What happens when your cloud service just pulls the plug - Insteon gone

[NiHaoMike]

I think there might be some hacky ways around it but my plan now is to go with another system and move on. A system that does not depend on the cloud of course.

Tear down that hub and let's see if the community can figure out an easy hack to make it useful again.

[CatalinaWOW]

It is going to be fun when the clouds with much larger market penetration (Alexis, Google Home and a couple others) do the same thing.  Particularly for the folks whose door locks are under those controls.

[daqq]

Today on why "IoT is a Bad Idea in its current form, episode #34109"...

[xrunner]

Tear down that hub and let's see if the community can figure out an easy hack to make it useful again.

I can open it up and post pics if you want a cheap thrill. Here's a pic of the little bugger as it sits now, red light still glowing, still controlling the lights via my programmed schedule that cannot be altered. But as I said I want to move on to another system. I don't want to mess with it until I get something else, I've got a few alternatives in mind. Perhaps in a few days I'll have decided on a new direction & starter kit to swap out and get me going with another system. Whatever it is will be able to be controlled from the cloud but not dependent on it in any other way.


Here's a few more links of the news, for anyone here or guests that might come across this thread searching for reasons why -

The smart home company Insteon has vanished.

The entire company seems to have abruptly shut down just before the weekend, breaking users' cloud-dependent smart-home setups without warning. Users say the service has been down for three days now despite the company status page saying, "All Services Online." The company forums are down, and no one is replying to users on social media.

As Internet of Things reporter Stacey Higginbotham points out, high-ranking Insteon executives, including CEO Rob Lilleness, have scrubbed the company from their LinkedIn accounts. In the time it took to write this article, Lilleness also removed his name and picture from his LinkedIn profile. It seems like that is the most communication longtime Insteon customers are going to get.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/shameful-insteon-looks-dead-just-like-its-users-smart-homes/

Oh yea and if you are unsuspecting and factory reset the little bugger read this  -

Furthermore, troubleshooting steps that users have taken have done further damage. A factory reset of the company's hubs requires a server connection to complete. With the servers down, there is no way for the initial setup after the reset to complete.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/04/18/smarthome-firm-and-early-homekit-partner-insteon-is-dead-with-no-warning-to-customers

It seems that Insteon’s leadership is ignoring the situation. Or, at the very least, avoiding backlash from angry customers. The Insteon “leadership bios” page now shows a 404 error, and as Stacey on IOT notes, Insteon CEO Rob Lilleness no longer lists the company in his LinkedIn profile. Other higher-ups at the company list that their job ended in April of 2022. (I should note that Rob Lilleness bought Insteon and Smartlabs in 2019, promising big things for the smart home brands.)

Insteon also appears to have shut down its forum and terminated its phone service. Smartlabs and Smarthome.com, which are associated with Insteon, are similarly unreachable. Additionally, Reddit users in Irvine say that the Insteon offices are closed, though the closure hasn’t been confirmed.

https://www.reviewgeek.com/115308/insteon-may-have-joined-the-list-of-failed-smart-home-companies/

[dbctronic]

Current and future legislation around the world will no doubt tackle this issue by forcing manufacturers to at least provide for a minimum period of minimal service when they go belly up. This could create a market for companies that take over cloud services, and could also, in some cases, force companies to remain in business as zombie corporations to at least provide the service.
Who wants to depend on such service? Remember Radio Shack? The government forced it to become a zombie corporation so they could pay off creditors. They were a treat to deal with...

Either way, contract legacy service or zombie service, you just know you'll be in excellent hands. 

[hans]

Ironically, if the IoT hub has bad security.. it should be 'trivial' to redirect any outgoing cloud requests to a local NAS, and "clone" the hub API functions to get a working system. Especially if all requests are done to somekind of dumb HTTP server or something..
Problem is, the main hub is down.. so how to figure out what kind of response to give. It's all a massive pain. So even though I say "trivial".. anything different  is almost impossible to clone while being honest about time/energy investment. It's still a lot of work and messing around. And all that to avoid a pile of e-waste because of another companies bad design decisions.

