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

[xrunner]

If you don't know already, Insteon is a set of devices that let you control lights and other devices via a wireless link to a central hub. I've probably had the system for 6 - 8 years or so.

Last week my Insteon hub's LED went red, indicating it couldn't communicate with the Mothership (Insteon's servers). After troubleshooting locally I searched online to see if others had the same issue. They did. Long story short - they just pulled the plug and quit with no notice to customers. Phone is disconnected, emails not answered.

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.

Beware the Cloud! 

Below is a link explaining it or you can go to Reddit and read more if you are so inclined -

Insteon pulls the plug

[kripton2035]

if you really need a cloud, make your own private cloud on a NAS device. or be prepared to something like that ! (i.e. make backups if possible)

[Towger]

Just thank your self luck they just control your lights etc.  I have had a couple of customers on over the years, in a panic at the companies they used to host their back office (accounts, payroll, stock control etc) functions in the 'Cloud' suddenly decided to shut down.

[PKTKS]

What to expect?

A CLOUD  is just a single node of catastrophe ...

Rationale of it it is obviously by now:
-  Remove all control from USER/CUSTOMER to landlord business man
- Deprecate as a whole  all de facto Internet services ( Mail FTP SSH remote protocols.. etc IRC..)
- Replace all the now deprecated  legacy services with "New cloud modern"  business ones..

Things are converging fast to such pre locked  devices  offering modern  services..

Business - cheap and dirt ones

Paul

[free_electron]

Z-wave. There is no cloud command and control server. It's in your home.

[xrunner]

Z-wave. There is no cloud command and control server. It's in your home.

Yes, and there are others I'm checking out. Back in pre-history I had, I think it was, X10. When I read about Insteon I decided to try it out, I didn't think too hard about the cloudy part of how it worked, perhaps I was too naive.

I'd say about 3 to 4 years ago the original little hub went bad. Turned out it was a part that failed inside I think due to the high heat the unit always had. I had wondered about that heat because it did not have any vent holes in the case. They did send everyone a new hub, which did not run hot (different design) but that was when I realized oh crap - without that hub I can't even control the lights with my phone app.

So whatever I get it won't depend on the outside world to work. 

[PKTKS]

Yes  ... same bottom line of IoT  and stuff...


Deploying a anyway smart  thing at present status requires a considerable plan ahead including routers and switches ( mostly PoE) and an insanely caution on protocols deployed and how these devices will...  or definitively will not   be connected to any sort of external internet..

It was never easy.. NVRs local intranets are bullet proof..

Gateways are always unsafe nodes.


Paul

[Brumby]

This is just one of the reasons I avoid any systems that rely on external parties for ongoing operation.

Let me have everything under my own control.  Even if I miss out on updates, I know what I have will continue to work as it has.


The only subscriptions I've ever indulged have been for Electronics Australia and similar magazines.  Once those subscriptions expired (or the business folded) I simply received nothing further - but all my previously received material was still fully accessible.

[Jr460]

Not happy with the direction of Insteon.  However I have a house full of it, works just fine, never used their service or hubs, I have an ISY944 that does all the stuff and is also a Z-Wave controller, so I'm slowly moving over to Z-wave.   Again nothing in terms of a cloud service, it is all local.   I hit up the ISY from Roomie Remote if I want to do something from a a Phone.

[Bassman59]

Last week my Insteon hub's LED went red, indicating it couldn't communicate with the Mothership (Insteon's servers). After troubleshooting locally I searched online to see if others had the same issue. They did. Long story short - they just pulled the plug and quit with no notice to customers. Phone is disconnected, emails not answered.

Ah, the whole IoT landscape will be littered with the detritus left behind when cloud-based service providers like Insteon shut down. Insteon was not the first and won't be the last.

Seriously -- what did end users expect? Obviously they expected that their ~$50 IoT gadgets would work forever.

But think it through. These hardware gadgets get introduced and they require the cloud service because that's how they get the "access your devices from anywhere!" to work. But that cloud service costs money and the hardware gadgeteers were loathe to sell a product that also required a monthly subscription fee to maintain that cloud service. Of course at some point they realize that yeah, they can't keep subsidizing the cloud service that is just bleeding cash, so they have two options: Do what Wink did and say "pay us or your shit stops working," or just shut down.

The obvious question: "who didn't see this coming from a mile away?"

It's why you have to be careful and choose IoT devices that don't require talking to the cloud for access. The Ikea TRADFRI things are like that. I don't know what else.

I notice that Insteon products are still being sold -- their website is up (the forum is not!) and there are links to big box stores and to the rain forest for Insteon-compatible products. It's a mine field to figure out what devices will work with local-only access and which require the cloud.

