Smarthome/Insteon/Nokia are kaput

I guess that leaves us with replacing the cheap capacitors when the PowerLinc fails. I checked and there are a couple of sets of fairly detailed instructions. It would be great if someone would put together a kit of the replacement capacitors so you didn't have to buy in bulk, or offer a repair service.
https://1projectaweek.com/blog/2017/6/2/repairing-a-failed-insteon-powerlinc-power-line-modem-plm-2413u
https://www.rototron.info/insteon-plm-repair-tutorial/

[jay (support)]

Search on eBay - I believe there's a company that has started doing repairs.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that's been paying attention. Insteon was a great alternative to X10, but it suffered from a lot of fundamental flaws that newer tech doesn't.

Like others almost all my stuff is Insteon. I have some Z-wave but find it far more unreliable than the Insteon units which is why I continued adding Insteon as I put in more switched.

I do have several high-power/high-current switches which I did with Insteon. These are 30 Amp circuits for pumps, etc. Is that another option when those go out?

Thanks,

Scott

While looking at PowerLinc alternatives and then repairs, I found a consistent finding that Insteon products usually fail due to cheap electrolytic capacitors.

[jay (support)]

Like others almost all my stuff is Insteon. I have some Z-wave but find it far more unreliable than the Insteon units which is why I continued adding Insteon as I put in more switched.

Most users don't have issues with Z-Wave reliability (and certainly many fewer than with Insteon signal issues), but when there are issues it's usually due to distance and/or Z-Wave routing information. I'd recommend posting here on the forums the specifics about the issues you're seeing and maybe the collective brain trust here can help solve them.

I do have several high-power/high-current switches which I did with Insteon. These are 30 Amp circuits for pumps, etc. Is that another option when those go out?

I've never needed them, but Aeotec makes one. There are probably others as well.

There is a very hungry reddit community looking for a new home. A bunch of us have been marketing Indigo as a possible solution to their needs. They all seem clueless, like Insteon = Insteon Cloud.

A full court press could be really fun to capture these potential users.

[jay (support)]

We've written a blog post to clarify things for those types of users.

The biggest issue is that most of those users won't have a USB (or serial) interface needed for Indigo to control Insteon devices. There are some on eBay, but they are already upwards of $300 just for that. Then there's the cost of an Indigo license (we are offering a discount) and, potentially, a Mac. So, TBH, we don't think we'll get much traction with these users.

We suspect that most interest will come from former Indigo users that switched to the Insteon Hubs but retained their PowerLincs. But there may be a few that will see Indigo an a bridge opportunity to move to better technologies if they can find an interface.

And our firedrill with Monterey 12.3 isn't helping the situation either, but hopefully that will be past us in a few weeks.

While I took note of your email & post regarding the new OS breaking things, I did not pick up on SmartHome being in a death spiral.
Unfortunately, I was absorbed in something else and clicked the update now button … dagnabit! Spent a day and a half trying to revert to prior OS via CCC and TimeMachine. No joy … after hours it keeps saying some form of restore failed with zero explanation. I’ve exhausted Google on methods. Not yet fully recovered from all the screwing around with the OS so will abandon that hope. But I do hope you’re having profound breakthroughs on modifying Indigo
Got a crapload of Insteon devices installed … though at any given time several are belly up. I’ve found the protocol/operation quite reliable after the advent of dual-band. The modules themselves die often so I keep at least a dozen new ones as replacement.

Do you have an old macSomething that you can use for a little while until Indigo 2022.1 comes out?

Something that always bugged be about Insteon was the poor reliability of some products. Like most here, I've gone through several controllers and also several of the multi-button wall switches. They just don't hold up to regular use. This is causing me to look at Lutron Caseta as a solution since I perceive their reliability to be better. Am I right in thinking this?

I have noticed that the Lutron system does not offer the same level of control and button choices as did Insteon. I really like the multi-button Insteon switches that not only can send commands to multiple devices with individual button control, they also directly switch a fairly high current load. I see nothing the the Lutron universe that can do anything like this unless you go with RadioRA which I am not prepared to do.

My plan is to start small with a couple switches and the Smart Bridge. then as Insteon stuff fails I'll try to replace with Lutron. Unless my Insteon controller fails there's no real reason to start arbitrarily replacing units. Of course this will make my system more complicated to maintain which is an issue for my wife. She rightly points out that if I kick the bucket, she won't be able to fix any problems that arrive and will end up sitting alone in the dark with no TV. As much as I love Indigo, if I were not here to explain it's fairly complicated setup in my home, an outside automation tech coming in would have a lot of trouble figuring things out.

When you have dependents, sometimes a home automation hobby is not in their best interest long term.

Make sure you get the Smart Bridge Pro as the non-Pro does not work with the current Lutron plugin.

Also, check out using the multi-press triggers. You can use that to make up for the lack of buttons.

While I took note of your email & post regarding the new OS breaking things, I did not pick up on SmartHome being in a death spiral.
Unfortunately, I was absorbed in something else and clicked the update now button … dagnabit! Spent a day and a half trying to revert to prior OS via CCC and TimeMachine. No joy … after hours it keeps saying some form of restore failed with zero explanation. I’ve exhausted Google on methods. Not yet fully recovered from all the screwing around with the OS so will abandon that hope. But I do hope you’re having profound breakthroughs on modifying Indigo
Got a crapload of Insteon devices installed … though at any given time several are belly up. I’ve found the protocol/operation quite reliable after the advent of dual-band. The modules themselves die often so I keep at least a dozen new ones as replacement.

Same boat..The only thing that worked for me in the end was to wipe everything clean and create a new install of Big Sur. After a few back's and forth and re-linking things I'm finally back to a functional automation system. Now the question remains what to do about those 90-odd Insteon devices as they fail...

[jay (support)]

Now the question remains what to do about those 90-odd Insteon devices as they fail...

I would recommend caution with this approach: remember, the PowerLinc is required, so if that's the device that fails (and we've seen it happen over and over again) then you're stuck with a bunch of dumb switches (at least from Indigo's standpoint). Waiting for Insteon devices to fail was a reasonable approach in the past, but if you want to continue to control them from Indigo it is probably not a good approach moving forward.

Waiting for Insteon devices to fail was a reasonable approach in the past, but if you want to continue to control them from Indigo it is probably not a good approach moving forward.

I agree. I'm speeding up my replacement now. In my time with Insteon I had several PLMs fail on me already. If only the Homeseer HS-WX300 were in stock. I have an old house with quite a few switch boxes being shallow and I believe the HS-WX300 units are thiner.

We always keep an eye on the market and where it's going. That's the reason we added plugins, followed by Z-Wave years ago. Insteon going away has been something we've been warning users about for years. Z-Wave is not going anywhere anytime soon give the dozens of vendors selling hundreds of different devices.

We are watching Matter to see how it progresses - it's been delayed at least twice already, but we're watching. There are a bunch of 3rd party plugins that integrate lots of other technologies as well.

So, bottom line - Insteon going away doesn't really mean much for us because we've expected it for years.

Jay,

You say that you've been warning users for years that Insteon will be going away. Where have the warnings been? This is the first I've heard of it.

I have well over 100 Insteon devices. Fortunately I've got a number of spares for most every type of module and a lot of them can be replaced with z-wave modules (which I've already done for a few). However, I have 5 keypadlincs which are used extensively and I don't see anything available that can replace them. I'm hoping that as a minimum, repair services will be offered as there must be a lot of users like me that would take advantage of them.