Nonetheless, the amount of smart cloud devices you see is insanity (like a doorbell). Imagine if any of those companies go bankrupt, or another narcissist joins the boards of directors.. and then wants to buy the whole company because he/she wants to everything different.
When can we have regulations that forbids IoT products to use the internet for it's daily operations? (only firmware updates allowed, no behaviour tracking, advertising, or core functions)

[NiHaoMike]

Ironically, if the IoT hub has bad security.. it should be 'trivial' to redirect any outgoing cloud requests to a local NAS, and "clone" the hub API functions to get a working system. Especially if all requests are done to somekind of dumb HTTP server or something..
Problem is, the main hub is down.. so how to figure out what kind of response to give. It's all a massive pain. So even though I say "trivial".. anything different  is almost impossible to clone while being honest about time/energy investment. It's still a lot of work and messing around. And all that to avoid a pile of e-waste because of another companies bad design decisions.

I was thinking reverse engineer it and make an open source firmware for it.

[MrMobodies]

Problem is, using their components, you cannot "bypass" the hub with the type of topology they designed, even though you have an app on your phone, she no work that way captain. I did have all my timers set up and they are still working from the memory in the hub, but they cannot be altered any longer and individual lights cannot be turned on/off remotely. No Insteon server - no worky.

Some guy even drove by the Office in SoCal (Irvine, CA) and verified they all skedaddled off and shut down. I think there might be some hacky ways around it but my plan now is to go with another system and move on. A system that does not depend on the cloud of course.

They worked fine a decade ago without this "cloud"/managed crap before so why are they set to depend on it.
It's sounds incredibly stupid to me.

I always thought of these sorts of things as a scam waiting to happen.

They can pack up, go and not give you control over the gear that you "brought" what you think you owned which ceases to function and your rights to use it effectively taken away.

If I can't set it up myself, it can't work inhouse and support a set of standards to work other equipment, provided with a means of with the recovery when it fails and for when they no longer exist then they can screw it and this is why I refuse to "buy"/pay for crap like this.

I wonder what would happen if they didn't use the word "cloud" to describe it but one more sensible like "locked down camera" or "non user managed solution".

Sounds to me like disgusting behaviour:

First investigated by IoT reporter Stacey Higginbotham, Insteon’s community forums appear to be down and a number of its high-profile executives have removed all reference to their Insteon employment from their LinkedIn profiles.

I wonder why or is it that they are afraid and want to run away?

[xrunner]

Dave now has a video about Insteon up -

[ebastler]

Not sure whether it has already been mentioned -- there may be workarounds which can keep your Insteon system going. According to techcentral:

The main piece of advice for owners of Insteon products is to not factory reset their devices because first-time set-up requires a connection to Insteon servers. Resetting Insteon devices that are already set up could mean the device is rendered unrecoverable if the company doesn’t restore its services.

The easiest solution to move away from the Insteon network appears to be with the open source home automation and device management software Home Assistant. Some users reported being able to use the software and have all their devices aggregated and working again in just a few hours.

[Gregg]

Inste-on is now inste-gone; who could have predicted this type of corporate behavior? 

The bottom line is that corporations have too much protection from liability, too little ethics and too much incentive to make a profit above all other motives.  The only solution would be to keep corporations from buying politicians and to make marketing truthful --- good luck with that! 

Meanwhile caveat emptor…. 

[Halcyon]

That's inspiring. You know what? I'm gonna unplug my lamps from the Insteon dimmer modules and do something crazy. I'm going to turn the lights on and off the old fashion way - using the light switch!

The true definition of a "smart home".

[EEVblog]

The CEO LInkedIn is now completely gone.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roblilleness/

[hans]

That's inspiring. You know what? I'm gonna unplug my lamps from the Insteon dimmer modules and do something crazy. I'm going to turn the lights on and off the old fashion way - using the light switch!

The true definition of a "smart home".

Peak "smart home" I've heard was some guy installing smart lamps with motion sensors on the smallest room of the house. And light switches? Humpf, I've got smart everything, so why would you need one of those ugly plastic plates on the wall? Let's plaster+tile over them.
Of course one day his server went down. So he couldn't turn on the light if he wanted to, even though he needed to...

Now personally I do use some smarthome stuff. Just some basic dimmable lamps from IKEA. But they have a fallback: if the motion sensor in the kitchen acts up, you can turn off/on the power in a brief sec, and the lamp powers up normally.
Likewise, you can set up lamps to go on/off at certain times (e.g. sunset or turning on TV), but there always needs to be a sane fallback to something physical.