[bdunham7]

It's not just small, shady companies that 'pull the plug'.  Ford turned off the 3G-based mobile data system for my 8 year old car (they had previously upgraded it from 2G to 3G, obviously thinking 90 days ahead like most of the corporate world) without any notice or mention.  The relatively minor feature set that used this simply stopped working.  Not exactly confidence inspiring when a company that size thinks it's OK to just walk away from their products--although I predicted that they would do exactly this when we bought the car.  I said it would become 'abandonware', as it was a low-volume EV that they mostly outsourced.  I'm sure their management, to the extent that they are even aware of them, sincerely wishes that they didn't exist.

The cloud is a trap and I can't believe people stilll go for it.  My files are physically on my hard drives.  The few server-involved remote systems I do have, are fully controllable locally, so if I do lose the server I can still use them.  And even then, nothing terribly important.  Imagine the chaos if larger cloud-based companies started to go away.  We're not exactly prepared for the apocalypse.

[kripton2035]

I have a postgres database in a local NAS. and then lots of small esp8266 modules that measure or switch things in the house, each one acting as a web server and interacting with some others if needed. the database records the values along time, and I can control anything with a simple web browser on any device around the world, after initiating a vpn connection to the house. simple and in total control. not even need for mqtt or alike.

[PKTKS]

not just the "cloud is a trap.."

All these cell phone based gizmos.. they require you to be signed in the cloud to do anything ...

And not really a surprise OS vendors are requiring same shit...

You will just not be able to boot without a "connection" ..

and these new "chips"   inside plain mobos..

Or we deal with it now and DITCH ALL THIS SHIT for good..

or..  is plain simple  to see what and from whom is coming ahead..

Not a surprise..  why people accept these insanely shit overpriced gizmos...

Paul

[Bassman59]

It's not just small, shady companies that 'pull the plug'.  Ford turned off the 3G-based mobile data system for my 8 year old car

I think it's less that Ford turned off the 3G than the network providers turned it off.

In this case, it's the dependence on "someone else's network" that screwed this. I think at this point, everybody should understand that every cellular data network will not be around
forever, and probably not around for the lifetime of the product -- your car -- that uses it.

And you're right -- management wishes the feature didn't exist. Were they unaware that these networks are not forever? Were they willfully selling a product they knew they couldn't support?

How long until the cellular hardware in early Tesla models stops being functional because the network providers decided they don't want to support the older networks? This is going to be a shit show.

[Monkeh]

It's not just small, shady companies that 'pull the plug'.  Ford turned off the 3G-based mobile data system for my 8 year old car

I think it's less that Ford turned off the 3G than the network providers turned it off.

In this case, it's the dependence on "someone else's network" that screwed this. I think at this point, everybody should understand that every cellular data network will not be around
forever, and probably not around for the lifetime of the product -- your car -- that uses it.

And you're right -- management wishes the feature didn't exist. Were they unaware that these networks are not forever? Were they willfully selling a product they knew they couldn't support?

How long until the cellular hardware in early Tesla models stops being functional because the network providers decided they don't want to support the older networks? This is going to be a shit show.

Imagine if they designed it with modular hardware which could be upgraded in the future if necessary. Wait, that would involve intending the vehicles to remain on the road more than a few years, silly idea.

[bdunham7]

I think it's less that Ford turned off the 3G than the network providers turned it off.
How long until the cellular hardware in early Tesla models stops being functional because the network providers decided they don't want to support the older networks? This is going to be a shit show.

I think it is up to the car manufacturers to support their product by offering an upgrade of the cellular modem as required.  In Ford's case, they knew that AT&T was shutting off the 3G network, but in response they simply disabled the MyFordMobile website on the same day without even an explanation--the website simply no longer loads.  The car can communicate with WiFi, so I still would have had some use of the remote features when it was at home.  I would have paid a reasonable amount for a 4G modem.  But instead I'll simply live without the few doodads that the app provided.

[jonpaul]

a single EMP attack could kill all cloud, internet and devices over an entire continent or country

Back to,1950, vacuum tubes will still  work fine..

Checkout Starfish Prime Pacific nuclear test in 1952

Jon

[xrunner]

Last week my Insteon hub's LED went red, indicating it couldn't communicate with the Mothership (Insteon's servers). After troubleshooting locally I searched online to see if others had the same issue. They did. Long story short - they just pulled the plug and quit with no notice to customers. Phone is disconnected, emails not answered.

Ah, the whole IoT landscape will be littered with the detritus left behind when cloud-based service providers like Insteon shut down. Insteon was not the first and won't be the last.

Seriously -- what did end users expect? Obviously they expected that their ~$50 IoT gadgets would work forever.

