Just wondering what’s going to happen now that insteon has officially closed the doors. I know I’m not going to reset or do anything else to my insteon and slowly replace device as we go.
I am hoping that a business with vision will recognize the amazing feature-set of Insteon hardware, buy the assets, resolve all the problems that users had experienced, and turn it into the class-leading smarthome hardware that it could be. Most likely, especially given that SmartLabs was apparently unable to find a buyer in a previous effort and that the manner in which they folded the whole thing up suggests that their financiers simply pulled the plug and do not care, it will be a desperate effort to find comparable hardware that is compatible with Home Assistant and that will not leave complex configurations crippled.
I hope you’re right. I’ve found my Insteon hardware to be the most reliable and configurable of all my smart switches! I was just about to pull the trigger on another FanLinc, but there does not appear to be any available that are not being scalped on eBay for $500!
My biggest concern is if my PLM breaks, as at that point all my switches etc. “disappear” from HA! I guess this is the risk with so many of these techlogies: single point of failure.
I’ve been using insteon-mqtt (GitHub - TD22057/insteon-mqtt: Python Insteon PLM <-> MQTT bridge) on a remote Pi for years; truly solid!
There appears to be a lot of instructions on PLM repairs on the internet and an ebay search for “insteon plm 2413s” yields results of suppliers of replacement/ugraded capacitators. I have started to stock up on those.
This would just delay the inevitable.
I guess Insteon partially went bankrupt because their use of proprietary protocols, that potential users recognized as a risk that exactly what happens now would happen to them, and that potential buyers see as a no-future.
Tech history is full of examples of better tech disappearing because they didn’t manage to become a “standard” (e.g. Betamax vs. VHS for the boomers over here 
)
OTOH, Phillips, Ikea, … might go dark tomorrow that it won’t affect me because they use an open protocol (zigbee).
2 Likes
TBH, thats the reason why i dont buy anything which needs cloud services to work.
But the kind how they secretly pulled the plug without letting their customers know anything beforehand is a bad practice. For my taste, if they told their customers like 2 weeks or a month before they shutdown about that and maybe, if they dont plan a reboot/successor, make their designs and codes open source would be better, with the last part beeing the ideal.
Basically the company has given us all the big FU with the way they’ve handled this thing.
Perhaps at least they can do the right thing and let the platform go open source. Maybe Some kind soul could set up a server to replace the one that was run by insteon.
Indeed.
That will be remembered for years to come, and is, indirectly, a hard blow to all actors using proprietary cloud solutions (and a “blessing” for HA )
Tuya, anyone? 
Insteon is not really cloud-based. Cloud was an afterthought at best.
Definitely lots of FU to go around here.
There is at least one company out there (albeit a small one) that depends on the existence of Insteon hardware for its own existence. There is likely some effort to acquire rights going on. However, the manner of this closure reeks of Richmond Capital simply not giving a crap.
Agreed on the not cloud-based. My PLM works amazingly well, instant & responsive. The cloud-based always appears to be an after-thought by these companies that are looking for “subscription” revenue. It is too bad that they did not license their technology to other manufacturers; would have been nice to see a broader ecosystem of switches and devices.
I hope your rumour is correct and that there is another company looking to acquire the IP. Would be nice to see some continuation and availability of Insteon hardware.
It looks like the company is being liquidated by creditors
After this shutdown, their reputation and customer base are destroyed.
I dont imagine anyone buying this company at this point. The future, and more importantly, where the money and investment are, is Matter and standardized open smart home protocols, at least in the DIY market. Someone might pick up some of the assets, but even if that happened I doubt it will ever function the way it used to.
Update- I stand corrected - see post below
Good news someone bought insteon. Here’s an email I received.
In case you missed my blog post, my name is Ken Fairbanks and I am leading a small group of passionate Insteon users that have successfully acquired Insteon. Like many of you, our homes are powered by Insteon’s amazing dual-mesh technology and highly configurable products.
Like you, I was outraged at the sudden loss of connectivity to my Insteon Hub without warning. Many of you discovered just the other day that the Insteon Hubs began coming back online. While we didn’t intend to surprise you again, our first priority was restoring access to your hubs immediately even before we had access to send you this email. Every day more customers were giving up hope so it was critical to get that restored as soon as possible. We are aware not all functions are back online but we are actively working on it. We hope you understand this urgency and appreciate your patience.
Here’s a list of Insteon Hub services we are actively working on or have completed:
- Access to Insteon Hub: Completed
- Apps available in Google Play and Apple App Store: Completed
- Push notifications: Completed
- Email notifications: Completed
- Amazon Alexa skill availability: In process
- Google Assistant availability: In process
In addition to the efforts above, we are working to see what inventory we have available as well as reaching out to factories to restart manufacturing.
Going forward we are committed to responsibly re-building the Insteon business. Our commitment to you, as part of the Insteon family, is to listen, communicate and be as transparent as possible in everything we do.
With that in mind, our immediate plan is to make the Insteon Hub services a self-sustaining business. This is where we need your help. To properly and responsibly run and support these services we will be introducing a yearly subscription fee of $39.95, or $69.95 for two years.
We are working to finalize the details of the subscription and should have more information as well as ways to purchase it by next week. Meanwhile, I would love to hear your thoughts. Please reach out here.
We will also be posting updates on Insteon’s social media accounts so if you don’t tend to check email as often, you can get updates on the Insteon blog, twitter, facebook, and reddit.
Thank you all for your patience. We look forward to sharing this new journey with you.
Best regards,
Ken Fairbanks
CEO, Insteon Technologies