SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the internet-of-things-that-shouldn't-need-internet dept.
Shameful: Insteon looks dead—just like its users' smart homes
The app and servers are dead. The CEO scrubbed his LinkedIn page. No one is responding.
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.
[....] Insteon is (or, more likely, "was") a smart home company that produced a variety of Internet-connected lights, thermostats, plugs, sensors, and of course, the Insteon Hub. At the core of the company was Insteon's propriety networking protocol, which was a competitor to more popular and licensable alternatives like Z-Wave and Zigbee.
[....] With its servers down, the Insteon app appears worthless, and users' automations and schedules have stopped working. Many of Insteon's wall switches were actual electrical switches, so the worst that will ever happen is that they become dumb switches.
Every dark internet cloud has a cat 6 lining. This isn't as bad as cloud connected pet feed fooders no longer working. Or cloud connected exercise machines not working or restricting features with new pay walls. Or Smart TVs spying on you and displaying ads during a live sporting event.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday April 20 2022, @08:03AM
EJ, Fluffeh:
Thanks for your responses!
There is so much out there, and I already have more wild gooses running around than I can catch. If it didn't get on my radar as a potentially useful technology by it's appearance on open source forums, I have a strong tendency to consider new technology things as proprietary junk, designed to hold my investment in it hostage to compel me to additional investment lest I have to consider everything I put in it to be a sunk cost. It's a throwaway from the get-go.
For me, an Alexa falls in that category. So do smart TV or a car that requires an internet connection.
After reading your posts, I know I passed over something that I may have found very useful. I would love to find off the shelf things I can control with a packet that I can craft and send to it. If the thing requires a subscription, even if free, I have little use for it. I cannot afford the time I would invest in implementation of a technology, only to have it arbitrarily yanked out from under me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]