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[Tom G.]

I'm going to wait to see what/if X10 releases as far as the new CM15A.
Thanks for the info and help.

[Noam]

TJH, I have had similar problems to you in the past. I think your CM15A is crapping out. They only seem to last a certain number of years before they start behaving weirdly. I have had to replace units in the past that began to malfunction. Over the years, I think I bought 6-8 units.

I still have 3 units. Two of them known to be working properly, one is questionable. I'm starting to look at an Ocelot or ISY controller but would rather stay with Activehome if I can.

Tom G.

I was noticing a similar thing with my own CM15A skipping a few timers over the past few weeks. I added a few extra timers in there to cover the most important things, but I was wondering what was going on. It had also tried clearing the interface and re-downloading. This morning, I went in to look at the Dusk/Dawn settings (unrelated to the other issue), and I noticed that the battery life was showing as "red," but 48 hours. Resetting it didn't help at all.
So, I unplugged the CM15A, and opened the battery compartment. The batteries had leaked (I don't think they were all that old - I thought I'd changed them over the summer after our extended power outage). I cleaned off the contacts and replaced the batteries, but AHP didn't reset the indicator to "green."
I pulled out one of my spare units (I have about 5 total), and it also had a little corrosion on the battery terminals. Cleaning it didn't make a difference, it also showed "red." I tried a third unit, and it was fine (it showed up "green). That told me the software seemed to be okay.
Next, I went back and scraped the contacts in that second unit again, and it decided to work, too. Finally, I gave the contacts in my original unit one more cleaning, and it finally worked. I can't say the two are related, but perhaps the battery status was interfering with the timer operation in some way. With dirty contacts, the CM15A wasn't seeing the batteries at all.

[dave w]

perhaps the battery status was interfering with the timer operation in some way.

This could be true only with X10 software.   

[Brian H]

The schematic of the CM15A does show a transistor and three resistors in the battery circuit.
With a signal into the microcontroller. So it does look like it can sense the battery voltage.

[dhouston]

It was never clear to me what that transistor circuit does. Nor what the batteries do.

Pin 15 of the CY7C63723 is a digital IO port so it cannot sense voltage levels, merely presence or absence. I think it only senses when line voltage is lost/restored. And timers/macros are stored in a non-volatile EEPROM. So, I tend to agree with dave w. The X10 programmers are definitely not from Vulcan.  

About the only thing the battery could be used for is to maintain an RTC but I don't recall whether the CM15A did so during power failures - a search of the CY7C63723 datasheet does not find "RTC". Despite having a battery, the CM11A had to have the time/date updated after a power failure. My guess is they maintain a software RTC which needs resetting after a power failure.

[Noam]

As I recall, the batteries were there specifically to keep the stored timers/macros/etc during a power failure, AND to keep the clock running so events kept going after power was restored. I don't think it required re-syncing the clock after power was restored (as long as the batteries were good), because then what is the point of keeping the timers/macros stored, if you still need to connect the PC to get any of it working afterward?

We know that the CM15A knows (or is supposed to know) how long it has been running on batteries, that's why there is a countdown clock in there. It knows if there are good batteries in it (based on detecting that there is some voltage - presumably more than a "known weak" battery level). I guess the engineers calculated that 48 hours was a pretty safe bet to run the CM15a on a set of batteries, which is why they recommend changing them after 48 hours of battery (no AC power) use.

In my case, even a fresh set of batteries wasn't working, because the corrosion on the battery contacts was preventing a good connection.

[dhouston]

Well, the CM11A also stored macros/timers and would do nothing beyond asking for the date/time once a second after power-up.

Both the CM11A and CM15A use non-volatile EEPROM storage for macros/timers and, thus, have no need of battery power to maintain them.

So, as I said, about all it could possibly be for is to maintain a software RTC when line power is lost. The CY7C63723 datasheet does mention an...

• Internal low-power wake-up timer during suspend mode
• ❐ Periodic wake-up with no external components

so maybe they maintain the time/date as well as count the time on battery power. (The accuracy of the time/date would be questionable.)

But, it's only effect on timers/macros would be that it refuses to use them if it has no idea of the time/date.

[toddbailey]

Well, the ISY is pretty expensive and I'm not happy to hear that it has that limitation. What about the Ocelot? Same problems?

I don't understand what your saying about using AHP with Insteon. Can you explain that a bit more? What Insteon unit would work with AHP?

What Insteon, or other brand, would be the best replacement for a CM15A?

I advise against purchasing any thing Insteon,   after becoming dissatisfied with the X10 dimmers,  I installed over a dozen of the Insteon products,
Over the course of 2 years all but 3 have failed, the remaining 3 don't respond to manual activation, I have to rely on timer set up in AHP software.
While the softstart, scene programming and bidirectional dimming and ramp speed is a nice feature,  the products just don't have a very long life span nor do they have much of a warranty and the customer service dept is one of the most uninterested group of people I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.   At over 40 bucks ea, I am not impressed with the product.

[Brian H]

The early Switchlincs did have a problem with the tact switches the paddles activated.
Smarthome extended the warranty on them to seven years and would have replaced them for free if you had contacted them and they where in the Date Code Range.

Since Smarthome/Smartlabs chose an older %dim command and X10 used Extended X10 messaging. Modules where not 100% exchangeable in AHP.

[Noam]

I've had two older (pre-Insteon) SwitchLincs go bad on me (or suspected, at least). Smarthome was really good about replacing them, as they were still within the warranty. Since I had gotten them as they were being phased out, they replaced them with newer Insteon modules.
I haven't had any issues with my Insteon modules (I have 8 of them in my X10 setup).
I just got two additional ones over the summer.
Be careful. They are removing X10 support from some of their Insteon devices.