I have three Insteon equipped houses and have had my primary running for over 15 years. So because the actual message to the switch via RF and/or wireline is proprietary, and they have left the building with the plans, there may be no way to recover. After evaluating other options, I went back to Amazon, bought 21 wifi devices in total to replace everything and it cost me only $235. If you have devices that are not appearing, you should google Home Assistant Insteon manual override device. 4 press and hold responder set button until it double beeps. Also I hear something about a new protocol or standard that may be near at hand that put the final nail in the coffin for insteon, but I have heard nothing about this and dont want to start replacing or trying to solve current issues only to have to do it again soon. So, you are recommending Zigbee over Thread since their products are less expensive, and there are currently more manufactures that make Zigbee protocol units? Of course, Staples isn't the only one in this game. Other scene numbers like 0,1,2-8 have special meaning and correspond to Responder, Controller and muylti-button devices. to turn on/off light switches on schedules? But you can also pay $65/year (I think, US) and not do anything special. I use Home Assistant and Nabu Casa and Alexa. We have a very large Computer Club in our community. Heres what were using to stay cozy and make sure our energy bills dont make us freeze in our tracks: This is one of our winter must-haves. Alternatives to Insteon Hub? The schematic is published but the important bit is an Insteon custom chip which is probably unobtainable. To me ISY = control devices, Home Assistant = control life. But I am at this stage not sure how they can be activated, and unfortunately since I cant get into my Insteon app I cant even attempt to name my scenes with similar names since I dont recall exactly which devices created, but its something for me to work on. So it just comes down to what you need. If you have an Insteon Hub/PLM and Home Assistant you have all you need. Ive been an Insteon user since 2006, and love it. Youll need an Insteon PowerLinc Modem (PLM), a legacy Insteon Hub 2242-222, or the current 2245-222 Insteon Hub. Documentation may not be as accessible as for some of the other controllers so expect a learning curve at first. It requires a Hub/PLM to communicate. Youll need a Raspberry Pi and the free Home Assistant software, which will become the new brains of your smart home. Ive been using it for years and it works great. I consider it all e-waste at this point. Insteon Hub users do have some options to get their system up and running again. These rooms do not appear, and some devices arent listed on my dashboard anywhere. But we have to accept that they are gone, and the only way some would take over their operation, is to have charge it customers a yearly subscription service for their hub cloud service. Since I am setting up my home automation from scratch, I was considering Home Kit since it is a little more secure. Some want it for natural language voice processing. but I followed this guys tutorial on getting Hass to talk to Queen Alexa. If you were already using one of these systems, and not relying on any cloud or direct control from Insteon itself, count yourself lucky. They seem to have write that you can obtain on any issue you need help on. While you will be paying a significant premium for the Amazon Echo, you wont have to bother with any compatibility issues. I have 4 Insteon inline switches connected to exhaust fans on my roof. Indoor and outdoor rated, easy, tool-free DIY installation, with an extremely powerful motor to tackle even the most stubborn valves. Safety is another top priority in any smart home so be sure to add this one to your shopping list: the Zooz | Kidde DIY Smart Smoke Alarm Kit. Huh? But with dependency of Alexa over the last several years, i have also realized that i t was required to have every switch listed, so it removes the need to enter the address of each my three way and my four way switches that we wired and installed when the house was built. Our new Insteon Lighting app is purpose-built to work with our most popular lighting control products such as wall switches, keypads and plugs. Looks like Insteon is back. If you do not have one of those three devices and you have an ISY you cannot control diddlesquat in the Insteon world. And who really want upwards of 40-100 or even more light switches all talking over WiFi? However, once everything is integrated with the smart hub, everything will become effortless. I laugh daily at posts here where people say just get XYZ and all your switches work it really is unclear to me they actually believe that statement or do not understand that the ability to speak to the Insteon Hub/PLM has existed in many apps for a long time. This is fully compatible with Insteon and far superior in my opinion. Be the first to know about new product releases and special sale events. You do have a system that has a single pojnt of failure. I do not use apple devices or OS in my business or my home so dont want to go in that direction. April 25, 2022. This means that there has to be some kind of translation device that can connect your Mac to the Insteon network so that communication is possible from apps like Indigo. Designed for iPad 4.8 5 Ratings; Free; Screenshots. For example, folks using the ISY994 controller or other smart hubs besides the Insteon Hub, wouldn't have noticed the cloud going offline because . Hence the word proprietary. Free shipping. Im now using no less than 6 different platforms. Whats the alternative and is it even worth it to have a connected house these days? Control up to 35 other smart devices or trigger up to 35 scenes with the buttons of the ZEN32 Scene Controller. But your