This is not supposed to be able to happen, is it?

[ELA]

I encountered the strangest happening last night. If you do not believe this can happen with Insteon I would not blame you. However apparently it can happen as I witnessed it first hand.

 

As I was getting ready for bed I walked over to take my slippers off in the master bedroom and accidentally kicked a plug-strip I had laying on the floor. The plugstip was there temporarily to power a Slingbox. Only the transformer for the Slingbox was plugged into it and the switch on the plugstrip was in the off position.

Here is a diagram to illustrate in picture form:

 

At the instant I kicked the plugstrip with the tip of my toe the Keypadlinc (dual band) on the wall directly above the outlet had both keys A & B come on. At the same time another keypad across the room had its controlled overhead light come on, a fanlinc in the ceiling of that room came on HIGH speed, other lights and devices throughout the house also came on.!!!

 

A number of the lights that came on were associated with the scenes that the keypad keys A & B controlled. I manually turned scenes A & B off. I turned the Fan off and also turned off the overhead light locally. I then noticed other lights in the house were on. These lights were not associated with either scenes A & B, nor were they associated with anything in the master bedrooms other keypadlinc.

 

I walked throughout the house and found my subwoofer and power amp turned on that are controlled by appliancelincs. Curtains controlled by an appliancelinc had changed states. Misc other lamps were on and the garage lights were on.

 

All of these devices are totally unrelated to each other and to the master bedroom keypadlinc!!!! This was totally bizarre and unexplainable to me?

 

Up until now I had thought one of the saving graces of Insteon was that it was slightly better than X-10 in the fact that devices did not come on by themselves! I have no X-10 devices in the home and no legacy devices with old X-10 addresses in them.

 

Have others experienced such an event? I know if I were reading this I would be skeptical but it happened right in front of me and my wife also experienced it.

 

I checked the ISY log and can see where the scenes A & B were activated but none of the other events show in the log.

 

Any guesses as to what happened here??

 

It is possible that the switch on the plug strip might have been momentarily turned on by movement when I kicked it but it was off before I kicked it and also off when I inspected it just after the event.

 

I tried to replicate the event this morning and of course could not. Turning the plugstrip on/off repeatedly.

 

My best guess is that it might have been an ESD event. Dragging of my slippers on the carpeted floor has produced discharges in the past. I did not touch the plugstip with anything but my slippers. I cannot explain this in any other manner other than ESD.

 

However even if I blamed ESD as falsely activating the keypadlinc scenes A & B how did all those other events occur? Did that Keypadlinc also send out commands that devices all over the house recognized as legitimate commands and activated their loads?

 

As I said there is no one scene that involves all these loads. For this to have occurred required a minimum of 6 or 7 different scenes/commands to make happen!

 

Ouch .....

[Teken]

I encountered the strangest happening last night. If you do not believe this can happen with Insteon I would not blame you. However apparently it can happen as I witnessed it first hand.

 

As I was getting ready for bed I walked over to take my slippers off in the master bedroom and accidentally kicked a plug-strip I had laying on the floor. The plugstip was there temporarily to power a Slingbox. Only the transformer for the Slingbox was plugged into it and the switch on the plugstrip was in the off position.

Here is a diagram to illustrate in picture form:

 

At the instant I kicked the plugstrip with the tip of my toe the Keypadlinc (dual band) on the wall directly above the outlet had both keys A & B come on. At the same time another keypad across the room had its controlled overhead light come on, a fanlinc in the ceiling of that room came on HIGH speed, other lights and devices throughout the house also came on.!!!

 

A number of the lights that came on were associated with the scenes that the keypad keys A & B controlled. I manually turned scenes A & B off. I turned the Fan off and also turned off the overhead light locally. I then noticed other lights in the house were on. These lights were not associated with either scenes A & B, nor were they associated with anything in the master bedrooms other keypadlinc.

 

I walked throughout the house and found my subwoofer and power amp turned on that are controlled by appliancelincs. Curtains controlled by an appliancelinc had changed states. Misc other lamps were on and the garage lights were on.

 

All of these devices are totally unrelated to each other and to the master bedroom keypadlinc!!!! This was totally bizarre and unexplainable to me?

