insteon-mqtt VS insteon-terminal

There aren't really any Insteon logs per se. I use Insteon-MQTT which has a log of course (excerpt below), but it's not really useful. Insteon-MQTT communicates with an Insteon Power Line Modem (PLM), which really is just a bridge between USB and the Insteon network (both RF and powerline, despite being called only a "PLM"). The PLM presents itself as a tty to the host PC, and reports all of the traffic on the Insteon network as well as accepts commands to be sent to the network. Light switches (and some other devices) have four events as a result of physical activation: ON, FAST ON, OFF, FAST OFF, where that "fast" variety is a double tap (Insteon has no support for more than two taps, although I suppose one could fake this in software).

I have ISY+HA at home and Insteon-MQTT at work. Frankly, I like the latter more. It is faster and simpler. Once I get my last IOLinc replaced at home with an esphome on esp32, I'm most likely going to go Insteon-MQTT at home.

There's also a pretty excellent Python library which I leaned on for understanding the protocol here: https://github.com/TD22057/insteon-mqtt

Insteon-MQTT is a addon for Home Assistant. Link below...https://github.com/TD22057/insteon-mqtt

This is just not true, for anybody with a PLM or ISY, insteon-mqtt works GREAT. I use it and I can do everything I used to do with Indigo.

I was in the same boat i COULD NOT STAND how bad insteon hub pro worked with Homekit and homebridge and i tried the hub v2. (i did not like the delay when trying to turn on a light or multiple lights at once) i am a heavy apple homekit guy and i have a whole insteon home and i did not want to have to change out all my light switches so after having a hub pro and hub V2 i decided to get the USB PLM (model number 2413u for about $99 CAD) I originally set up Home Assistant just for insteon but (later transferred everything from homebridge to home assistant but that’s not relevant lol ) after setting up my Insteon devices with the PLM i went to get the tool that helped solve my entire problem: Insteon MQTT this add on saved me and my entire insteon home. It may look complicated but i was a complete newbie when i did it and it took some trial and error but i got it working perfectly in the end. ( When turning on a light in homekit the insteon light turns on INSTANTLY) (u may need a raspberrypi to do this but it was the best investment ever). If u need any help give shout me a DM and i’ll help ya out :)

This is the one I use - https://github.com/TD22057/insteon-mqtt. Glad I looked at it. It seems that I should probably update my system.

(5) If you want to create new timers, create a schedule within the confines of Home Assistant (or openHAB) -- don't do it through the Insteon Hub. I do not believe there is a known way outside the (now non-working) official Insteon apps of editing the schedules that turn scenes on/off at certain intervals. However, you can use things like insteon-terminal to remove devices from the scene being controlled by the schedule. So the schedule continues to run on your hub, but it just doesn't turn anything on/off anymore. There's discussion here.

From github.

4- Download the insteon terminal from github: https://github.com/pfrommerd/insteon-terminal

Insteon (the company and all its internet servers) have gone belly up, and your insteon hub will no longer work with the Insteon App. As a matter of fact, both the hub and the smart phone app (on iPhone and Android) will not be able to login to the backend/cloud server! I was deeply saddened by the news, as I have 53 insteon devices in my smart home, and being able to control these devices is important to me. It appears that Nokia has purchased Smartlabs and/or its patents (Smartlabs is the company that owned Insteon patents). The hope is that Nokia will respect the existing insteon devices owners, and provide comparable or better support in the future. I can't wait for that hope to materialize, if ever! For those of you who are able and willing to do some technical work, here is a solution I experimented with a few days ago, and it works perfectly well. I have tested it on iPhone and other Apple devices. 1- Find the IP address that your powered up hub is using. One way to find the IP is to query your router. This is router specific, so I will leave it to you to find out how, depending on your router. You need to change the router/gateway, such that the DHCP IP address given to your hub is reserved, and will not change upon subsequent reboots/power ups. 2- Find out the user and password printed on the back of your insteon hub (not the ones you used to login on the insteon app) 3- If you have a few insteon devices, and you are willing to remove the faceplate on switches, etc. to find out the insteon IDs, you do not need insteon-terminal, and you can skip to step 5 below 4- Download the insteon terminal from github: https://github.com/pfrommerd/insteon-terminal 5- Use the hub user, password and IP address with the insteon-terminal. Issue the command modem.getdb() then modem.printdb(). These commands will dump all the insteon device IDs on the screen. I needed this because I have 53 insteon devices, and I was not willing to remove plates on all of them to get the device IDs. 5- Get yourself a Raspberry PI, the one I experimented with is Pi 4: https://www.raspberrypi.com/ I usually get PI boards from: https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4b-budget-kit/ 6- Install homebridge on the PI board, see this for instructions: https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge/wiki/Install-Homebridge-on-Raspbian 7- After you configure homebridge, repeat the procedure you used to make sure the DHCP address given to your new PI board is reserved on your router’s DHCP configuration. This will ensure that the local DHCP IP address assigned to your new PI board will persist across reboots. 8- Install the insteon plugin: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-platform-insteonlocal. I have tested this plugin, and it works well on all switches, dimmers, outlets, etc. even with insteon IO/Link modules. 9- Add the HomeKit accessories as per instruction on: https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge/wiki/Install-Homebridge-on-Raspbian#configuration-reference. I hope you will like the new ability to use your HomeKit (Home on iPhone and other Apple devices) with insteon devices. Homebridge is a wonderful solution if you have an Apple ecosystem. I used it for other non-HomeKit compliant devices, such as motorized shades, garage door motors, etc. There are many homebridge plugins for older devices that are not HomeKit compliant.

I think insteon-terminal can change the link db, so you can leave the schedule running on some scene, but remove your devices from the scene. I have not tried this yet (because I'm mostly curious how it will continue to work). Note when setting up insteon-terminal, you have to copy their init.py and configure it with your hubs info in connectToMyHub(), but it also makes sense to look up the insteon address of your hub and add

Its not user friendly, but I've success with this insteon terminal: https://github.com/pfrommerd/insteon-terminal