Insteon being discontinued?

[MrWorf]

Anyone needing a PLM for their ISY994i should look here for a somewhat different solution

 

[sorka]

I've been slowly reducing my dependence on Insteon for anything not lighting related.

Got rid of all the iolincs and wireless open/close sensors (except the mailbox) for cai web control 8 boards. Could just as easily have done it with RPIs and additional i/o hardware but I had the cai 8s and they're easy to program and interface with the ISY. Also got rid of all the motion sensors by adding expansion modules to my alarm system and hard wiring DSC motion sensors. Since DSC interfaces just fine with the ISY, this is a huge improvement over replacing batteries. 

 

I still have 150+ insteon lighting devices utilizing Insteon's core strength...their scene lighting....which still beats z-wave hands down.

 

That said, about half of my switches don't belong to complicated scenes, so they will be the first to be converted to z-wave starting next year assuming the chip shortages resolve.

[Techman]

For what it's worth, I just spoke to Insteon Customer Service. I was told that the 2413S PLM has not been discontinued and should be available in 3 to 4 weeks. 

I asked them to update their website to show what's backordered and what has been discontinued as both of those categories currently show as "sold out"

They also said that the new Insteon / Nokia products may be compatible with the current Insteon line sometime in the future via a firmware update.  I assume it's constrained by the licensing agreement between Smartlabs and Nokia.

No one at Smartlabs will answer their phone, customer service is via a 3rd party off shore call center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Techman

[sorka]

The Nokia thing is really interesting. I'd be totally interested if I could add it to the system like any Smarthome Insteon device. It would be the first time that a third party has implemented the Insteon protocol on a large scale. 

 

Still, z-wave is so widely supported now, I'm not sure this will change my plans to start converting over.

[MrWorf]

I was really tempted to go all in on Z-wave when the PLM issue cropped up (ie, stopped working again), but there are some things which makes this a difficult proposal.

In my house, all lighting is controlled by insteon, everything else is Z-wave these days (similar to @sorka I believe). So I started looking at doing a swap, but even if you ignore cost of such a project, the first issue I run into is the lack of scene controllers. Specifically 8 scene (ie, the insteon 8 key pad). And even if I could make due with less, there are few that actually allow control of a device at the same time, which drives up cost. Not to mention that the ones which do exist has little in terms of control of button lighting or text. Both things are supported by insteon (button toggle or single use, does it light up or not, custom print on keys).

But this is not even the biggest issue (but it is a major one ) the main issue is that insteon devices work 100% without the hub. The scenes as programmed by the ISY will continue to function even if my ISY burns up. And the flexibility of the scene control has led to some really nice setups around the house.

I know z-wave has scene support now, but it seems very spartan when compared to insteon. And the more elaborate stuff requires home assistant or similar, which I have, but if it crashes or breaks, the spousal acceptance factor plummets to zero within a day. And crashes are not unheard of

So for now, I'm sticking to insteon for all my lighting needs while everything else goes Z-wave.

[DAlter01]

2 hours ago, Techman said:

For what it's worth, I just spoke to Insteon Customer Service. I was told that the 2413S PLM has not been discontinued and should be available in 3 to 4 weeks. 

I asked them to update their website to show what's backordered and what has been discontinued as both of those categories currently show as "sold out"

They also said that the new Insteon / Nokia products may be compatible with the current Insteon line sometime in the future via a firmware update.  I assume it's constrained by the licensing agreement between Smartlabs and Nokia.

No one at Smartlabs will answer their phone, customer service is via a 3rd party off shore call center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe someone with some actual customer service experience/training has finally become involved in customer service.  I sent a query about the 2413s PLM and got the following response: 

"Thank you for contacting Smarthome Support.

Our apologies for the inconvenience caused. We understand that you would like to know about the availability of our products, we would be happy to assist you further!

Unfortunately, we are sorry to inform you that the Insteon PLM (Item # 2413S) is out of stock (backorder) due to component shortages, and currently, we do not have an ETA on when the Insteon PLM (Item # 2413S) will be back in stock, but we are hoping it will be soon.

Again we apologize for the inconvenience caused."

This is an entirely different response than what I've received before which is "that product has been discontinued due to low sales" or something to that effect.  Not warm and fuzzy's like the above statement.  Is Smartlabs finally on a better path and one that we can see?

