Insteon smart home automation servers are down & the company is believed to have gone bust

Update: I have written a basic guide on how to get Insteon working with Home Assistant on Windows.

Update 2: Confirming what we already knew, Insteon has formally ceased trading and has posted a notification on the website. Users are also being contacted with a Important Notice to Creditors.

It is currently being reported that Insteon, a company that specialises in home automation devices, has ceased trading.

Users on Twitter and Reddit are saying that all the Insteon cloud services are no longer working. It is being suggested that you should not factory reset your device under any circumstances as it will not be recoverable. You should still be able to control your Insteon devices using the open-source Home Assistant or Homeseer.

One Reddit user has gone to their corporate office in Irvine, CA and found that the doors are locked, and lights are out (it was a Saturday, though). Other users have said that the phone numbers for the company are also dead and no support emails are being answered.

Insteaon has been very quiet on social media for the past year.

Insteon, which is a subsidiary of Smartlabs, Inc, was founded in 2006. The Insteon smart home system is built around the Insteon Hub that allows light switches, lights, thermostats, motion sensors, and other electrical devices to interoperate through power lines, radio frequency (RF) communications, or both.

The company was purchased by Rob Lilleness and Richmond Capital Partners in 2017.

They have been a popular alternative to companies like Lutron and Caseta as well as open systems such as Zigbee and Z-Wave.

Unfortunately, Insteon is a proprietary system that is largely reliant on access to cloud services. Without access to the servers, the Insteon App is effectively useless, but your schedules should still continue to work.

Many users already used Home Assistant or Homeseer to control their Insteon apps outside of the Insteon App. This is now your best option if you want to continue using your various Insteon devices. If you plan to do this, I must reiterate that you should not factory reset your device under any circumstances as it will not be recoverable.

A few years ago, I reviewed Den Automation and was concerned about the risks of a proprietary system, and within a year, that company ceased trading. Thankfully for some users, there was some relief when the company phoenixed and became Den Switch.

It looks like Insteon is popular in the US. They don’t appear to have gained much popularity in the UK. They released products in the UK back in 2013 and established a distribution deal back in 2015. Amazon UK had some stock, but few other retailers listed anything.

James Smythe( Editor-in-chief )

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