devices still work. But it would be helpful to learn how homeassistant operates that as well. It has a simplified design to assist you manage your home, bold tiles on a dynamic background that changes throughout the day, give . It does not control *your devices*. It can process web requests, integrate to my stereo, start Spotify and play it in 4 zones and Pandora for my wife in the Kitchen. And I use Home Assistant and was an early adopter of their stuff. All were discontinued or converted from a free to a paid service, and courts held that the terms of service were legal and applied. It doesn't seem like HA is a great alternative to the Insteon Hub. Chances are, you may already have a Z-Wave controller in your home and you didnt even know about it. UPDATE MESSAGE FROM INSTEON: If you've come here because your Insteon Hub (2245-222) is unresponsive/dead, we now offer a service to migrate your hub account and device links to a new hub even if you are out of warranty. There are other options, particularly homeseer, home assistant, and hubitat, but all of those are intended for power users and are at least as complex as Hoobs was. The issue is getting hold of one of these. I was getting rid of all things cloud in my house the past 4 years and I always cringed at the $4,000 I have invested in a totally Insteon home. Update 7/27/20: The subscription service for Wink is finally in effect. For the same $60, I bought a 4 pack of these switches from Amazon and installed 3 of them. As the wall switches and keypads fail I will replace them with Zigbee or Z-Wave switches. That means you cant have a Z-Wave switch or plug speak directly to your Echo. The transition hasnt been painful. FREE Smart Home, Home Automation & IoT Tips. With Amazon, Im able to control them all from one place and setup routines to make them work together. EDIT: This article was written in 2022 when Insteon shut down the cloud service due to financial problems. You'll need a central Z-Wave hub to control all your smart devices. So I do use cloud options for voice control. Maybe the most of us including me thought this was never going to end, and i as others should hav tried to find a backup to operate my devices through my own computers as opposed to relying on a private corporations cloud service, All cloud revives that i know of charge a subscription cost to their uses we never paid anything for that service just the cost of a device that was more costly than similar device that didnt have the interface benefits we received. Universal Devices' ISY or Polisy, Home Assistant, Homebridge, HomeSeer, and others will all bring new . Thank you Ron. It would be wonderful if someone could find a way to get the servers back online at least temporarily, but without any news from SmartLabs or Insteon it's doubtful. For most of the others, its similar. Z-Wave works with hundreds of different manufacturers and thousands of different smart home devices. As time went on the ability to enhance your smart home became even easier with, introduction of SiRI, ALexa, and Google home Hub. And indigo is multi-protocol so over time you can easily migrate to devices that use other protocols as your Insteon devices die. Greetings JD it appears you have a good knowledge base of the current home automation industry. I am 60 years old, I have seen this in my life far too many times. HA does have its own homekit bridge built in, for siri but if you want Alexa and Google you have to jump through some big hoops. Starting May 13, 2020, Wink will be charging its users a $4.99 monthly subscription fee. I tried HOOB it was either too complicated but after 9 hrs, I gave , i then purchased HomeSeer Troller Plus and HS4 software, it was easier until i had to add devices spent 6 hrs a lot f question their technical support could only address hardware not software issue because was actually third party that they sold, finally in less than two hrs i was able to install HomeAssistance a totally free software with the aid of Raspberry PI board and storage disk, it worked detected all but three of my devices. Thread is an 802.15.4 radio standard, same as zigbee, separate from Wifi. Any tips are greatly appreciated! The Insteon PLM directly connects to the ISY994 so that the ISY can issue Insteon commands over the power lines and via RF. It will be based on a local ecosystem with optional cloud features, making it impossible for eithercompany to simply switch off any local automations or device access. Or Linux computer, i when you go through the software it it really very similar to insteon in using very simple terms. Wink suddenly started charging a monthly fee for their already dwindling service and theres no guarantee these days that the smart home hardware you buy is really yours. Amazon Echo. So it would seem to to be difficult to justify what are losses are for. I know in the future I will someday be able to develop scenes on HA similar to my Insteon scenes, I am just not there yet. I can speak for Home Assistant. Hi, Ive used the Universal Devices controller to program and interact with my devices for years and definitely recommend it. My Insteon hub is currently unplugged and ISY still controls them. It speaks to the Insteon Hub /PLM, it does not speak to your light switch. So what integration options do you have with your current gear? Those were not exposed. Home Assistant as well as HomeSeer both utilize this device as means of operating and communicating with the Insteon Hub. Automate up to 2 garage doors with a single ZEN17 relay and up to 3 garage doors with the ZEN16 model! I have yet to have a single wired in device die, save my Insteon hub, which was replaced early on under warranty and has been fine since. Many of the old integrations will be going away, and even the way they were created is going away. Thanks Despite their