Insteon switches not acknowledging paddle press

johnnynine

Active Member
Perhaps I am too gentle with the insteon switches because I am not used to them yet, but sometimes when I barely press the paddle I can hear the switch click under the paddle, but nothing happens (even on the local load).

I found then when I am in a hurry, walk into a dark room and quickly tap the switch (without fully depressing it) the light doesn't come on. I do hear the switch click (like a mouse click).

After this happened a few times I tried to reproduce it on several of my dimmer switches. It wasn't consistant but I was able to slowly press the paddle in until I heard the underlying switch click and had no light come on.

This is very annoying as I have walked half way into a dark room on several occations and had to walk back and "click" the light switch again. I say click, because the switches remind me so much of computer mouse buttons.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Johnny
 
Yep. I'm not sure if I trained myself to not hit them that way, as I have not noticed it lately. I did notice it shortly after I started installing insteon switches.

I have not asked, but my wife has not complained about it either.

You are not crazy though, although I have not tried to reproduce it on various switches (in determining if it was 'defective' or just sensitivity to slight clicks).
 
I have also started seeing this, primarily on 2 specific switches. Interestingly one of them is the one I Installed most recently while the other is the first Insteon switch I ever installed.

Both are relay switches. Both are Insteon, not Icon. The newer one seems to have corrected itself while the older one consistently requires 2 attempts to operate it manually.
 
I have seen this with both relay and dimmers. I have even sent a couple back due to this issue. I have one now that I need to replace because It can take up to 10 times to turn it on.
 
Sometimes the paddle can get tweaked if it was screwed in too tightly. If it is consistent I would suggest calling tech support to swap the unit.

Alternately, if this has only happened once or twice you can try unscrewing the paddle and reseating it.

We had some reports of this initially but that dwindled fairly quickly.
 
upstatemike said:
Both are relay switches.
Timely topic.

Within the last week or so I have noticed one of my relays take a firmer press than it used to. Still works fine, but if you don't press it all the way in, it won't work.
 
Ok, after further testing I'm fairly convinced that this is a bug, and not an mechanical problem.

I can consistently duplicate the problem on ALL of my dimmer switches and the only timer relay switch that I have. I can even depress the switch all the way down and make it happen.

The problem will only present itself once for a given state. So if the light is on, I can VERY quickly press and release the off paddle and nothing happens. If I VERY quickly press and release the off paddle again (even after several seconds), the light will always turn off. I can either very quickly press and release the paddle all the way down, or just a tiny bit with the same result. The underlying switch clicks in either case. Of course it is possible to lightly press the paddle and not have the switch click, in which case it is expected that he light would not change state since it simply was not pressed far enough down.

I get the same results from the off state too... If the light is off and I very quickly press and release the on paddle, the light does not turn on. If I very quickly press it again it will turn on.

And in a dimmed state I can actually alternate between pressing on and off and the light never changes state. For example, if the light has been turned off and I turn it on by pressing the on paddle (my switch defaults to 60% on). I can then wait a few seconds (or not wait) and then very quickly press and release the off paddle and the light does not turn off (or dim for that matter). Then I can wait a second and very quickly press and release the on paddle and the light does not turn off. I can then do the same with the off paddle, then on, and so on and the light never changes state.

In every test the paddle would ignore the 1st very quick paddle press/release, but would never ignore the second. This only happens when the paddle is pressed and then released very quickly. Apparently that's how I often times turn on and off the lights.

In all cases if I pressed the paddle at a slower rate, at say 1/4 of a second it always worked as expected.

I have also concluded that this is why the double click action doesn't always work for me. At first I thought I was just missing the switch or something but I now realize that when I quickly double click the switch and expect it to turn on 100%, it does not work because it is ignoring my 1st very quick press/release.

I hope this is helpful to the technical staff at Smarthome and I hope they can fix it.

Edit: I told my wife about it and she said she had also noticed it.
 
I have seen this also with some of my Switchlinc V2's and one Icon.

I had to replace a Switchlinc V2 timer because I couldn't control the local load at all. The light bar would flash, but the load wouldn't turn on or off. Also on this switch AND on the replacement, the set button (airgap) will not kill power to the switch even when pulled all the way out, making it impossible to do a hard reset without one person turning off/on power at the breaker while another held down the set button at the switch.

An Icon this morning just outright refused to respond to a local keypress. I had to pull out the set button for 10 seconds to do a "soft" reset to get it to start responding again.

I'm getting worried about the longterm reliability of my Insteon switches.
 
I have one that is now doing the same thing. In my case a realy type and the top On button. Bottom Off so far is fine.
 
jeffx said:
Also on this switch AND on the replacement, the set button (airgap) will not kill power to the switch even when pulled all the way out, making it impossible to do a hard reset without one person turning off/on power at the breaker while another held down the set button at the switch.
The timer is based on the relay.

Reset procedures on the relay differ from those on dimmers. The airgaps do not work on relays. Check the manual for the reset procedures.
 
Guys,

Thanks for the information. On further review we have had some similar results here in the lab. Seems to not be as consistent as you all are seeing. Engineering is looking into this and I will try to have an update next week.
 
SmartLabsMike said:
Guys,

Thanks for the information. On further review we have had some similar results here in the lab. Seems to not be as consistent as you all are seeing. Engineering is looking into this and I will try to have an update next week.
Hmmmm....I've got a houseful of *Linc devices. Seems that they are quickly being discontinued by Smarthome to be replaced by INSTEON. I need to make some additions (for new functions) and replacements (for defective Smartlincs). I'm not liking what I'm reading about INSTEON. Please get this right. I've got a BIG investment already. I'm not happy about the cosmetic changes of the switches and don't like the negative aesthetic of having mismatched faces in multiple gang boxes. Especially when I've gone with the Lightolier Ceiling Fan switches that exactly match the now discontinued Smartlinks-AND that really work right. You've already made my several $k install obsolete--I'm not gonna stock up on the remaing old stock (already some devices are no longer available that I need for replacements) just to have spares.

All innocent bystanders please pardon my rant. And Smarthome, I've not really said anything negative about INSTEON. Except that I'm not happy about having to mix different switch faces.
 
This worries me as well. I decided to do a proof of concept trial with about 8 Insteon modules as the price looked affordable. I'm now having seconds thoughts and will have to look into ZWave as an alternative. I'm not giving up on Insteon as I hope they can identify and fix the behavior I have been experiencing. But in the meantime I'm going to take a second look at the ZWave products, which look as though they have a more stable future (but who know what problems they may have as well).
 
I have been trying to see if I could see a pattern as to when mine didn't respond. So far nothing. I do think; it is not the physical switch as holding it for the 10 seconds on mine will start the linking process. Also it always has responded to powerline signals even whan the button didn't respond.
 
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