Again in July, I disassembled and detailed the internals of a SmartLabs 2412S Energy Line Modem (PLM). Whereas PLMs present a bridge between a house automation controller (hub or different) and numerous X10-and-Insteon powerline (in addition to Insteon wi-fi, whether or not instantly or through a powerline-to-wireless middleman) gadgets, they include solely minimal native processing and reminiscence services. The majority of those assets alternatively reside within the controller and/or (with a defeatured hub) the cloud server to which it’s Web-connected.
In that prior writeup, I discussed that SmartLabs had (solely quickly, because it seems) abruptly turned out the lights, locked the doorways, and powered down the servers in response to a fiscal disaster, within the course of crippling the house automation networks of the purchasers of its cloud-centric hubs. In response, various standalone controllers corresponding to these from Common Gadgets garnered much more curiosity than they’d had beforehand. My Insteon community had been mothballed for greater than a decade, since I’d moved from California to Colorado, however I nonetheless had (amongst different issues) a never-used and uncommon Common Gadgets ISY-992i/IR PRO controller (the successor ISY-994i collection was extra widespread) which I offered on eBay.
In the present day’s teardown sufferer is the ISY-992i/IR PRO’s predecessor, an ISY-99i/IR PRO. This unit was the nexus of my private Insteon community for a number of years, the place it carried out error-free and in any other case robustly. The “IR” within the product title references the truth that this explicit unit is able to being managed not solely from a networked laptop through its Ethernet port but additionally through an infrared distant management that helps Philips RC-5 codes. “PRO” references the truth that this machine integrates sufficient reminiscence to assist as much as 1,024 machine/scene mixtures and 1,000 packages. I’ll as-usual start with some overview photographs, in a few circumstances with the machine accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for dimension comparability functions.
Whereas the ISY-99i/IR PRO and ISY-992i/IR PRO look equivalent from the entrance, the again sides (subsequently the highest facet markings) are notably totally different:
The ISY-99i/IR PRO contains one RJ-45-based port (A), supposed to hook up with (and, relying on the PLM mannequin, probably additionally able to being powered by) a PLM, and one DB-9-based port (B), supposed for preliminary configuration for customers and not using a DHCP-enabled community in addition to for superior PC-based troubleshooting. The successor ISY-992i/IR PRO presents two RJ-45 ports, with the DB-9 connector as a substitute labeled “Console”. In each circumstances, there’s additionally a barrel plug energy enter (for when powering through the PLM isn’t supported) and an Ethernet connection.
Whereas the embedded SD card, which we’ll see shortly, is user-accessible through a left-side cowl on the ISY-992i/IR PRO, it’s not on the ISY-99i/IR PRO:
And never solely is Common Gadgets primarily based in Encino, CA, manufacturing additionally takes place in america:
Time to peek inside, an easy endeavor after eradicating the 2 Philips screws on both facet of the unit:
Fully eradicating the PCB from the chassis is equally simple, subsequent to the extraction of 4 extra screws (solely two of that are instantly apparent from a look on the prior photograph; revisit the sooner backside overview picture to discern their places):
That is, I have to say, one of many cleanest PCBs I’ve come throughout. No Faraday cages, no epoxy “blobs” or different methods to obscure IC identities, solely straightforwardly laid out and labeled chips. At backside is a Samsung K4S641632K-UC75 64 Mbit SDRAM. Above it are an LCX244 octal non-inverting buffer/line driver (producer unknown) and an SST (now Microchip) SST39VF040 4 Mbit EEPROM-derived flash reminiscence. And to their proper is the “brains” of the machine, a Freescale (now NXP Semiconductors) MCF5270CVM150 ColdFire v2 32-bit RISC SoC.
Persevering with towards the highest of the PCB, within the higher proper nook there’s a Davicom DM9161 bodily layer transceiver, implementing the machine’s 10/100 Mbit Quick Ethernet services. And in shut proximity to the RJ-45 and DB-9 connectors, each supporting serial port connectivity, is (unsurprisingly) a Texas Devices MA3243 (PDF) 3-V to five.5-V multichannel RS-232 line driver, curiously alongside a Maxim Built-in MAX3078 RS-422/RS-485 interface IC.
About that SD card; it pops proper out (and again in) through a normal spring-loaded-and latched eject-and-insert mechanism:
It’s a reasonably standard 128 Mbyte storage machine, because it seems. Quoting from Common Gadgets’ documentation:
The ISY has two totally different reminiscence storage places. First is the bottom reminiscence [EDITOR NOTE: the already shown SST flash memory chip soldered to the PCB) where the ISY has some of the basic code like its boot loader, SD file system, and networking facilities. The other memory is the SD card which is where upgraded admin firmware and user files are stored.
Before flipping the PCB over, let’s look at it from sideways perspectives. Front first: the IR module is implemented on a “daughter card” for system manufacturing flexibility, with the main board therefore supporting both IR and non-IR product variants:
Now for the back:
And the two sides:
Finally, let’s see what’s underneath. Not much, as usual, aside from a bunch of visible traces:
I’d lost touch with Universal Devices and its CEO, Michael Kohanim, in recent years, so I was pleasantly surprised to unintentionally come across them several times in recent months. First off, the guy who bought (and then returned to me for refund) the SmartLabs 2412S PLMs I mentioned back in July told me that he had been in communication with the very same Michael Kohanim, who helped him with some remote debugging in striving to figure out whether they still worked (and apparently even found him a functional PLM after mine didn’t pan out).
And then I heard through press coverage that Kohanim had actually put in a bid to buy and resurrect SmartLabs after that company abruptly shut down in late April. Universal Devices had always “punched well above its weight”, from my experience; LinkedIn reports that there are only four full-time employees. It’s nice to hear that a decade after my last in-depth interactions with them, they’re still alive and kicking; I wish them the best going forward. And now it’s over to you, dear readers, for your thoughts in the comments!
—Brian Dipert is Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
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