Insteon leak sensors with no heatbeat

Posted on
Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:15 am
Professor Falken offline
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Insteon leak sensors with no heatbeat

Was hoping someone in the community might have some suggestions on this...

I have about 15 Insteon leak sensors scattered about my house. They are monitored both individually by Indigo, as well as by Perry's Leak Monitor plugin. They have worked well for a few years, and have saved us from at least 2 messes.

But 2 of them have recently begun misbehaving in a strange way. They both started this on the exact same day about 3 months ago, and it was the same day contractors were working in my house, turning power off and on, etc. The Indigo Mac Mini never lost power, as it's on a UPS, but many circuits in my house were disrupted for several days during a kitchen demo, and I know that the overall Insteon network was compromised until all the circuits were brought back online because I had a much higher signal miss rate on lights/etc. for a few days.

For some reason, at this time, 2 of my leak sensors stopped sending a heartbeat. They both will still send a signal if I push the button on top, and they both will still signal a leak if tested in water. I changed the battery in both, and the behavior continues. Neither was in the kitchen when the demo was occurring-- one was on the other side of the house, and the other on my dresser (moved out of the kitchen while they were working) literally sitting right next to another sensor that is still working fine. Right now I have one sitting very close to a powerlink modem and still getting the same result. So I don't think they are in an RF dead zone or anything.

I mention the concurrent kitchen demo/power disruptions for diagnostic purposes, because I find it highly unlikely that two sensors just broke on the exact same day while the power also happened to be partially out.

Any suggestions? I hate to replace two sensors that otherwise seem to be fine, but I feel like I should be wary of ones that no longer send a heartbeat, even after a battery change.

Posted on
Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:45 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: Insteon leak sensors with no heatbeat

My best guess is they malfunctioned or are in a bad state. I'm not sure if there is a factory reset procedure for those modules, but if there is I'd suggest you try that.

I don't see how the electrical/contractor work can be related given the leak sensors are battery operated (although it is odd they both stopped sending the heartbeat at the same time). A power spike could have messed up a plugged in module, including the PowerLinc. But given the PowerLinc is receiving commands from other modules fine that doesn't appear to be the case. You've also ruled out a range issue it sounds like, so really that just leaves the leak sensors themselves as culprits, I believe.

Image

Posted on
Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:47 am
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Insteon leak sensors with no heatbeat

I'm not sure if there is a factory reset procedure for those modules, but if there is I'd suggest you try that.


Good idea. There is one (remove battery, wait, hold down set button while reinstalling battery, release set button). I'll report back results.

Posted on
Sun Nov 26, 2017 7:01 am
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Insteon leak sensors with no heatbeat

Factory reset doesn't seem to have resolved the no-heartbeat issue, so I guess these two are going to have to get replaced. I am still perplexed as to why both stopped reporting at the exact same time (and while we were flipping power off and on), but I don't seem to be able to fix either one of these.


EDIT: Actually, I spoke too soon. I didn't realize that after a factory reset, I would have to re-sync the two devices with their respective device pages in Indigo. After I did that, they are now both generating the expected heartbeats.

Just leaving this here in case anyone stumbles upon this thread with a similar problem. So the trick is: factory reset the sensor, then re-sync the device with Indigo.

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