[xrunner]

The CEO LInkedIn is now completely gone.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roblilleness/

He's got a lot more scrubbing to do. The Insteon website is still up - why?  Oh they feel for the users and left it up for the documentation. 

https://www.insteon.com/

I guess he/they can't get it shut down. His name is easily found there by searching areas like press releases -

“Insteon’s inherent interoperability with systems and devices makes it easy to extend one’s home IoT devices to the automobile,” said Rob Lilleness, CEO of Insteon. “Our latest integration with EVEConnect solution for Tesla provides our customers with even more options of controlling their lights and other smart devices. And Tesla is just the beginning.”

https://www.insteon.com/press-releases-blog/2018/1/23/insteon-support-for-tesla-with-eveconnect?rq=lilleness

I'm probably going to go with a Lutron Caseta system. Simple and has good reviews, can work from the cloud but it doesn't need it locally. I didn't go crazy with Insteon, I just had 4 dimmer modules plugged in to automate a few lights in the house.

[oPossum]

https://www.insteon.com/news2022

In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. However, the subsequent (and enduring) disruption to the supply chain caused by the pandemic proved incredibly difficult and the company engaged in a sales process in November, 2021. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.

[JustSquareEnough]

Just leaving this here in case someone comes across it. Insteon devices can be used without the cloud/hub, its the reason I chose them actually because you can set them up locally with no subscription, internet, cloud.  Its unfortunate they wont be producing devices anymore though.

How do you do it?
you need an Insteon Power Line Modem (PLM) 2413u(usb) or 2413s (serial). They are already going for stupid prices on ebay...
https://www.smarthome.com/products/powerlinc-modem-insteon-2413s-serial-interface-dual-band

you need to run Home Assistant (completely free and open source) you can control all of your insteon devices locally from within side your network!
https://www.home-assistant.io
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/04/19/for-insteon-users/

what we need now is the firmware for the PLM and reverse engineer the PLM hardware. because as long as we have the PLM and or a clone we can control all legacy Insteon devices without Insteon the company or the cloud.


-David

[free_electron]

The CEO LInkedIn is now completely gone.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roblilleness/

meh, the internet never forgets thanks to the wayback machine

https://web.archive.org/web/20180203231620/http://www.insteon.com/leadership-bios

[JustSquareEnough]

Here is a tear down / cap repair of the 2413U:


fccid: sbp2413u
fcc docs: https://fccid.io/SBP2413U

[Halcyon]

That's inspiring. You know what? I'm gonna unplug my lamps from the Insteon dimmer modules and do something crazy. I'm going to turn the lights on and off the old fashion way - using the light switch!

The true definition of a "smart home".

Peak "smart home" I've heard was some guy installing smart lamps with motion sensors on the smallest room of the house. And light switches? Humpf, I've got smart everything, so why would you need one of those ugly plastic plates on the wall? Let's plaster+tile over them.
Of course one day his server went down. So he couldn't turn on the light if he wanted to, even though he needed to...

Now personally I do use some smarthome stuff. Just some basic dimmable lamps from IKEA. But they have a fallback: if the motion sensor in the kitchen acts up, you can turn off/on the power in a brief sec, and the lamp powers up normally.
Likewise, you can set up lamps to go on/off at certain times (e.g. sunset or turning on TV), but there always needs to be a sane fallback to something physical.

I use motion sensors in some areas of the house such as outside or in the garage but for all those things, I always have a manual over-ride. I've had an outdoor sensor fail after a storm which caused the lights to randomly flash on and off; I want some way to manually turn that off without killing power to half the house.

[Jr460]

Better yet, you can link and un-0link most devices with a PLM.   When I first setup first things in my house that is what I did, even replacing the function of three-way switches.   The doc with a devices tells you how,

Tea said once you have a PLM and something link aan ISY944, you never want to go back to manual linking to make Insteon scenes.   


Now if someone can get figure out how to open up clubs that failed and replace the cap that I'm sure dried up, that would be super.

[Ed.Kloonk]

https://www.insteon.com/news2022

In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. However, the subsequent (and enduring) disruption to the supply chain caused by the pandemic proved incredibly difficult and the company engaged in a sales process in November, 2021. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.

They can try and blame it on the thing all they want but the sentences before the part quoted indicates that problems were there long before that.

Dear Insteon Community,

In 2017, after many successful years, Smartlabs, Inc found itself in financial difficulties and the path forward was unclear. That year, Smartlabs took in additional capital and brought in new management to turn the situation around. These efforts resulted in new investment into the fortification of the technology and development of new products. The future was looking bright.

In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. However, the subsequent (and enduring) disruption to the supply chain caused by the pandemic proved incredibly difficult and the company engaged in a sales process in November, 2021. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.