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by DAlter01

[DAlter01]

4 minutes ago, MrWorf said:

I know z-wave has scene support now, but it seems very spartan when compared to insteon. And the more elaborate stuff requires home assistant or similar, which I have, but if it crashes or breaks, the spousal acceptance factor plummets to zero within a day. And crashes are not unheard of

So for now, I'm sticking to insteon for all my lighting needs while everything else goes Z-wave.

I've dabled with Z-wave devices and have a dozen or so in my setup.  They are working fairly well but are still fairly inferior, in my experience, to Insteon.  And, they are limited.  For example, I wanted to control the lights in my range hood and bought a z-wave mini inline switch.  And, of course, it didn't work being surrounded by a bunch of stainless steel.  I finally got my hands on an Insteon mini dimmer and with it's powerline communications it works perfectly.   Z-wave may have its day someday as they seem to keep improving it, but it isn't there yet for me.  And, maybe with Insteon now having a new lease on life, the dual band protocol and other great features of Insteon will live on with some improvements/refinements.  I saw in the FCC filings they intend to release a new MS in the new system.  And, the new PLM, if released, has some nice improvements from the specs I've seen. The more I research the new system by Smartlabs, the more I am encouraged.

[sorka]

12 minutes ago, MrWorf said:

 

I know z-wave has scene support now, but it seems very spartan when compared to insteon. And the more elaborate stuff requires home assistant or similar, which I have, but if it crashes or breaks, the spousal acceptance factor plummets to zero within a day. And crashes are not unheard of

So for now, I'm sticking to insteon for all my lighting needs while everything else goes Z-wave.

This is the main reason why I've been holding out and hoping that z-wave would mature more in this regard. The problem is that Insteon had a sophisticated peer to peer scene architecture out of the gate and is the reason why I chose their product in the first place. 

[sorka]

13 minutes ago, DAlter01 said:

Maybe someone with some actual customer service experience/training has finally become involved in customer service.  I sent a query about the 2413s PLM and got the following response: 

"Thank you for contacting Smarthome Support.

Our apologies for the inconvenience caused. We understand that you would like to know about the availability of our products, we would be happy to assist you further!

Unfortunately, we are sorry to inform you that the Insteon PLM (Item # 2413S) is out of stock (backorder) due to component shortages, and currently, we do not have an ETA on when the Insteon PLM (Item # 2413S) will be back in stock, but we are hoping it will be soon.

Again we apologize for the inconvenience caused."

This is an entirely different response than what I've received before which is "that product has been discontinued due to low sales" or something to that effect.  Not warm and fuzzy's like the above statement.  Is Smartlabs finally on a better path and one that we can see?

 

If they want to force everyone with an ISY to stop buying Insteon products, they best way they could achieve this goal is to discontinue the one product that would disable their entire investment  I would be surprised if the UD crowd isn't buy far the biggest Insteon consumer as agroup. Unfortunately years ago with all of the reliability issues they had early on, they alienated professional installers so Insteon is largely a DIY product and I can't imagine how anyone would have the level of home integration that we have without the ISY.

Edited July 26, 2021 by sorka

[DAlter01]

1 minute ago, sorka said:

If they want to force everyone with an ISY to stop buying Insteon products, they best way they could achieve this goal is to discontinue the one product that would disable their entire investment  I would be surprised if the UD crowd isn't buy far the biggest Insteon consumer as agroup.

Contrary to my opinion of a few weeks ago, I don't think Smartlabs is going to discontinue the PLM.  I say that because of the reason you state above, but also:

1.  They have redesigned the PLM and it is much more robust.  They haven't released it yet, but they haven't released any of the products the redesigned at roughly the same time.  In the FCC filings, they show approximatly 5 new devices they have redsigned and the PLM is one of them.  

2.  It is likely their chip shortage is real, and I'm sure they have need to begin releasing their new devices and this is probably diverting resources away from fulfilling orders for lower selling products.  And, while important, I'm sure the PLM is not a high selling device.  

3.  In my recent communication with Smarthome, they actually said the device was on backorder but they expected to have them again.  

4.  It seems Smartlabs actually has some financial horsepower behind them based on their partnership with Nokia.  While they have been frustratingly quiet these last few years causing people like me to suspect they were dying, there was actually a lot going on behind the scenes.  I've got to believe the legacy Insteon devices are still profitable and the PLM has to exist or there would be a measurable percentage of sales lost on their profitable Insteon devices.

