Insteon i3 New Product Support?

Indigo 2022.2.1 is now available and includes support for several new Insteon i3 modules.

Stupid question, but how does one install 2022.2.1 on top of 2022.2?
(the Upgrading section of the documentation doesn't cover this scenario:

https://wiki.indigodomo.com/doku.php?id ... us_version

Just run the installer on top of existing, running instance of Indigo 2022.2?
Quit the app first?
Quit the server first?

Thanks.

[matt (support)]

Just shutdown the Indigo Server (Indigo->Stop Server menu), then quit the Indigo GUI (Indigo->Quit), and run the new installer.

Matt,
Many thanks. I'd forgotten that the server starts up automagically.
I probably would have missed the step to first quit it, but the preliminary notes that appear in RED as part of the installer provide clear and comprehensive instructions.
Update complete, with no issues.

Now to go shop for some new i3 switches.

Any advantage to the i3 paddles over the usual ones? also, is there a second command for the rotary dial like the paddles, or is it just on/off/dim?

[matt (support)]

Both the paddle and dial modules can control dimmable loads or on/off loads (via a relay), so you don't need different modules based on the load.

Same basic on/off/set brightness commands for the dial.

What I intended to ask was whether they retained the double tap for instant on/off so that can be used as a trigger for other actions. I'd suppose the rotary dial does not have that ability. Or does it punch on/off to last setting as well as rotate?

Also is there any difference in the dimensions or wiring? Seems like they missed an opportunity to have direct connections like the z-wave devices. Will still be a bundle of wires in there.

[matt (support)]

Afraid you'll need to ask most of those on an Insteon forum (unless someone here knows the specifics). I do recall that a double tap UP on the paddle goes to 100% instantly though.

i'm holding one in my hand but haven't installed yet - hopefully will get some time this evening and i'll post details then. however your question about double-tap got me thinking about that and a few related issues....

we know a single tap to the i3 button sends an on/off and is equivalent to the top/bottom tap of a switchinc respectively. the on command goes to preset dim level - same as it ever was. its easy to imagine that this will work the same as has worked for keypadlinc's for many years.

i3 dial switch has an additional mode (setting) such that a normal tap to turn on will go back to the previous dim level. so i plan to test whether Indigo tracks when this happens. i'm also curious about when the switch is linked to another Insteon device - the normal Insteon convention that I'm familiar with (as long time Indigo/Insteon user) is that a link from controller to responder embeds both an on-level and ramp-rate - so if the switch turns on locally to its "remembered" level, then does it send that level to the responder also?

product literature suggests that i3 dial switch has an additional behavior whereby the light is off and you turn it on by twisting the knob (not pushing it). does the light turn on starting from zero in this case? it may also be that it is just worded imprecisely. i will test.

as to hamw's specific question, double-top-tap of old switchinc is "instant on to 100%" (ignoring ramp rate). it's unclear whether or not analogous double-push is supported on the i3 dial. it is not mentioned in any Insteon product description or manuals i can find. i will test.

a few other random questions/issues:

if when turning the dial can the brightness go all the way to zero? if it does go to zero, is the device fully off - i.e., if the light is on and you turn the knob all the way down (and thus the device is arguably off), then you hit the button again, does this turn the device off? or on? possible relevant precedent: with a keypadlinc, if local device is on and you press and hold button 1 (to dim it to zero), then release, the LED turns off and the next press results in turning the device on, so perhaps the i3 dial will behave analogously.

also, what happens in the above situation if the light is set to use its remembered dim level - i.e., what is the resulting "remembered" level? is it zero? this could result in some user confusion - i.e. if the device could be simultaneously ON and at level of zero. so, i suspect that's not how it works, but will definitely test.

if an i3 dial switch is set to use remembered dim state and is linked to another device, then what ramp-rate is used by the linked switch when the dial is pressed? seems it would be nice if the ramp rate saved with the link were used (though the brightness saved with then link is obviously ignored). or is it instant? will test.

if using an i3 dial switch when it is linked to another device and with each connected to a load (such as a light), what does it look like when you twist the knob? - in particular when you twist it fast vs slow? how fast are dim/brighten commands sent? do the two lights stay "in sync"? or is there a lag on the remote light? my intuition says this must be done by sending a series of brighten/dim commands as the turning of the knob is sensed. so is the local dimming/brightening constrained by the speed at which the bright/dim commands can be sent to the linked partner? or can the local device outpace the remote device and then let it catch-up later? also what is the effective granularity (step-size) of the brighten commands that are sent? this was mostly not an issue with SwitchLincs/KeypadLincs because their dim-rate was fixed. that is, they used push-and-hold gestures to invoke dimming and thus it was always done at a standard rate, unlike what the i3 dial allows...

