Micro Dimmer Switch Module

I have at least 9 micro inline dimmers from Insteon in my home. When I move to the present home there was no effective solution to one 20amp circuit where I need 5. 20 amps was sufficient but 1 circuit was not. The micro dimmers allow me to turn 1 circuit into 5 group of lights without rewiring my home.

I was very worried when Insteon was ceasing production. I was buying dimmers off eBay because they were so valuable to me. I’m extremely grateful that Insteon is back in production.

I have 16 of these. Instead of putting each in the electrical box of the light, I ran wires to central panel boxes in closets. It was an undertaking but well worth it. These units have been in service for the last 15 years or so and have been perfectly reliable. I've had to replace wall switches over the years, and it's nice after a replaced wall switch to be able to simply take the panel cover off in the closet and re-link.

This is a fantastic way to Insteon-ize a multi switch circuit. I have several 4-way switched lights in the house, and I avoided automating most of them because of the cost of replacing each switch. With this device, I find the switched power feeding the lights and put this in that path. Now switching any of the switches turns the lights on and off as you would expect. But the lights are fully controllable as any Insteon device is. I’m really glad I found this use for the micro-module.

After installing a new LED bathroom light fixture, we felt the light was too intense and needed to be dimmed. The switch was located in a wall that was half the thickness of a standard wall and there was no neutral wire to connect a triac switch that would fit into the shallow box. Replacing the cable was not possible without a tremendous amount of work as the cable was buried in a plaster wall.

I decided to try the Micro Dimmer Switch Module controlled with a mini remote. The module fit nicely into the lamp box which controlled not only the new fixture but two recessed LED fixtures, as well.

The mini remote wall mount fit into the original switch box. I disconnected the original switch legs and left the wires in the box. Unfortunately, the mini switch is held in the mount in such a way that it can be pushed back into the open box, so I cut a piece of 1/64" sheet steel to fit behind the mount which kept the remote from being pushed back.

Through the Insteon Director app I was able to set the on brightness level as desired. Now when one enters the room and presses the switch on, the lights illuminate to a comfortable brightness.

I have been using Insteon devices for decades now and have a very high regard for their performance and outstanding features. Scenes are easy to set up and perform much better than other protocols. However the micro devices do fall short in performance. They are very sensitive to any type of power line fluctuation or noise causing them to turn on or off unexpectedly. The other issue is that if two or more four way switches are connected to the trigger the result is unpredictable. Some switches may cause the load to turn on or off while others don't. Depends on which order they are switched. I found that there is a phantom voltage present and may sometimes keep the trigger high when it shouldn't be. I had pretty much solved this by attaching a tie down resistor to the trigger, Not a good solution. In comparison the z-wave micro switches don't have that triggering issue. I was hoping that the latest version of the micro switch might have solved these issues but unfortunately not. For when I need a micro switch I'll reluctantly need to use the z-wave version. All of my other Insteon devices work perfectly. I had installed a bridge between the power legs and used filters on signal robbing appliances.