[HN Gopher] Insteon is down and may not be coming back
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Insteon is down and may not be coming back
Author : fortran77
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-04-16 20:57 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (staceyoniot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (staceyoniot.com)
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| I always ensure any IoT devices (light switches, primarily) I
| purchase are of the ESP32 variety. There's a solid open-source
| firmware ecosystem around these chips (ie: Tasmota).
| syshum wrote:
| Thats fine, but Zigbee and Zwave are also good options,
| personally I love zigbee devices most of my home automation is
| zigbee
|
| It will be interesting Matter will bring, I am on the fence as
| to if matter is actually an improvement to zigbee or it is will
| be used to force more Cloud Adoptions and less local control.
| belthesar wrote:
| Many moons ago, Zigbee/Zwave stuff got spooked out of my head
| because the comms protocol was unencrypted, and anyone could
| walk by and start doing things to my devices. Has this
| improved at all? I don't like having every single smart
| device on my network talking WiFi either, but I can at least
| sandbox that stuff away to a separate network, and use things
| like HomeAssistant if I feel the need to go full paranoid
| android and limit external connectivity.
| zrail wrote:
| Newer versions of Z-Wave are encrypted for "secure"
| devices, which afaict is most of them. My door locks are
| all set up in secure mode, and in fact if they're not
| linked in secure mode they're read-only.
| folmar wrote:
| At least for Zigbee it was never the case, the encryption
| is there since the first version.
| desro wrote:
| Two days ago I noticed the Insteon app was unresponsive and my
| hub showed a persistent red light. Their support telephone
| numbers ring "busy" at all hours. Word on the web is they're
| gone.
|
| Truly baffling to have no communication from the company -- even
| their status page insists systems are operational.
|
| Many users are finding it easy enough to migrate to Home
| Assistant, but the whole experience leaves a bad taste.
|
| I hope that the technology/patents land in good hands; Insteon's
| combo-RF-and-powerline tech has been incredibly reliable for the
| seven years I've used their switches and dimmers.
|
| Edit: Also, really demonstrates the pitfall of having an app and
| local hub rely on third party servers over the Internet to work.
| Should be a total non-starter for IoT gadgets at home.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _really demonstrates the pitfall of having an app and local hub
| rely on third party servers over the Internet to work_
|
| Yep. And it's happened before.
|
| Before there was Homekit, I bought a bunch of "smart" light
| bulbs from Fiet Electric. Long story short, within 16 months,
| Feit decided not only to shut down the service, but uploaded
| firmware to everyone's home device controllers to brick them.
|
| The company wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't answer support
| queries. The best guess on the internet at the time was that
| the company got caught using someone else's IP, and that was
| the way out.
|
| Amazingly, this company has launched new rounds of "smart"
| devices that are on sale today. How's that for bad "planned
| obsolescence" optics? They brick millions of light bulbs, then
| go ahead and sell new ones.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| This is one of the many reasons why I decided to go with
| bulbs that have Zigbee support. They can be controlled by
| other software. I bought a FEIT electric bulb and the app is
| terrible. Hopefully open standards like Zigbee and Matter
| win.
| brewdad wrote:
| I had a Feit CFL bulb from Costco nearly burn down my home
| about 5 years ago. If we hadn't been home at the time it
| would have succeeded. I will never buy one of their products
| again.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Did it say something like "not for use in totally enclosed
| luminaries"? I've seen a few of them get melty in enclosed
| lamps. Also makes led bulbs fail much faster than people
| expect.
|
| (Not blaming you or whoever installed it) it seems like one
| of those bad cover your ass disclaimers
| wut42 wrote:
| Well given they went bust... don't worry about buying one
| of their products again :)
| desro wrote:
| Feit Electric appears to be still in business. What do
| you mean "they went bust?"
| desro wrote:
| That's unfortunate; I'm glad you were able to avert
| disaster.
|
| I have well over 100 Feit LEDs (dumb ones) throughout my
| home and family's home, and they're actually my favorite
| brand, mostly because of their high-CRI offerings.
| pixl97 wrote:
| /r/internetofshit
|
| These IOT devices are the ewaste disaster of our generation. How
| long before the consumer or the law stops this kind of junk from
| being made.
| frereubu wrote:
| https://twitter.com/internetofshit too. Curent top tweet is a
| quote tweet of this:
|
| 'An investor told me yesterday that they were recently asked
| what the "web3 strategy" of one of their portfolio companies
| was. It was a smart oven startup.'
|
| Doesn't mean there are no good uses of this technology, but the
| fact that _my Bosch cooker hood_ is wifi-enabled in case, I don
| 't know, perhaps I need to turn it on while I'm at the office,
| does suggest that this whole area could do with a serious
| reality check.
| jeffalyanak wrote:
| It's a real shame when protocols like zigbee and z-wave can
| offer exactly the same functionality without requiring any
| third-party services.
| Avamander wrote:
| Well, ZigBee or zWave won't necessarily save you from a
| proprietary hub or from cloud-reliance. Though they most
| likely are better than many alternatives, including WiFi.
| assttoasstmgr wrote:
| I can't shill any harder right now for Hubitat:
| https://hubitat.com/
|
| It's an IoT hub that functions totally offline, no cloud
| dependency (they do have an app but it's optional). It uses a
| built-in HTTP server. It's not as well known or as successful
| because it's a little more - scratch that - a lot more
| technical of a product but that's the price you pay. So if they
| go out of business you keep humming along.
| imglorp wrote:
| Some are even intentional, like Sonos bricking devices to force
| upgrades.
|
| I think everything should have an API to let you serve it
| yourself, eg from Home Assistant.
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