Insteon: Add Specific Support for Insteon LED Bulb

[JaredF]

MisterHouse currently supports the Insteon LED Bulb defined as a I2CS LampLinc, but it has a device-specific feature: the ability to prevent the device from entering linking mode automatically each time it is powered on.

Since the bulb has no physical set button, power cycling it is the normal way to add a new link. Additionally, due to the lack of a physical button, there is no way to factory reset these devices.

The "Disable Linking on Power-up" feature is mentioned as a "Software-only feature" in the owner's manual on page 16: https://www.insteon.com/pdf/2672-222.pdf However, there is no mention of how this is performed via the Insteon protocol, so this may require packet sniffing and trial-and-error testing to accomplish.

[JaredF]

I am currently working on this Issue if someone can mark it as assigned to me.

I would appreciate any input regarding adding a feature to perform a 'factory reset' on this device via MH. The BulbLinc is unique in that it has no physical linking button on it, so the instructions recommend using software to manually remove all links. I have seen it mentioned in some Insteon docs that it may be possible to send a remote command that will cause a device to perform a factory reset. Has anyone else ever heard of this or seen it implemented anywhere? Would anyone find this command useful for this or any other Insteon device?

[krkeegan]

Software reset might be useful for all devices. Certainly it would be useful for any "inline" devices such as the fan linc. You could start by adding the feature to this device, and then it could be elevated to BaseObject or something else if necessary.

FYI, the best way I have found to discover the message details for new features is to use the houselinc software and enabled the verbose logging.

[JaredF]

@krkeegan :) That's exactly what I did to figure out how the "Disable Linking on Power-up" was implemented. I remember you saying in the past that was how you had checked some of the newer features for other devices. Thanks!

[hollie]

@marcmerlin @jduda @mstovenour @krkeegan I have added @JaredF as collaborator on the repo so that we can make him owner of this issue. Is this OK for you?

[JaredF]

@hollie et al.: Sorry, didn't realize it was a requirement to be a collaborator to be assigned to a task.

[krkeegan]

Yup, was just thinking the same thing.

[marcmerlin]

Whatever makes sense works for me, as you've likely noticed I haven't much time to spend on mh recently, sorry about that.

[hollie]

Hey @JaredF no need to apologize, welcome to the club ;-)

[JaredF]

@hollie, thanks! I've been using MH for quite a while now and think it's about time that I give a little back.

[JaredF]

I decided to decouple the 'factory reset' feature idea from this Issue since it could affect multiple devices. Additionally, it may take quite a bit of troubleshooting and testing to make sure that a new message type like this would work as expected on all devices. HouseLinc does not support such a feature and since I have only seen a few rare mentions of it in Insteon literature, I am still not even sure if it's even possible. I will open a new Issue to track this feature request.

@krkeegan, on a separate note I was surprised to discover while testing for this Issue that HouseLinc no longer supports automatic interface linking of I1 devices... I found many angry HouseLinc users' complaints on forums when they found out that SmartHome decided to silently remove this feature. This currently gives MH a nice advantage.