PatPend

Insteon's "main" patent was filed in 2004. Normally a patent expires 20 years from the date it was filed, so it would expire in 2024 except that, because of delays in the patent office, they got almost two extra years added on. So to be precise it expires Sept. 19 2026.

You didn't define what a "controller" was and as such the statement, interpreted broadly, was misleading. That was exactly my point.

If someone makes a controller that performs the steps or includes the elements recited in Insteon's patent(s), it would infringe the patent.

What are the odds the midnight shift in some factory in Shenzhen runs off a few batches of Insteon goodies?

Their patent 7,345,998 which covers the dual band mesh protocol doesn't expire until September 2026. Until then the creditors/successors in interest, whoever they are, still own the rights. After a patent expires it falls into the public domain, however unless you get the rights to the chip & mechanical designs you'd have to engineer a compatible product from scratch. Whether this will make economic sense in 2026 is an open question.

My bedrooms and bathroom on levels change twice a day too, this is something else. Evidently a distinction exists between programmed on level, and last on level. When the device is set to Resume Dim, the programmed on level is ignored and the last on level is used. The desired (programmed) on level in this case was always 100%. When I turned the light on it would initially go to 100% (as expected). Then, if I manually dimmed the device to, say, 33%, then manually turned it off by tapping the bottom of the paddle, when I manually turned it on by tapping the top of the paddle, it would go to 33%. No other dimmer in my house worked like this. Nor did the programmed on-level change on the device in question. The only conclusion is the Resume Dim feature somehow got enabled on this particular device. The funny thing is that there's no support on the ISY to manipulate Resume Dim. Maybe it's something the Insteon Hub supports but I don't have one of those. So how it got enabled on this one dimmer is a mystery to me. Maybe it was a glitch in the ISY, or in the dimmer, or maybe Smarthome sent me a repacked 2477D that had the feature enabled, or maybe after one too many beers I managed to inadvertently monkey through the precise sequence of set button presses to enable this feature.

After a factory reset, dimming worked correctly again (full brightness turn-on). However when I restored the device from the ISY, the problem returned. So a glitch or corruption in the ISY data for this device caused the problem. I ended up a) removing device from the ISY b) factory resetting the device c) re-linking device to the ISY d) re-adding device to all scenes. Problem solved. BTW it turns out this feature is called "Resume Dim" and AFAIK can only be deliberately enabled via local programming mode.

That's the thing, on the ISY the default on level is 100%. But it turns on to whatever it was last time. I'll try a factory reset.

I have four Insteon dimmers in my kitchen. Each of them is a controller of their respective scene, along with a respective button of two other keypad links. All four scenes are set up identically. When I turn on one of the dimmers, it always turns on to the last brightness set at that dimmer. The other three work as expected i.e. go to full brightness. So it seems this one dimmer is set to remember the previous on-level while every other one doesn't. I have no idea why it does this. Any ideas what's going on and more importantly, how to change the dimmer so it doesn't remember the previous dimming level and instead always turn on at full brightness?

That last screw got me too.

What I meant to say by on-level is the brightness at which the light turns on when a person hits the switch, not turn the light on at that brightness. This way, when we are watching TV or a film and the lights are dimmed, and someone uses the bathroom, the lights come on at a gentle brightness so their retinas don't get blown out. Virtual Node Server worked like a charm, thank you.

I have a bathroom off my living room. The lights are controlled by an Insteon dimmer whose on-level changes based on time-of day by a scheduled program. I also have a scene that dims the lights for watching TV. When the TV scene is activated (by KPL button or via Home Assistant integration) I want to run a second program to change the bathroom on-levels to another value. I tried setting a condition for the THEN clause but only devices are allowed, not scenes. Is there a way to trigger a program based on a scene activation?

I have a Zwave dimmer controlling a fixture with three Philips LED bulbs. If they're dimmed to anything less than 100% they flicker whenever there's any Insteon traffic in the house. I tried three different Zwave dimmers, UltraPro, GE Enbrighten, and Minoston and they all flicker. I tried a 0.1uF 400V cap across the line side, then on the load side, neither made any difference. Then I tried an Insteon 2477D dimmer, and the bulbs do not flicker, ever. Any idea whats going on here?

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/34354-sonoff-snzb-02-temphumidity-sensor-support-requested/?do=findComment&comment=323769

That comment was referring to the Leviton ZW15R-1BW Smart Outlet. This is a Zwave Plus device of which I purchased several in an effort to build out my mesh. Aesthetically the design of these outlets appealed to me because they have a clean look with no visible logo when installed, and the flush round button and hidden LED is more elegant to my eye than, say, GE Enbrighten outlets. Last but not least the fact the lower outlet is always on rather than the upper outlet worked better for my purposes. Unfortunately the RF performance of these outlets sucked, for me. I could not get them to reliably join the network and when they did, they worked poorly. Maybe 1 out of 10 times they would respond to a command. Two of these couldn't even communicate line-of-sight across a 25' room. The other thing that bugged me is the long-press needed to get into programming mode. One or twice this is fine but after the 10th, 20th, 30th time trying different configurations it really gets old. Being relatively inexperienced at Zwave, and believing Leviton was a top-of-the-line product, I was pretty frustrated. I spent about half-hour on the phone with Leviton support. In sum, there is no firmware upgrade available and because it was a range-related issue they couldn't help me. So I tried a few of the GE outlets and they just worked, perfectly and reliably. They're not as pretty but they work great and truth be told nobody spends time looking at outlets especially those a foot off the floor. Another thing I've learned during my recent foray into the Zwave world is not all devices are created equal. With Insteon, you bought a dimmer and you knew you could adjust the dimming speed, default on level, how the LED behaves etc. With Zwave devices this is not the case. So when evaluating a Zwave device for possible purchase I will go to the Zwave Alliance site, look up the device in question and check out the Configuration Parameters to see exactly which tricks the device can perform.

Probably a long shot but have you tried a phase coupler?

No worries, in 2026 when Smartlabs' patent expires the market will be flooded with Insteon clones... /s

Autelis hasn't shipped product or answered an email in years, so it might be good to seek alternatives to your Autelis interface. If it goes belly up, like mine did, you will be SOL.

Insteon is becoming the new Autelis - fading into the sunset.

Try doing a “Restore Device” for each non-updating device and see if that fixes the problem. FWIW I’ve found the Restore Device command will fix many odd misbehaviors in an Insteon device.

I'm in the same boat. I had better results with Jasco outlets (UltraPro/GE Enbrighten/Honeywell) than Leviton. Although I preferred Leviton's aesthetics they didn't work well.

Police-y? Policy? Something else?

If/when my serial PLM croaks I'll replace the caps. And just in case I'm making one of these as a backup: See also https://github.com/mrworf/serial-bridge

So it turned out to be a couple of things. First, although the ISY showed that NWI was enabled, NWI did not actually work until I toggled NWI off then back on again. Second, in my opinion Leviton ZW15R outlets have really crappy range which was causing them to not include, or if included, to work sporadically. In comparison, the Enbrighten/Jasco 55256 outlets are so much better and way more in line with expectations of what a wireless device ought to be capable of. I called Leviton support to see if a fix was available and was told there was not, because my issue was related to range there was nothing they could do.

Just a follow-up, the Hubitat arrived and it proved to be exactly what I was looking for. After 3D printing this mounting bracket and installing it towards the opposite end of my home from the ISY, I had it up & running, paired to the Zwave device I was trying reach, and configured it as a nodeserver to the ISY in less than an hour. Many thanks to @upstatemike for his solution to and to all who responded.