 

Up until now I had thought one of the saving graces of Insteon was that it was slightly better than X-10 in the fact that devices did not come on by themselves! I have no X-10 devices in the home and no legacy devices with old X-10 addresses in them.

 

Have others experienced such an event? I know if I were reading this I would be skeptical but it happened right in front of me and my wife also experienced it.

 

I checked the ISY log and can see where the scenes A & B were activated but none of the other events show in the log.

 

Any guesses as to what happened here??

 

It is possible that the switch on the plug strip might have been momentarily turned on by movement when I kicked it but it was off before I kicked it and also off when I inspected it just after the event.

 

I tried to replicate the event this morning and of course could not. Turning the plugstrip on/off repeatedly.

 

My best guess is that it might have been an ESD event. Dragging of my slippers on the carpeted floor has produced discharges in the past. I did not touch the plugstip with anything but my slippers. I cannot explain this in any other manner other than ESD.

 

However even if I blamed ESD as falsely activating the keypadlinc scenes A & B how did all those other events occur? Did that Keypadlinc also send out commands that devices all over the house recognized as legitimate commands and activated their loads?

 

As I said there is no one scene that involves all these loads. For this to have occurred required a minimum of 6 or 7 different scenes/commands to make happen!

 

Ouch .....

 

Regardless of what anyone will ever tells you. Powerline communication is simply a poor mans method to send data which is convenient. There isn't any major vendor in the powerline business that use such a low voltage to send out their signals. Nor do they use this frequency to do so.

 

I agree more than likely it was ESD / a surge event that caused this to happen. This is why I have decided some areas regardless of how much I love the tech will NEVER have any Insteon or HA tech in those rooms. As it requires 100% uptime and can't be affected by random events as you have described.

 

Keep us all updated should you be able to repro the steps.

 

Teken . . .

[gviliunas]

ELA,

 

Last week I experienced a similar occurance. I had been working on a few programs. I saved them and closed the admin console then stepped into a bathroom whose lights are triggered by a 2420M motion sensor. As the light turned on, the fan turned on as well (Fan was linked to ISY but there were no other controllers or programs that were supposed to turn the fan on or off). A few minutes later, I discovered every device both in and outside my house was ON.

The light was triggered on by a motion detector. I didn't touch anything so don't suspect ESD.

I didn't find anything obviously wrong in the ISY log but did notice that the status for many devices was incorrect. I rebooted ISY and my PLM and all was well again.

 

In >6 years of Insteon use, this is first (and thusfar only) time I have experienced an unplanned ALL On.

I have had, in the past, KPL slave buttons incorrectly turn off the primary node of the KPL but have never had everything come ON at the same time and I don't have an ISY scene or program that can do this.

 

This may be superstition on my part but I have noticed that if I make extensive changed to my system via the admin console, it is usually best if I reboot ISY when finished. I have also noticed that I seem to occasionally "lose" links from my DB PLM. I seem to restore PLM fairly often after making changes. Perhaps I am reaching the PLM link limit. For now, I am attributing my "All ON" to my failure to reboot ISY. ****I have no hard data to support that this prevents any problems.****

 

Teken,

 

I agree with you. Powerline communication control can achieve high-90% accuracy but some items, in my opinion, just shouldn't be controlled using these devices. For me, door locks, garage door motion, irrigation, and winter thermostat control are areas I am reluctant to delegate to Insteon without further redundant safeguards in place.

 

Professional Installers,

 

In your professional installations, do you add programs to ensure that these types of unplanned events are addressed? In other words, do you check for incorrect lights on when nobody is home or for exterior lights on during the daytime?

 

Hopefully ELA and I have experienced just random and rare occurances.

Thank you to LeeG for explaining in another post why verifying the PLM link table is a difficult task.

 

Greg

[Teken]

ELA,

 

Last week I experienced a similar occurance. I had been working on a few programs. I saved them and closed the admin console then stepped into a bathroom whose lights are triggered by a 2420M motion sensor. As the light turned on, the fan turned on as well (Fan was linked to ISY but there were no other controllers or programs that were supposed to turn the fan on or off). A few minutes later, I discovered every device both in and outside my house was ON.

The light was triggered on by a motion detector. I didn't touch anything so don't suspect ESD.

I didn't find anything obviously wrong in the ISY log but did notice that the status for many devices was incorrect. I rebooted ISY and my PLM and all was well again.

