Power Insteon wireless devices with a DC adapter

Tired of replacing batteries in your wireless Insteon devices like motion sensors or hidden door sensors? Power them from the wall with a 9v wall adapter. The process is similar to what we did making a USB connector, splicing the right connector on the end of a power cable.

It starts with any old 9v power adapter (I haven’t measured the power consumption from the motion sensor, but it’s presumably very low so you shouldn’t need to worry about the mA rating), and an appropriate connector, such as these 9v clips for motion sensors. For hidden door sensors, you’ll probably want a custom connector soldered to the AA leads. Just make sure the voltage and polarity matches.

In my case I found an ancient power adapter from a wireless phone:
dc-adapter

Solder on the connectors, cut a hole in the battery cover (or just leave it off), and you’ve now got a wireless device that will never need battery replacements! You might want to confirm the voltage of your DC adapter; I was actually getting 13V out of my 9V despite the printing on it – but the motion sensor continued to work flawlessly so it’s definitely got a little bit of tolerance:
hardwired-insteon-motion-sensor

Posted by Matt Chiste
April 19
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