PowerLinc 2413U Alternative

Is there any alternative to the PowerLinc 2413U Interface? Woke up this morning to the following showing up in the logs:

Dec 25, 2017, 3:25:12 PM
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 off (button 1)
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 on (button 1)

Dec 25, 2017, 3:25:33 PM
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 off (button 1)
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 on (button 1)

Dec 25, 2017, 3:25:54 PM
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 off (button 1)
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 on (button 1)

Dec 25, 2017, 3:26:15 PM
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 off (button 1)
Received INSTEON 20.E8.26 on (button 1)

Except that I don't have anything with an address of 20.E8.26. The last time this happened I had to replace my PowerLinc, but this one is less than 6 months old! Or could this be related to updating to High Sierra?

For some unfathomable reason Insteon wants to keep pushing this 2413U piece of junk out on it’s poor customers. They did briefly make a wireless-only alternative which I’m using so far with none of the issues of the 2413U. There are about 8 of these left at amazon.com:
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DCh ... IQg&adurl=
...and i can no longer find the 2448a7 dongle listed on smarthome.com.

The 2448a7 has the advantage on no power linc if you have noisey power. It doesn’t do x10. I believe the 2413U’s surge protection is very inadequate; I took mine apart and the components are undersized and cheap. Many of the 2413u’s seem to go bad within 3 or 4 years so you’re ahead of the curve. I wouldn’t waste my time on a 2413U. Just get a 2448a7.

Thanks! Purchased one of those and should be here Friday. Will I need an additional bridge with this?

Interesting USB device, but also an interesting comment on Amazon from an Indigo user regarding it:

Stay far, far away!
December 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
I LOVE Insteon as a general rule. I have been using X10/Insteon in some form for nearly 20 years. However, this device is terrible.

First, do heed the other reviews regarding range. I was within 10 feet of 3 other dual-band Insteon devices, but the 2448A7 would barely connect. Let me revise that, because what I observed was even more strange... actually, the 2448A7 seemed to be able to connect to those nearby Insteon dual-mode devices quite well. However, and I know this sounds bizarre, it could ONLY connect to those devices. Now, I know that bridging is inherent to the Insteon protocol and retransmission between RF and powerline should have been handled automatically by the Insteon modules themselves. But this unit truly only seemed to be able to communicate with those items it could reach directly via RF. In fact, when I installed a long USB extension and moved the 2448A7 around the house, it could then "see" the more nearby modules it couldn't see before. Strange, I know, but I assure you this was the behavior I experienced!

I bought this to be an interface to the Indigo platform. To their credit, Indigo does acknowledge and control the 2448A7 right out of the box. I replaced it with the 2413U PowerLine USB interface and the difference is night and day. Near-instantaneous communications and programming with ALL of my Insteon devices, whether powerline, RF, or both. I also have a physical phase bridge installed on my breaker panel. So it's definitely the 2448A7 that is at fault.

Giving it two stars because it will actually transmit some signals. But it is slow, has limited range, and appears to have some difficulty with bridged/bridging between RF and power line. Your mileage may vary, but stay far, far away!!

My installation is like about 35 mothion sensors, 18 hidden door sensors, 20 inlinelincs, 50 switch lincs, 15 keypadlincs, several IO devices various types...no problem with 2448a7 from day one. Definite issues with 2413U which I no longer use or recommend.

Oh, I wasn't arguing your recommendation, just that I saw that from an Indigo user. I agree that the 2413 is not optimal, I've replaced mine a few times.

Well it arrived today and works fine, except I’m still getting the erroneous messages in the logs from an unknown device address.....?


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You must re-sync everything with the new modem which means also waking up any battery powered devices too.

I performed the re-sync but still getting buttons on and button off messages from a device that’s not in the database.


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Any close neighbors with insteon?
Maybe you’ve forgotten about a device you installed?
Is it a constant log issue or every so often?

If I understand correctly, you have ‘n’ devices but are getting ‘n+1’ responding, and the +1 is just an address?

Don’t know if this will work, but try creating a new insteon device with just that address you’re seeing, do a sync or a re-sync. ....perhaps you can discover at least what kind of device you’re dealing with.

I know when a new device type arrives sometimes it takes the indigo team a bit of time to include the device, but I doubt that’s your issue or you’d know it when you recently bought it.

[jay (support)]

For some unfathomable reason Insteon wants to keep pushing this 2413U piece of junk out on it’s poor customers. They did briefly make a wireless-only alternative which I’m using so far with none of the issues of the 2413U. There are about 8 of these left at amazon.com:
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DCh ... IQg&adurl=
...and i can no longer find the 2448a7 dongle listed on smarthome.com.

The 2448a7 has the advantage on no power linc if you have noisey power. It doesn’t do x10. I believe the 2413U’s surge protection is very inadequate; I took mine apart and the components are undersized and cheap. Many of the 2413u’s seem to go bad within 3 or 4 years so you’re ahead of the curve. I wouldn’t waste my time on a 2413U. Just get a 2448a7.

Sorry, Al, I just have to post a rebuttal (yet again). Yes, the failure rates are too high. However, we have a TON of users using them without issues. I've had both of mine for many years. The 2448 isn't a bad alternative, but it almost immediately adds one hop to all communications making Insteon even slower. Poor power quality most likely does effect the 2413U's longevity but I don't find it fair to characterize them as utter failures given how many of us are using them successfully for long periods.

My super powers are few, but one of them isn’t perceiving the 1/60th of a second slowdown using a wireless hop from the 2448a7. I haven’t noticed any delay. I might even point out that all wireless traffic is ‘wireless’ anyway. It would be interesting to see the actual mean delays for each device using either modem.

I do know that I was one of the unlucky ones with the 2413u...and I’ve taken one apart. You already know I design military grade hardware for a living. My opinion of the surge protection of the 2413 is that it’s substandard compared with what I’m used to throwing in the mix...nuclear events withstanding ha. All it has to do is low pass filter a bit of traffic off of 120/240vac but they sure didn’t add sufficient state-of-the-art parts to cover repetitive electrical ‘strikes’with high frequency components to the surges resident on the line.

I suspect that my issues are agrivated by my woodworking hobbies. Many large power tools with motor starting caps.

In an application as important as this modem, the central comm pillar for everyone’s home automation, I expect better.

If you plug the 2413u into a filtered power strip you’re probably down to a fat 2448a7. . Anyway point well taken...numbers do show people aren’t running lots of power tools.

Jay, I also could debate the time delay...since any wireless signal is available when it comes available and neither the dual-band 2413u or the 2448a7 has to wait up to 1/60th second for the reception (120th second since there are two zero crossings per phase). The wireless signals can propagate during the same time interval as any portion of the household phase...regardless of which phase you’re connected to.

[matt (support)]

I'm glad you aren't impacted by the delay, but an INSTEON hop takes significantly more time than 1/60th of a second. I don't remember the exact number but to start with it is way more than 1/60th of a second, and then for a round tripped command it is double the original amount, and for extended commands it is a lot more than that.