The pioneering work in smart lighting and world-class products have created an extraordinary following and community. Clearly, all Smartlabs’ employees who have worked so hard to produce such world-class products and technology hope that a buyer can be found for the company.

Although incredibly difficult, we hope that the Insteon community understands the tireless efforts by all the employees to serve our customers, and deeply apologize to the community.

[ebastler]

https://www.insteon.com/news2022

Thanks for the link to the Insteon statement. Could someone explain how the present shutdown constitutes "optimizing the assets of the company"? And if they are still looking to find a buyer, as claimed in their statement, how does running the whole cloud backend into the ground and scaring away all their users/customers help with that?

[wilfred]

https://www.insteon.com/news2022

Thanks for the link to the Insteon statement. Could someone explain how the present shutdown constitutes "optimizing the assets of the company"? And if they are still looking to find a buyer, as claimed in their statement, how does running the whole cloud backend into the ground and scaring away all their users/customers help with that?

Optimising the assets is jargon for we've had an administrator appointed to see if the company can trade out of its difficulties. Apparently it cannot and is insolvent. A lot would depend on whether suppliers and creditors are willing to be patient and are confident they won't lose more money by waiting.

Even without the cloud servers being permanently switched off I think this type of dependency is incredibly risky just to avoid flicking a light switch or turning a key in a lock. The server should be in home at the very least it should be a fallback option. It still doesn't help in a power outage.

[xrunner]

Can they get out of any legal responsibilities? Excerpt from Insteon warranty -

"Home automation devices have the risk of failure to operate, incorrect operation, or electrical or mechanical tampering. For optimal use, manually verify the device state. Any home automation device should be viewed as a convenience, but not as a sole method for controlling your home. In no event shall Seller be liable for special, incidental, consequential, or other damages resulting from possession or use of this device, including without limitation damage to property and, to the extent permitted by law, personal injury, even if Seller knew or should have known of the possibility of such damages. Some states do not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts and/or the exclusion or limitation of damages, in which case the above limitations and/or exclusions may not apply to you. You may also have other legal rights that may vary from state to state."

Product Warranty

Most Insteon products carry a 2 year limited warranty. For warranty details on your specific product, please see your product manual.

Limited Warranty

Seller warrants to the original consumer purchaser of this product that, for a period of two years from the date of purchase, this product will be free from defects in material and workmanship and will perform in substantial conformity to the description of the product in this Owner’s Manual. This warranty shall not apply to defects or errors caused by misuse, neglect, improper installation, and/or use of unsupported connected devices. If the product is found to be defective in material or workmanship, or if the product does not perform as warranted above during the warranty period, Seller will either repair, replace with new or refurbished stock, or refund the purchase price, at its option, upon receipt of the product at the address below, postage prepaid, with proof of the date of purchase from an authorized Seller, and an explanation of the defect or error. Replaced units will be warranted from the original date of purchase and will not extend the original warranty. The repair, replacement, or refund that is provided for above shall be the full extent of Seller’s liability with respect to this product.

This warranty does not cover products purchased from a party that is not an authorized retailer, dealer, or distributor of Insteon products. For more details, visit www.insteon.com/authorized.

For repair or replacement during the warranty period, call 866-243-8022 with the Model # and Revision # of the device to receive a RMA# and send the product, along with all other required materials to:

Insteon
ATTN: Receiving
1621 Alton Parkway, Suite 100
Irvine, CA 92606

Limitations

The above warranty is in lieu of and Seller disclaims all other warranties, whether oral or written, express or implied, including any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Any implied warranty, including any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, which may not be disclaimed or supplanted as provided above shall be limited to the two-year of the express warranty above. No other representation or claim of any nature by any person shall be binding upon Seller or modify the terms of the above warranty and disclaimer. Home automation devices have the risk of failure to operate, incorrect operation, or electrical or mechanical tampering. For optimal use, manually verify the device state. Any home automation device should be viewed as a convenience, but not as a sole method for controlling your home. In no event shall Seller be liable for special, incidental, consequential, or other damages resulting from possession or use of this device, including without limitation damage to property and, to the extent permitted by law, personal injury, even if Seller knew or should have known of the possibility of such damages. Some states do not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts and/or the exclusion or limitation of damages, in which case the above limitations and/or exclusions may not apply to you. You may also have other legal rights that may vary from state to state.

https://www.insteon.com/legal#warranty