Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology.
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. In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. That radio silence from Insteon continued for a few days, when all of a sudden the company updated its website with a statement that at least obliquely addresses these developments.
Insteon camera setup without hub android#
Android Police reached out to Insteon for more information at the time, but there was no immediate response. Higginbotham also noted that a phone number associated with the company was no longer connecting, and no one at Insteon appeared to be responding to inquiries. Stacey Higginbotham of Stacey On IOT pointed out in the early days of this mystery that Rob Lileness, president and chairman of parent company Smartlabs, removed references to Insteon and Smartlabs from his LinkedIn profile, and that various other executives associated with the company either listed their roles as having ended or similarly excluded Insteon from their employment history. In at least the case of Home Assistant, customers are further warned, "Do not factory reset your device under any circumstances as it will not be recoverable." A remote connection to Insteon's servers is apparently required for setup to complete successfully. As pointed out by Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo, the protocols used by Insteon have been reverse-engineered, and customers do have some recourse in the form of Home Assistant and OpenHab to plug the gap, but this requires a little work on their part. Various Insteon products, including keypads and remotes that were popular for triggering "scene" automations.Ĭustomers first noticed something was amiss when Insteon's services went down over a week ago, interfering with some automations, digital assistant integrations, and even basic app-based remote control in many cases. While it integrated with many other services, Insteon never made use of the more universal smart home standards that have since taken off, and the coming rise of Matter may ultimately prove to be one of many nails in its coffin. Insteon uses a hub-based system that communicates over a proprietary 900MHz protocol paired with wired powerline-based data transmission, with each device serving as a repeater for an expansive mesh-based smart home system. Its products worked with the Google Assistant and were one of the first adopters of Apple's HomeKit. The company offered basics like smart switches, outlets, sensors, and remotes, but it also had a complex ecosystem of additional gadgets like computer interfaces, range extenders, and embedded devices that could be used in plenty of novel, custom ways. Many of our readers may not be immediately familiar with the Insteon name, but it's a smart home company that saw early popularity for its extensibility, speed of operation, and automation tools, with many early adopters investing in it quite deeply. Following a sudden shutdown of the company's forums and the suspicious distancing of key executives (including the president and chairman of Insteon's parent company), Insteon has finally issued a statement that seems to confirm that it's going out of business. One of the biggest fears you can have when you start to invest in smart home gadgets (outside the concern of privacy invasion) is, "what happens if the brand I chose ends support or shuts down?" For customers of Insteon, this is a fear that's just been made all too real.
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