLM is being a little flaky so going to try a brand new one that some people say has better / stronger signal and see what happens. 2) Light flicker. I know these are triac dimmers. The LED bulbs in the Switchlink ON/OFF don't flicker and neither do the insteon bulbs or the lamplinc, so assuming maybe it is the forward phase dimming of the triac. I found a known forward phase dimming bulb I'm going to test and see if it makes any difference. If the flickering can go away, I can maybe solve the comm issues.

I have exactly all of these issues you have. I can confirm that turning off the batteries eliminated the problems. I bought those little blue/yellow dimmer fixers Insteon sells and that didn’t help. I swapped bulbs and that didn’t help. i’ve seen haywire red flashing on the devices a few times. i removed my Transient voltage surge suppressor as a test and that didn’t fix it. while I knew it was doing some flickering I removed the dimmer switch and wired the light direct (no switch) and problem stops. I’ve seen the little leds in the dimmer switch twinkle. Putting on a large load like a hair dryer doesn’t make it do anything. i downloaded the Tesla One app and paired to my PW3s to see realtime voltage and hz. It doesn’t fluctuate much and doesn’t look strange. i think it is happening as it switches to charging the battery. It does this constantly, it doesn’t charge and then stop, it switches between charging and not charging constantly. it’s kinda pissing me off. I assume it must be noise which I can’t reliably diagnose. i have 2 Powerwall gateways connected to a single meter. If in turn off the pw3 on one gateway it still flickers in both houses so the noise or whatever is transmitting upstream of the gateway as well. I’m wondering if it’s the gateway/ I know AC doesn’t care what is line 1 or 2 but can power going out line 1 and coming back as line 2 cause issues. I don’t understand how the gateway is switching internally or if all power goes to the backup side circuits on pw3 and feeds loads from there. anyway, you aren’t alone. Tesla hasn’t been much help and they installed my system.

You can also add it manually. Just add the device by typing https://IP_ADDRESS:8080/desc in the window that pops up. It adds it locally. If it ever finds it on the network you will see it as eisy.local. I have 1 Mac I can't get to find it automatically. I know it is the network setting to allow local access. There is process to reset all of that I just haven't messed with yet.