But think it through. These hardware gadgets get introduced and they require the cloud service because that's how they get the "access your devices from anywhere!" to work. But that cloud service costs money and the hardware gadgeteers were loathe to sell a product that also required a monthly subscription fee to maintain that cloud service. Of course at some point they realize that yeah, they can't keep subsidizing the cloud service that is just bleeding cash, so they have two options: Do what Wink did and say "pay us or your shit stops working," or just shut down.

The obvious question: "who didn't see this coming from a mile away?"

It's why you have to be careful and choose IoT devices that don't require talking to the cloud for access. The Ikea TRADFRI things are like that. I don't know what else.

I notice that Insteon products are still being sold -- their website is up (the forum is not!) and there are links to big box stores and to the rain forest for Insteon-compatible products. It's a mine field to figure out what devices will work with local-only access and which require the cloud.

Yep Insteon devices are being sold, probably a mass dumping on Ebay until unsuspecting people realize what happened. Right in that it wasn't subscription so after the product is sold they have to pay to support it on the cloud. How many years 5, 10, 20 ... wait this ain't gonna be profitable!

It's a really skanky way to dump people with no notice though. OK you are going to close down, shit happens, can 't you tell your customers a month in advance so they can prepare?

You know the first day it happened I went to their status page to check it -

https://www.insteon.com/systemstatus

It still shows "All services Online" no known issues.

 

[SilverSolder]

Unfortunately, only a minority of tech savvy people will be smart enough to avoid the "cowboy cloud" trap...

Imagine the conversation with a car dealer in the future...  "What do you mean, you don't want any Internet connectivity in the vehicle???"


...I just bought a Garmin GPS navigator for my car, because its built in GPS is getting long in the tooth and using Waze/Google Maps is hard on the phone (gets hot).  Wow, what a pleasure!   -  Boots quickly, doesn't need connectivity (built-in maps), doesn't display advertisements.  Optionally connects to your phone for traffic updates.

There are still companies around that make quality stuff without trying to make you their slave for all future....   find them, and support them by buying their products!

[SiliconWizard]

Anyone falling for cloud services for no good reason (do you really need a remote server to control your local devices?) just deserves what they get: privacy issues, unsollicited changes, failures, company pulling the plug...

Funny thing is that the little benefits it has for the end-user can be more efficiently implemented with purely local solutions. Most of those cloud solutions are absurd from an energy point of view, yet we have no problem promoting that heavily while pretending we care for the environment.

And, this cloud stuff lays the groundwork for a society of total surveillance.

Consider yourself lucky when one such service fails, and it gives you the opportunity to reflect on that. For now, most of the cloud services are on a voluntary basis. Unless there's a big change, it'll be mandatory soon enough.

[TimFox]

Luckily, I never encountered this company.  I loathe companies that go under but can't be bothered to remove their website or mention that they have ceased business.

[bson]

Nothing wrong with cloud services, but like any external dependency you need to look closely to see who it is you're dependent on, and what the risks are.  Garmin is a cloud service also - the maps you download are in S3 or GCS or similar, the traffic updates are licensed from yet another party by Garmin - and delivered using cloud provisioned services.  If Garmin goes so do these services.  Cloud or not doesn't matter, it can be AWS, GCP or a private data center (and in-house cloud provisioning).  Garmin though would do an orderly shutdown, give you advance notice, perhaps discounts on replacements, or if they're acquired the acquirer will.  They're in it for the long term and want customers to buy an assortment of Garmin products, and be in it for future product generations as well.  The customers as much as their products is what makes them valuable and a good investment.

You just need to be a little more selective.  Or accept this might just go away one day.  Really small startups though in this situation will often open source the bare essentials, as a sort of guarantee against exactly this.  (Which you can then go spin up yourself on AWS or wherever.)

[bson]

Luckily, I never encountered this company.  I loathe companies that go under but can't be bothered to remove their website or mention that they have ceased business.

Or stick their backend source tree on gitlab before they turn off the lights.  Especially since it's probably there already.

[SilverSolder]

I just read an article about people leaving subscription video services (Netflix and the like) in droves, as inflationary pressures rise.

At the same time, apparently, vinyl records had a boom year in 2021, the best sales since 1986!  ...  and even CDs are making a comeback, with the first year on year sales increase since 2004. 

Funny old world!

[xrunner]

I just read an article about people leaving subscription video services (Netflix and the like) in droves, as inflationary pressures rise.

At the same time, apparently, vinyl records had a boom year in 2021, the best sales since 1986!  ...  and even CDs are making a comeback, with the first year on year sales increase since 2004. 

Funny old world!

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!