Hi. The charging LED flashes red while charging. I charged for several hours but it kept flashing. I thought it was supposed to be solid red while charging and go off when charging complete. Not sure if it’s fully charged but it works. Do you think there is an issue with it?

Charge LED on the lower right side inside the case. On mine near the USB charging port. Is solid red when charging and turn off when charged.

Is this a newly purchased remote? I doubt they changed the way it works. Maybe see what other have found for a better understanding if it is changed or defective.

I got it off eBay but it looks new.

What type of power supply are you using to charge it, voltage and current?

I use a 5VDC 1000mA(1A) cell phone charger.

After checking your chargers ratings. You may want to see if a different charger may give you different results. As I have seen some of the new ones have multiple outputs and hand shake with the device being charged for it's output. Though it should default to 5VDC.

Remote chance the remote is is defective or near end of life. After many charge discharge cycles we occasionally see battery failures or diminished capacity.

The label on the back of the remote. Could give you something to check on its revision number and maybe age.

Edited Sunday at 12:41 PM3 days by Brian H
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Thanks for the info. I’ve tried 3 different chargers, one being a regular cell phone charger for iPhone. Not sure what voltage. Remote says v.1.7 1450. Very strange.

v1.7 is an older revision. The date code looks like week 50 of 2014. My 2342-232 (4 scene) is a v2.05 date code 1631 week 31 of 2016.

My thoughts are the battery is getting weak and the charging circuit is not seeing the battery voltage high enough to trigger the fully charged sensor. So its always trying to charge the battery. The battery has an over charge & over current circuit so it should not be effected too much.

As a test. Try seeing how long the remote works after a few hours charging. To see how long the remote works before needing a refresh charge.

Edited Monday at 12:03 PM2 days by Brian H
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13 minutes ago, Brian H said:

v1.7 is an older revision. The date code looks like week 50 of 2014. My 2342-232 (4 scene) is a v2.05 date code 1631 week 31 of 2016.

My thoughts are the battery is getting weak and the charging circuit is not seeing the battery voltage high enough to trigger the fully charged sensor. So its always trying to charge the battery. The battery has an over charge & over current circuit so it should not be effected too much.

As a test. Try seeing how long the remote works after a few hours charging. To see how long the remote works before needing a refresh charge.

I have a really old ring door bell battery in this condition. Takes hours to charge it up, or appears charged enough to work. But it keeps working for a number of months including video recording activities. It's not landfill worthy yet so I keep recharging it, waiting until its a functionality problem or drains in a few weeks.

Depending how often the mini remote is used, eg occasionally or more often daily, you try brian's approach, see how long you can get away with using it normally, until the recharging becomes annoying.

Thanks for all the feedback. After using the remote and depleting the charge a small amount, it now has a solid light when charging. But it starts flashing soon after, which seems to indicate it’s fully charged. Perhaps this is what the old version does?

Insteon battery devices can get flaky if the battery dies. Factory resetting them generally helps. Hard to say because yours is pretty old. You'll need to put it in linking mode afterwards and "Restore Device" from iox. I don't think it will hurt the remote, but if its that old and factor resetting it causes problems, it's time to replace it

This is the manual for the newer one, see if the procedure will work

Insteon Support

Mini Remote (Wireless Switch) - Owner's Manual

Download PDF

I found a replacement battery for my first one. It’s really small and don’t recall details.

1 hour ago, smarthome_newbie said:

Thanks for all the feedback. After using the remote and depleting the charge a small amount, it now has a solid light when charging. But it starts flashing soon after, which seems to indicate it’s fully charged. Perhaps this is what the old version does?

I feel it is more like the battery is near end of life and the charger is preventing over charging. As I believe the red led was never flashing in a remote even the original units. The finding that if you use it for awhile and then try charging it and the red led is not flashing but then again flashing again. Sounds like the battery is above the normal full charge voltage and the charging circuit is stopping an over charge voltage.

Try Insteon support. They should have a more definite answer. https://support.insteon.com/#gsc.tab=0

Forum. https://forum.insteon.com/forum

Edited Monday at 04:35 PM1 day by Brian H
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18 minutes ago, hart2hart said:

I found a replacement battery for my first one. It’s really small and don’t recall details.

Yes there was a post on the old Smarthome forums on changing the battery. I may have a archived copy. If memory is correct. The exact battery was not available when I looked. There are internal and external photos and original users manual in the FCC Database web site.

FCC Database: https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm

Grantee SBP: Product Code: 23422 Details.

Battery data from old Smarthome site. The part where I thought there was no protection board was incorrect. It did have a protection board on the battery.

Battery.pdf

Edited Monday at 04:37 PM1 day by Brian H
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