Wow, very thorough series of questions.

Another thing that comes to mind is whether these are trailing edge dimmers, or leading edge dimmers. I think that makes a difference regarding Flicker and LED lights.

[matt (support)]

I don't have answers to all of your questions, but do for some:

i3 dial switch has an additional mode (setting) such that a normal tap to turn on will go back to the previous dim level. so i plan to test whether Indigo tracks when this happens. i'm also curious about when the switch is linked to another Insteon device - the normal Insteon convention that I'm familiar with (as long time Indigo/Insteon user) is that a link from controller to responder embeds both an on-level and ramp-rate - so if the switch turns on locally to its "remembered" level, then does it send that level to the responder also?

Although the i3 dial can be configured to either "on to preset dim" or "on to last brightness", Indigo's internal state tracking always assumes it is doing "on to last brightness." I chose this because that mode seems more intuitive for a dial based switch since it more closely mirrors an analog version of a dial switch. Future versions of Indigo might support state tracking for "on to preset dim" but for now Indigo always assumes an ON command received should go to the last brightness before the module was turned off.

product literature suggests that i3 dial switch has an additional behavior whereby the light is off and you turn it on by twisting the knob (not pushing it). does the light turn on starting from zero in this case? it may also be that it is just worded imprecisely. i will test.

Yes, it starts from zero.

Note also a future version of Indigo will very likely have a new menu item and action to set the behavior of "fully CCW rotated." (either turns module OFF or sets to a very low brightness).

if an i3 dial switch is set to use remembered dim state and is linked to another device, then what ramp-rate is used by the linked switch when the dial is pressed? seems it would be nice if the ramp rate saved with the link were used (though the brightness saved with then link is obviously ignored). or is it instant? will test.

The ramp rate is part of the link structure and should be editable in Indigo link editor UI dialog.

Love all those ideas Matt!


The dial does respond to double clicks as well.

Code: Select all

   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" on
   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" brightness changed to 34 <- spun the dial
   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" brightness changed to 41 <- spun the dial
   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" off
   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" on to 100% (instant)
   Received INSTEON                "Guest Bath - Accent Lighting" off (instant)


I have new i3 rotary dimmer installed. Here are my observations:

Installation Issues
Nothing surprising. The switch may be a bit larger in depth. The device including the "wings" that stick out at top and bottom and typically rest on your drywall are made of plastic. They've been metal in every other smart switch I've used. I don't necessarily see this as a problem so long as the plastic doesn't get brittle over time. There are insulated integral jumper wires used for all four connections including ground (braided bare copper is used on older Insteon switches).
Fit and general appearance seem good. Packaging and included accessories (wire nuts) are similar to other Insteon devices.
Indigo allowed the i3 dimmer to replace a SwitchLinc in my Indigo database painlessly in the usual way - just by opening the Define and Sync... dialog on the old device, then having the new device send its address. One click, wait a few seconds, and it's pretty much all good to go. So that was all very smooth as one would expect.

Device Behavior with attached LED fixtures when Dimming
The dimmer behaves differently from a SwitchLinc in terms of how it works as a dimmer controlling an attached fixture. It appears they've modified the "response curve" of Insteon dim levels (1% to 100%) to the TRIAC output waveform. Specifically, I observe that if i set the module to any value between 1 and about 12%, the light comes on at the same level as the 12% setting on the old SwitchLinc.
Comparing the same type of load with an older SwitchLinc, at 1% I see no light at all, 2% light is barely visible, 3-4% it is getting brighter, etc. until about 10-12% it seems to be even with the i3. There is a barely noticeable hint of flickering in the 3-4% range.
Under no conditions did the i3 ever show any visible sign of flickering - so that is good.
An important caveat: this is entirely based on my informal observations of one specific configuration of devices - your milage may vary, obviously. I was using ~2yr old Cree brand LED trims for both the i3 and the responder SwitchLinc.

Local LED indicator
The switch has a two-level LED on the top of the dial. When switch is off, LED is at low level ("pilot light"). When switch is on, LED is at a somewhat higher level. LED is white. The two levels don't allow me to reliably discern on vs. off if I'm looking at the switch and can't see the controlled light. There's just not an obvious enough difference between the two levels. This is a difference from the familiar LED "bar graph" on the old SwitchLinc's. The i3 doesn't even attempt to give any visual indication of dim level.

Physical Operation of the Switch
The first time I tried to push the knob, the knob moved, I thought I got haptic feedback of feeling it move, but the light did not turn on. Surprised, I tried again and it worked normally. Now I'm going back and trying to see how that happened. It appears that if you make contact off-center on knob other and push, it will sometimes move a little without activating. Time will tell whether this is a rare occurrence. I can reproduce the problem if I try - for example by pushing somewhat gently, right on the top edge of the knob. I'll be interested to hear if anyone else notices this issue.

