rtl_433_ESP VS insteon-terminal

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

(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