Here is the gist of the article in video form:
New updates are added at the bottom of this story…….
The original story (published April 16, 2022) follows:
Insteon Hub is one of the most popular home automation platforms. Many users rely on it to configure their Smart Home systems.
Insteon offers a catalog of IoT devices that you can use to control your home’s lighting and electrical system.
However, for a few hours now, Insteon Hub devices have suddenly stopped working, leaving many users with unusable devices. But, throughout this story, we will leave you with some of the best alternatives.
Insteon Hub devices suddenly crashed or not working
According to multiple reports, the Insteon Hub platform is currently down for all users. The Insteon app and even the Insteon support forums are also down right now (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 78, 9, 10).
RIP Insteon
As of this morning, my worst case scenario has come true… Insteon servers seem to be down and my hub is offline… That’s the problem with having one vendor for the entire tech stack. I can no longer log into the app to manage devices… and it seems like all 3rd party integrations including Amazon Echo/Alexa automations are not working 😠😡🤬🤯
Source
My hub is now offline
I know Insteon goes around the drain, but I was getting by because my current setup was working. But today all of a sudden my hub is down. Ethernet is fine, power is on, I tried to turn it off, but the little red light is still on the hub. I tried calling Insteon support and only got a busy signal. The Insteon support forum will not load as if it is a dead website. Is Insteon completely dead now?
Source
This situation has brought serious difficulties to users who relied entirely on Insteon devices to control their home automation systems. Apparently the outage happened unexpectedly and without notice.
I am okay. I also have a large setup. No announcements and no warnings. If it’s not a breakdown, it’s a huge betrayal of trust.
Source
Best alternatives to the Insteon Hub home automation platform
Z-Wave and ZigBee
Wave and Zigbee are two wireless communication protocols particularly popular with users of home automation systems.
Both protocols allow IoT devices to form a mesh network (with a hub in between) to communicate with each other instead of having to connect to your main router. This will avoid saturation of your home network.
That said, here are some of the most popular brands that use the Zigbee protocol:
ADT Security Center Amazon Echo Plus Belkin WeMo Link Beehive (heaters) Honeywell (smart thermostats) Ikea Tradfri GE Home Appliances (Home Electronics) LG Smart Thinq Lux Konoz Philips Hue Samsung SmartThings Sengled (smart bulbs) Somfy Wink from the hub Yale (smart locks) Source
And, some of the most recognized brands that support Z-Wave are:
ADT Security Center August (smart locks) fibaro Honeywell (thermostats) GE Appliances Kwikset (smart locks) LG Smart Thinq Logitech Home Harmony Hub Extender Milo (home electronics) GE Appliances Samsung SmartThings Somfy Yale (smart locks) Wink Hub Source
Some names appear on both lists because they offer products that support both protocols for convenience.
Caseta by Lutron
Lutron Caseta is a home automation platform to control home lighting system. It stands out for its robust operation and easy configuration.
Lutron RadioRA
While Caseta is a Lutron product specifically for controlling smart lighting systems, RadioRA is designed to control the entire home automation system.
So with RadioRA you can control everything from lights to temperatures and blinds in a simple way.
Bonus: reuse your Insteon devices with Home Assistant
Home Assistant is an Open Source tool that will allow you to operate your current Insteon devices. However, it is the least user-friendly of all as it requires some advanced installation steps.
If you want to know all the steps to use Home Assistant, you can do it through this link.
We will update this story if new events arise on this subject in the future.
Update 1 (April 18)
08:55 (IST): A report points out that Insteon may not return as the company may shut down. Rob Lilleness, Chairman and President of Smartlabs, no longer lists Smartlabs/Smarthome/Insteon anywhere on his LinkedIn profile.
Apart from this, several other high-level members of management have also listed their roles ending in April 2022 or only 2022. This means that it is highly likely that the service will no longer operate as expected.
Update 2 (April 19)
12:24 p.m. (IST): Users can also try OpenHab which is another open source alternative with Insteon support.
Update 3 (April 20)
4:45 p.m. (IST): Although Insteon Hub has been down for a few days, the official status page still shows – “All services online” and “There are currently no known issues affecting Insteon services”.
Update 4 (April 21)
11:33 a.m. (IST): HOOBS (HomeBridge Out Of the Box) hub is another alternative that users can try. You can check the details here.
1:40 p.m. (IST): Insteon has now released an official statement regarding the recent issue on its platform.
The company said it was economically affected due to COVID-19. Also, they were trying to find investors, but it didn’t work. More on that here.
Thanks for the advice: Christophe Pierre!
Update 5 (April 23)
12:55 p.m. (IST): While we reported earlier that Insteon’s official status page stated that all services were working fine, this page has now been removed and is currently showing the 404 error.
Update 6 (April 25)
1:15 p.m. (IST): One of our readers confirmed that he was able to get voice activation working using Home Assistant. So, Home Assistant seems like a simple solution for most users.
Thanks for the advice: Christophe Pierre!
Update 7 (April 26)
12:10 p.m. (IST): If you’re having trouble setting up the Home Assistant, here’s a video guide on how to do it:
Update 8 (April 27)
1:15 p.m. (IST): Here is a list of GearBrain hubs compatible with Insteon:
– ISY-994i Pro Z-Wave/Insteon/X10
– Polisy gateway for universal devices
– Universal Devices Polisy Pro Gateway
– Universal Devices ISY-994i ZW Gateway
– Home Assistant open source home automation platform
– HomeSeer HomeTroller PRO smart home hub
– Hub HomeSeer HomeTroller Plus Smart Home
– Hub HomeSeer HomeTroller Pi Smart Home
Featured Image: Insteon
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