[LFMc]

1 minute ago, DAlter01 said:

I'm sure the PLM is not a high selling device.

But it is a sales leading device. I.E. anyone buying a PLM is going to buy probably at least 10-30 other Insteon devices. So I would be totally surprised if they were to totally stop carrying it. 

[DAlter01]

2 minutes ago, LFMc said:

But it is a sales leading device. I.E. anyone buying a PLM is going to buy probably at least 10-30 other Insteon devices. So I would be totally surprised if they were to totally stop carrying it. 

Or more, many, many, more

[stealle]

10 minutes ago, DAlter01 said:

And, while important, I'm sure the PLM is not a high selling device.  

his quote was taken out of context. you should’ve quoted his entire sentence. that’s why he said “while important” 

[sorka]

On 11/29/2020 at 10:06 AM, Michel Kohanim said:

@lilyoyo1,

Thanks so very much for your words of encouragement and comfort. My complaints are pretty selfish: not one day goes by that we don't get support tickets from customers whose PLMs have died. Spending time and resources to help SmartHome with their messaging is extremely taxing. Especially since we are also in the dark.

I want to stress that, as business owners, they have every right to do whatever they want that makes sense for their business (including complete termination of products/PLMs/etc.). This said, in my view, it would be so much more honorable if they could have a link, official post, or anything else that would allow us and our customers to make informed decisions rather than having to speculate and hope.

Thanks again.

With kind regards,
Michel

I'm curious why UD never designed and manufactured their own PLM. Was it a licensing/cost issue?

On 3/2/2021 at 1:20 PM, simplextech said:

I've seen supply issues with many vendors.  Want another one that has buzz about discontinued products just look Logitech Harmony and everyone speculating their discontinuing the remotes.  Highly unlikely but that's the "rumor" that's being repeated.

Logitech is discontinuing the Harmony remote line because nobody is buying them anymore. I'm not even using mine anymore as HDMI CEC control has basically made it useless. I pick up my AppleTV remote and press the menu button. The AVR, TV, and external amps all turn on and the the AVR switches to the right input. Same with every other component I have now. 

On 3/2/2021 at 11:58 AM, stealle said:

The 2635-222 has been discontinued not backordered. That has nothing to do with low supply of chips. Amazing how you missed that. An outlet switch is one of the most basic devices for home automation. Not a good sign to discontinue that device. Unless as MrBill suggested they are coming out with a new model in which case it’s poor marketing. 

It sounds like it's time for folks to make their on on/off switch out of the external single din enclosure: https://smarthome-products.com/p-2284-simply-automated-ztp2-b-tabletop-back-box-black.aspx

Looks like the white ones are sold out everywhere so others clearly had the same idea. Time to search thingverse or tinkercad one up.

On 4/12/2021 at 6:47 AM, Goose66 said:

I'm surprised you can get the Insteon Leak Detector under your dishwasher. The Insteon LDs is a real miss. I wish they had plug-in remote sensors with a 6 foot cable. Has anyone taken one of these a part and looked into mods?

I have an insteon leak sensor under my dish washer. Insteon already killed the leak sensor product line when they required a manual button reset whenever water is detected because they assumed everyone would be linking the leak sensors in scenes rather than having them as triggers to programs. 

I also have Watercop leak (Wayne Water Systems) sensors and the whole house shutoff valve. If water is detected by either leak sensor type, the water to the entire house is shut off and I get notified. 

[Michel Kohanim]

@sorka,

We were going to but they decided not to sell us the chips after we spent $$$ redesigning theirs (and provided the updated components so that they could make theirs not die so often). 

Regardless, I am moving on.

You'll be happy to know that the trigger event/device is now available in NR on ISY/Polisy. That is, when we fix the USB driver.

With kind regards,

Michel

[sorka]

On 7/22/2021 at 10:36 AM, lilyoyo1 said:

If it sells, I have a few i need to put on there. ?

I guess I should pull out my 3 flakey power supply PLMs and do the capacitor upgrade on them...keep one as a backup and sell the other two.

[lilyoyo1]

7 hours ago, sorka said:

I guess I should pull out my 3 flakey power supply PLMs and do the capacitor upgrade on them...keep one as a backup and sell the other two.

