rtl_433_ESP VS insteon-mqtt

Lilygo LORA + OpenMQTTGateway is the way. See https://hackaday.com/2023/01/13/arduino-library-brings-rtl_433-to-the-esp32/ and https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP

And this is my iot project https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP

Ie https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP/blob/master/example/OOK_Receiver/platformio.ini

Hi Insteon friends, I started to work on this in fear that this day might come and actually got decoding of Insteon rf packets working on an ESP32+CC1101. NorthernMan54 has ported rtl_433 to the ESP32 here: https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP, however due to limited memory on the ESP32 I had to merge in changes to some of the methods from https://github.com/obones/rtl_433. All of that said, the range of the CC1101 is really short so probably not a viable option (I know very little about RF, so maybe someone can optimize that?). After that I went down the path of using an RFM69HCW which should have better range and using RadioLib https://github.com/jgromes/RadioLib but ran out of time to dedicate to it. Hopefully someone with more RF knowledge can make this a reality. Happy to upload the code that I used for the CC1101.

A little googling sent be back to reddit, where I find u/NorthernMan5 is porting rtl_433 to ESP32. https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP

I thought I would share a little something I have been working on over the last few months, porting of the rtl_433 code base to run on a ESP32 device with CC1101 RF Transceiver module. Details of the library are here https://github.com/NorthernMan54/rtl_433_ESP

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.