 

In >6 years of Insteon use, this is first (and thusfar only) time I have experienced an unplanned ALL On.

I have had, in the past, KPL slave buttons incorrectly turn off the primary node of the KPL but have never had everything come ON at the same time and I don't have an ISY scene or program that can do this.

 

This may be superstition on my part but I have noticed that if I make extensive changed to my system via the admin console, it is usually best if I reboot ISY when finished. I have also noticed that I seem to occasionally "lose" links from my DB PLM. I seem to restore PLM fairly often after making changes. Perhaps I am reaching the PLM link limit. For now, I am attributing my "All ON" to my failure to reboot ISY. ****I have no hard data to support that this prevents any problems.****

 

Teken,

 

I agree with you. Powerline communication control can achieve high-90% accuracy but some items, in my opinion, just shouldn't be controlled using these devices. For me, door locks, garage door motion, irrigation, and winter thermostat control are areas I am reluctant to delegate to Insteon without further redundant safeguards in place.

 

Professional Installers,

 

In your professional installations, do you add programs to ensure that these types of unplanned events are addressed? In other words, do you check for incorrect lights on when nobody is home or for exterior lights on during the daytime?

 

Hopefully ELA and I have experienced just random and rare occurances.

Thank you to LeeG for explaining in another post why verifying the PLM link table is a difficult task.

 

Greg

 

Hello Greg,

 

First, I am throwing this out there with absolutely no proof or supporting facts. But, I noticed that both of you have the FanLinc in your Insteon network. It would be interesting to see if these odd behaviors are some how linked to the FanLink.

 

I mention this because for quite a long time there have been on going issues with the Insteon TSTATS, where either incorrect data was being delivered, to lock ups, to massive data streaming from the said device.

 

Given the I2CS deployment of some controllers (ISY, SmartLinc) unable to add / control some of these new devices. I hypothesize that maybe the FanLinc may be one contributor to this odd behavior.

 

With respect to your comments about the door security, OH garage door, TSTAT, and irrigation. You and I are on the same page about this. The only reason I even entertained the Insteon Garage Kit. Was because it was the only method I could use that could integrate with the ISY to ensure the door was closed at all times during normal operational hours while I was away, or in the evening while asleep.

 

I have full control of the same door via my alarm panel. But, I wanted another source of redundancy which could also use variables in the environment.

 

Regardless, it is because of the shear power of the ISY that it allows me to have simple programs to ensure key elements of my system do not run away, or operate outside of the working range of expected behavior.

 

Teken . . .

[ELA]

Thanks for the comments,

I agree Insteon is not reliable enough for security functions. I never did trust it that far.

I had however become fairly comfortable with the fact that it had never turned on a device that was not supposed to be turned on in my system previously.

 

Having been unable to reproduce this event I will assume it was ESD but it still bothers me that I cannot understand how so many unrelated/unlinked devices were affected by the primary keypadlinc event. I really doubt the ESD event itself traveled throughout the entire house wiring. The breakdown would have occurred at the first weak point, that being the keypadlinc. Not every device in the house turned on but many unrelated devices did. This leaves me believing that the directly affected device somehow sent erroneous commands that other devices responded to even though they were not linked directly. Perhaps so many communications occurring simultaneously overwrote each other and resulted in message corruptions. Thank heavens that i2CS will assure such a thing can never happen in the future

 

A most peculiar event that I would never have believed could have happened.

 

I only have one fanlinc and it is not i2CS. When this event occurred I had no i2CS devices connected in my home network.

[apostolakisl]

I would second the comments about Insteon not being for "mission critical" stuff. Insteon is for lights and fans and maybe a few random and non-dangerous appliances. It is very reliable. .. I would say 99% in my home. But 1% can't happen when it comes to controlling anything to do with water, security, heat/fire, poisonous gasses, or freeze prevention.

 

I do let ISY interact with Elk extensively and control security functions. But this is an Insteon/PLC free system.

 

All of my "mission critical" stuff is hardwired to my Elk. Elk really doesn't make mistakes when it comes to I/O stuff.

 

I have had odd random things happen from time to time in my house with the lights. When they happen, the ISY usually does not have a record of it and the status on ISY for the devices is wrong. I don't recall anything that involved more than 1 or 2 devices however.