Dimmer Behavior in Multi-way Switches
With the i3 switch set up as controller and another Insteon SwitchLinc as responder, pushing the knob had the expected effect of toggling the on/off state of both the local load and the responder.
I observed that the responder device does not dim or brighten when the i3 knob was turned. This is a major functional difference between i3 and SwitchLinc when used as linked controller of other devices.

Turning on lights by Turning Knob
Since this is a design distinction from older Insteon devices, I was curious how this would work. I think these findings are "interesting" to say the least.
When the device is off and you twist the knob a small amount in either direction, the device turns on, starting at its minimum dim level, independent of the preset dim level. Indigo correctly reports the i3 device as ON at 1%. If you then twist the knob counter-clockwise, it does not turn the device back off - it just goes to the minimum of 1% - in other words, there is no "twist to turn off" function.
When turning on the i3 device on by twisting, the linked device did not turn on. Either this is a bug, a design flaw, or possibly the twist-to-turn-on function is intended to give you a "local-only" turn on mechanism. The latter seems unlikely and is inconsistent with how other Insteon products work. In short, if you have linked switches and use twist-to-turn-on, the switches do not stay in sync with each other.
I discovered (by accident) that although if you rotate the knob at slow to normal speeds, the responder will stay off, however if you rotate the knob "fast", the responder will turn on. That seems like a firmware bug to me - I certainly did not see this "feature" documented anywhere, nor can I imagine why they would design it this way.
When using twist-to-turn-on, Indigo correctly reported the status of the i3 but reported the status of the responder incorrectly at 60% even when the it remained off.

Instant-On
Double-press of the i3 knob turns the light to full brightness instantly, ignoring the ramp-rate and preset levels, in the standard Insteon tradition. It also causes the linked switch to turn full-on instantly. This answers hamw's original question.
Following double-press, Indigo correctly reports the state of the i3 device but incorrectly reports the state of the responder as being at its preset level when the device is actually at 100%.
An oddity: After double-press, I found that twisting the knob counter-clockwise caused the linked switch to switch from 100% brightness to its preset level for some reason. This was unexpected since (as described above) rotating the dimmer knob normally had no effect on the responder device.

Beep
Insteon beep command works on the i3 device.

Set LED Brightness
The Indigo Set LED Brightness appears to not be supported on the new switch - or at least Indigo does not let me pick the i3 dimmer as a target for this command.
This could be a drawback if you have a lightswitch right next to your bed, for example. It seems odd that they removed this functionality that SwitchLincs and KeypadLIncs have had for a long time. Having a lot of controlled switches in smart home can lead to a lot of light pollution.

Summary
Superficially, i3 seems to have a lot of commonality with familiar SwitchLinc Dimmers - with a slightly different physical interface.
The i3 can turn linked devices on and off using normal link preset dim levels. However, my findings indicate you can not use the i3 as an Insteon controller to dim or brighten another Insteon device acting as responder. This is a significant deviation from how Insteon devices have worked up to now, and honestly I'm quite surprised by this. It seems like an especially odd limitation for a device whose main distinction is its rotating knob, seemingly intended to be used forintuitive variable-rate dimming.
There is no ability to dim the LED lights on the switch unlike (most) SwitchLinc's.

Last Word
Definitely feel free to ask me other questions, suggest other tests, or post and share your results with using the device if you've tried them. Honestly, I'd be happy to learn that "I'm using it wrong" for at least a few of these scenarios.

when turning the dial can the brightness go all the way to zero? if it does go to zero, is the device fully off - i.e., if the light is on and you turn the knob all the way down (and thus the device is arguably off), then you hit the button again, does this turn the device off? or on? possible relevant precedent: with a keypadlinc, if local device is on and you press and hold button 1 (to dim it to zero), then release, the LED turns off and the next press results in turning the device on, so perhaps the i3 dial will behave analogously.

to close-out this issue that i had raised previously...

i3 device can be turned from OFF to ON by turning the dimmer. In that case brightness starts out at 1% and then can be changed to whatever level you want by further rotating the knob. a linked responder device will NOT turn on in this case, however Indigo will incorrectly show a linked device as on (at preset level).

i3 device can not be turned OFF by turning the dimmer. if you rotate the knob counterclockwise, the level will eventually go down to 1% but not to 0%. the only way to turn the device off is to push the knob. a linked responder device will not respond at all when knob is turned.

i see matt's earlier comment implies that this (what happens when knob is rotated to lowest setting) may be configurable with a future parameter that can be set via Indigo - i'm describing the way it works now with Indigo 2022.2.2.