All of mine are good. I just buy extras for warranty purposes. The last listing didn't go high enough to warrant putting any out there

[sorka]

I just ordered a 4 pack of the Kasa EP10 on Amazon for $23. Figured they're dirt cheap enough to play with. Installing the kasa node server now to get it ready for tomorrow when the plugs arrive. 

 

Heck, the Kasa line even has in-wall receptacle outlets. 

 

How good is the kasa / ISY integration?

Edited July 27, 2021 by sorka

[sorka]

Well so much for that:

Error: runInstallProcess:

7/27/2021, 16:49:32 [polyglot] info: MQTTP: Frontend Websockets interface Connected. 7/27/2021, 16:49:52 [polyglot] info: Notification(1): Processing command: command 7/27/2021, 16:49:53 [polyglot] info: Notification(1): n001_controller :: DON sent sucessfully 7/27/2021, 16:50:38 [polyglot] info: NSChild cloneRepo: Successfully cloned Kasa into NodeServer directory. 7/27/2021, 16:50:50 [polyglot] info: Kasa(5): Attempting to install Kasa NodeServer into ISY. 7/27/2021, 16:50:50 [polyglot] info: Kasa(5): Installed into ISY sucessfully. Profile uploaded, restart Admin console. 7/27/2021, 16:50:50 [polyglot] info: Registered new local NodeServer: Kasa(5) 7/27/2021, 16:50:50 [polyglot] info: Waiting 10 seconds before starting Kasa for the first time. 7/27/2021, 16:51:00 [polyglot] info: NS: Starting Local NodeServer Kasa profile number 5 :: Version 2.5.0 7/27/2021, 16:51:02 [polyglot] info: Kasa(5): NodeServer Disconnected. 7/27/2021, 16:51:10 [polyglot] error: NSChild: Install failed - Non-zero exit code: 1 7/27/2021, 16:51:10 [polyglot] error: NSChild: Kasa cloneRepo: Error: runInstallProcess: undefined 7/27/2021, 16:51:10 [polyglot] error: Error: runInstallProcess: undefined at runInstallProcess (/snapshot/polyglot-v2/lib/modules/children.js:45:11) at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:89:5) 7/27/2021, 16:51:10 [polyglot] error: NSResponse: Success: false - cloneRepo: Error: runInstallProcess: undefined

[MrBill]

15 minutes ago, sorka said:

How good is the kasa / ISY integration?

It was awesome, saved me over $300 on comparable Insteon devices.  However read this thread, it's come to our attention lately that they are disabling local network access.

[lilyoyo1]

15 hours ago, sorka said:

 

I have an insteon leak sensor under my dish washer. Insteon already killed the leak sensor product line when they required a manual button reset whenever water is detected because they assumed everyone would be linking the leak sensors in scenes rather than having them as triggers to programs. 

 

Its funny how complaints work. It was redesigned due to complaints about water still being present but people no longer being alerted. Then when they changed things, the other side had complaints about needing to tap the set button. Just goes to show, you can't please everyone. 

Personally, i prefer a manual reset. I had an issue once with one of my fibaro sensors that could've been worse since it stopped reporting once the water moved away from the sensor. 

 

[sorka]

20 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Just goes to show, you can't please everyone. 

You mean like with a setting that allows us to choose the legacy behavior so all of us that had the style of sensor that worked properly can have new sensors that continue to work properly?

It was probably 3 lines of code to make the change they did and probably another 100 lines of code to have the behavior selectable. But as far as please everyone? SH seems to be in the business of not pleasing anyone.

[Michel Kohanim]

@sorka,

Issue with Polyglot getting out to the internet. Make sure the date is correct.

With kind regards,
Michel

[sorka]

4 minutes ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@sorka,

Issue with Polyglot getting out to the internet. Make sure the date is correct.

With kind regards,
Michel

7/27/2021, 16:49:32

Let me log into the PRI and make sure I can ping the outside world.

[sorka]

18 minutes ago, sorka said:

7/27/2021, 16:49:32

Let me log into the PRI and make sure I can ping the outside world.

PRI is not restricted from outside world and the time is ok. 

 

Anyways, just canceled the Kasa plug order since it looks like TP-Link just killed the product from being able to interact locally. All my controls MUST work when the internet is down...period.

Edited July 27, 2021 by sorka