Linking Insteon Devices with Hub Pro

[thepod7]

What is the proper way to link devices with the Hub Pro? Has anyone setup a proper 3-Way switch circuit or even linked a dimmer switch with a plug in dimmer module? Can it even be done?

I wanted a simple setup of a Lamp to turn on at the same time as the ceiling light in the room with the switch. Using the Home app in iOS 10, I grouped the lamp module and the switch together, this worked great as long as I used the Home app to turn them on. If I used the switch only the ceiling light would turn on. Next I tried an automation to turn on the lamp module when ever the switched is turned on. This didn't work at on, either with the app or the switch.

This is a simple setup, that used to be considered one of the strengths of Insteon yet it appears it can't be done with the Hub Pro.

The insteon+ app hasn't been updated in over a year now and I can't find any release dates for the firmwares on the Hub, but it feels as if supporting HomeKit isn't high on Insteon's priority list.

I did find a solution for my issue here, I purchased a Phillips Hue starter kit. For some reason I can use an automation in the Home App to turn on the Phillips Hue bulb when I turn on the switch but can't control another insteon device.

[cchiera]

Since I have over 40 insteon devices and because of all the recent iOS 10 issues I've had to setup and resetup all of then many times. The manual notes two ways of setting up devices, one is using the Insteon app where you enter in a device number. I presume the number is somewhere on the device, however after you install all the hardware and starting to setup in Software you most likely won't be able to see/access that number. For people who haven't installed yet, I'd recommend writing the code down for each device on a paper to ease installation. For the rest of us, you can install without even using the Insteon app but using the set buttons.

For instance if I want to setup a light switch. First I click and hold the small button on the back of the hub. After a couple seconds it makes a noise and flashes green. Then I hold down the set button on the switch for a couple seconds it makes a noise and then another noise confirming its linked. Next you do it in the reverse. Hold down the switch set button until it makes a noise and flashes green. Then you hold down the set button on the hub until it beeps confirming it's linked. Then if you go in the Insteon app or Home app you will see the device listed under "Default Room" where you can adjust all the settings for it. Once again you can presumably avoid all that hassle and simply enter in the device code but since I already installed all the devices wasn't worth taking off the covers and screws to get at the codes.

Yes, I've setup several 3 ways switches in the house and a 4 way and yes I've setup 5 dimmer switches that attach to dimmer outlets that so far have worked perfectly.

The software (i.e. Home app or Insteon app) are completely separate from the the linking of the actual devices. That is, if you link all the devices to each others scenes using set buttons that won't help you control those scenes in the app, and vice versa. Which is why you need to setup in both the app and then again on the actual devices. Doing it in both means, even if the internet went down, I'd still be able to control my scenes/links in the actual hardware.

One thing I noticed with 3+ way switches is the following. I have say Living Room 1 Switch and Living Room 2 switch that control a living room ceiling light for example. In Insteon, I have to add both of those switches to Insteon for everything to work properly (even though LR1 and LR2 are linked via hardware set buttons. The problem is in Insteon then it shows both Living Room Switch 1 and Living Room Switch 2 even though they control the exact same light. I mentioned this to support but unfortunately they didn't see it as an issue or at least not something on their current roadmap. Thankfully Apple did. Apple allows for Grouping devices (this is different than scenes). Grouping is meant for something like my case where I want to Group Living Room Switch 1 and 2 together and give it the single name of say Living Room. Now I only see that one switch in the app rather than duplicates as expected. The insteon app will still show 2 but that doesn't matter since with Home app you can avoid using the Insteon App completely. The one thing Insteon app has is being able to group "rooms together" into say upstairs, downstairs and basement which currently apple doesn't natively support.

When you say you grouped the lamp and ceiling light, do you mean you used the actual "Group" feature? If so I would advise again that because if you ever want the lamp on but not ceiling light or vice versa that could cause problems and affect automations where you only want to control one. Instead you could create an automation in Home that says when you switch on Ceiling, Lamp should also be switched on, but then you can manually turn off the lamp with out turning on the ceiling for example.

It is unfortunate Insteon doesn't mention dates on their firmware update page: http://www.insteon.com/support-knowl...-release-notes other than 6/19/2015 which I can only presume is when they first published that page. But with some detective work searching the forums/google can determine the rough release dates.

As someone whose struggled and still struggling I feel your pain! But pretty confident the Insteon solution is still the best option on the market compared to the competitors due to the incredible amount of customization and hopefully a big software update will do wonders as well as the company listening to suggestions on how to improve the software and updating it's other accessories to support HomeKit.

[thepod7]

I am not having issues linking the switches to the hub, I get all that. The issue is creating three-way switch setup's or controlling a dimmer model with a switch in the wall.

I do not believe that you should have to link the switches at the hardware level, at least I have never had to do in the past with any of the other Home Automation systems I have used. I have been working with Home Automation for over 15 years now and there are some fundamental features missing from the Insteon+ app and Hub Pro. In fact they are actually a couple steps backwards from the standard Insteon hub. You should be able to link two devices in the Insteon app and the hub should then perform the same link as if you did it at the hardware level. As for when the internet goes down, the hub should be storing all your information to begin with so when the internet is down the switches still talk to it.

The Hub Pro was supposed offer a higher tier of capabilities over the standard hub, yet it doesn't even support all of the Insteon devices yet. I would agree that currently Insteon is the best solution if you want to stick within the Apple Realm of HomeKit, in fact that is the only reason I have started moving my 100+ z-wave devices over to Insteon. However knowing the full capability of the actual Insteon hardware, it is a disappointment that the Hub Pro is lacking so many basic features.

[cchiera]

Sure, so the above was an answer to your question on the proper ways to link devices to the hub.

As noted, you don't need to do it at the hardware level and can just do at the software, or you can just do hardware and not at the software, but for full functionality in my experience doing both is best. Since if only in the software, then if your network is having an issue or down for whatever reason you won't be able to control those 3 ways. Also you will run into issues with the dimmer's not showing the proper status on their leds if you change in the app when using multiple 3 ways.

Home automation has certainly come along way in 15 years. Not sure which previous system you were using but I assume it wasn't HomeKit compatible which is the big advantage of this system over previous ones but of course home kit is still very new so that introduces it's own plethora of issues.

You mention it's missing some fundamental features. I'd recommend listing any and all of those so that hopefully others can share work arounds or if an important feature is missing hopefully insteon will consider it for future updates. I never used the old hub so can't comment, other than the old one is better if you don't need home kit support since the old ones supports so many more devices. If your primary focus isn't home kit compatibility I imagine the previous hub is the best option for most people since it supports so many more devices.

I haven't run into the Insteon lacking basic features yet, but do admit its taken months to fully become aware of all the customization its offers. The manual was a big help but YouTube and reaching out to support unearthed a lot. I don't use the Insteon app itself at all since its not enjoyable to use and is confusing but I bought Insteon because I knew I could use Home app which I find a joy to use (other than bugs I'm running into that hopefully will be resolved soon).

Hopefully in the future Insteon will allow you to add devices via the software and have that automatically send commands to link at the hardware level as well, but honestly setting up in software and hardware while a bit of initial work once you've set it up your done. So I'd prefer that focus on bugs and other features. Hopefully the next software update which they have presumably been working on since September 2015 will pack a lot of improvements. Time will tell!