demise, IMHO it was the best thing ever. You must have one of these devices in order for Indigo to communicate with your Insteon devices. We have Alexas in every room, and use it as normal way turn on our lights, thermostats, TVs as well as to handle all the scenes we maintain for different social situations. No matter what I try to do to resolve this. Or being able to view security camera video. Insteon Hub is a decent product that is capable and promising, but the experience and flexibility it provides are limited compared to the likes of SmartThings and Wink 2. I really knew very little of DOS knowledge. It controls you Hub/PLM/USB. You can see scene numbers in the Home Assistant All-Link Database for a particular device. I didnt expect this sudden exit without warning, but here we are. If youre thinking about switching to another platform, we cant blame you. The first thing is: If you have an Insteon hub, make sure you dont factory reset it! Aside from the wild overpromises of the software, the hardware was just bad. Its free and runs on multiple platforms including a raspberry pi. A HOOBS hub costs $229.99 but if you have compatible hardware, such as Raspberry Pi, you can get the software for a suggested $10 donation. While HomeKit is always there in the . There is also a USB stick version which is only RF as it does not plug into the wireline. And your decision will likely depend on how much youve already invested in the Insteon product line. The key to a reliable Z-Wave network is having plenty of Z-Wave signal repeating devices, or range extenders. Of course, one device may be in many scenes. My lesson is not to rely on a single provider for every single smart switch, outlet, bulb, and device in my home. Well, it will effectively remove your issue since you wont be relying on Insteon for anything. Was just getting ready to program a system. The way any third party device controller hub that supports Insteon works is with the use of a Power Line Module (PLM). And its more local-control oriented compared to some of its peers. Last one Free shipping. 6 Best Switcheroo Alternatives For You To Choose, 5 Quick Ways To Fix Aera Diffuser Not Working Problem, 10 Best Google Home Compatible Devices List Review 2022, Is It Possible To Play SoundCloud On Google Home? It doesnt exist yet, and the current chip shortage may complicate the situation as well, but I do think theres a possibility that we will see some come to market, and pretty quickly. I removed the Insteon skill from Alexa and added the Home Assistant skill and linked to my Nabu Casa account. Under the new architecture, it is now the responsibility of the device manufacturer to create and maintain the integration. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. When Insteons site went down, I paid for Nabu Casa (Home Assistants Web Service). But I would expect that decision to be maybe 10 months away, and then another six months for the reverse engineering to get going. Thanks again Lawrence for taking the time to further explain. I came into Insteon about 15 years ago. From light switches to sensors, you can integrate a variety of smart devices with this option. Great article, thanks! All of these Insteon alternatives bring unique value and price points to the owners. If you can wait, I think its entirely possible that within 30 to 60 days there will be some Products developed that simplify the whole process for people with a lot of Insteon equipment but who dont want to do all the technical setup themselves. Since the hub creates the communication route to any device, it uses existing nearby signal extenders to reach new devices. OK, they shut down and maybe likely will not make new devices. A lot of things simply dont. Its not cloud dependent integrates with Amazon Alexa and IFTTT and is capable of simple to complex programming. It appears to give some of the best that Zigbee and Z-Wave have to offer. It should work for as long as that Insteon hub lasts. And for example, turn on multiple devices quickly via HA, the devices won't respond correctly, and some signals get overridden. 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. Both protocols appear to have very good signal range, but Zigbee does offer a greater number of connections over Thread. Is there another way to approach smart home then? Good point, didn;t know that exactly but sure. I am a long time user and have even developed mobile apps that use it. Includes Free HomeSeer Mobile app for Apple . INSTEON HUB ALTERNATIVES & INTEGRATIONS TECHNOLOGY, SOFTWARE AND HUB OPTIONS FOR INSTEON USERS . So I will hang around a while and use an overlay but will hold out hope that the Insteon protocol gets picked up somewhere and used again. I prefer this to anything else (for now) but you could also (try) and get a Raspberry PI 4 and roll your own. If so, would you please share your thoughts? Of course, I still need the Insteon PLM as an interface, but with the ISY994i I can add, remove, configure and program all the features of the devices. Of course voice control can be used through Amazon Alexa or Google. I trust my Insteon devices more than my Hub. Insteon Range Extender > Any Z-Wave Hardwired Device. Image courtesy HOOBS. Arguably, no other home automation offers the reliability of communication of their dual-band implementation, nor the relative ease of their interoperability. We recommend you consider the Wink Hub 2 or Samsung SmartThings hubs. This level of unethical move is par for the course for Insteon. Ive been out of the business for some time. Your email address will not be published. Scenes can also be managed, a better GUI should be coming. Wave and Zigbee are two wireless communication protocols that are especially popular among users of home automation systems. Image: Insteon. 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