Insteon Smart Homes Mysteriously Come Back From The Dead

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The Insteon smart home hub
Insteon

It’s been two months since Insteon randomly shuttered its servers and closed its offices. But Insteon’s servers are back from the dead without any explanation. Excited users say that their Insteon hubs, apps, and Alexa integrations are working again.

First thing’s first; we don’t know if this is permanent or temporary. If you own a bunch of Insteon products, now’s the time to set things up for local use. Open the Insteon app and disable the local programming lock on all your Insteon devices. (If you deleted the Insteon app, sorry, it’s no longer on the app store.)

Now, let’s get to the story. Insteon shut down after its parent company, called Smartlabs, failed to find a buyer in March of 2022. But Insteon wasn’t liquidated. Instead, it was handed over to a consulting firm with the goal of finding a new owner.

The idea of Insteon finding a buyer was basically a pipe dream. But it seems that the dream came true—at least, that’s the most likely reason for this rebirth.

Some Reddit users say that this is a “someone accidentally turned the lights on” situation, which seems unlikely. As explained by Stacey on IoT, Insteon services can only come back online if someone pays for AWS (or hosts the code on some other server).

If we’re lucky, Insteon was acquired by another company, which is evaluating the service’s backend before making a formal announcement. But don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This “revival” may be a last-ditch effort to find a buyer or audit Insteon’s assets before a liquidation.

I should also mention privacy concerns. Some unknown person or company is playing with the Insteon backend—they have a certain amount of access to your home network. That’s a bit alarming, so I hope we get an explanation soon.

Source: r/Insteon via Stacey on IoT





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