New Nokia Insteon Devices

[MrBill]

14 hours ago, upstatemike said:

If Alexa can control it Ninsteon must allow her (it) to create devices to work with.

and by doing do you introduce a cloud dependency.  Personally, I try to keep as much as possible local and out of the cloud.  My home automation system should generally work regardless of the state of my internet connection and random cloud servers.

[upstatemike]

53 minutes ago, MrBill said:

and by doing do you introduce a cloud dependency.  Personally, I try to keep as much as possible local and out of the cloud.  My home automation system should generally work regardless of the state of my internet connection and random cloud servers.

I don't disagree. I'm just pointing out that there may be a workaround for the lack of an API if somebody really wanted to incorporate Ninsteon devices into their system. Without plugin modules or motion sensors I don't see much use for these products standing on their own. They just don't do anything particularly useful.

[lilyoyo1]

1 minute ago, upstatemike said:

I don't disagree. I'm just pointing out that there may be a workaround for the lack of an API if somebody really wanted to incorporate Ninsteon devices into their system. Without plugin modules or motion sensors I don't see much use for these products standing on their own. They just don't do anything particularly useful.

The system is not currently designed for Isy (or any other advanced system) users so you wouldn't see a need. There are plenty of people out there who doesn't need a full system in that manner. 

It's like buying a car. I don't go off roading so I don't understand why a person would get a Jeep or any true off road capable vehicle. But i understand that some people do so I get why people buy them. 

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, MrBill said:

and by doing do you introduce a cloud dependency.  Personally, I try to keep as much as possible local and out of the cloud.  My home automation system should generally work regardless of the state of my internet connection and random cloud servers.

I couldn't agree more. I can live without music and anything else internet connected. I need my lights to work

[MrBill]

3 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I couldn't agree more. I can live without music and anything else internet connected. I need my lights to work

We do stream more music today, but there's still an entire music library on hard drive that we could revisit without internet.  We can also watch OTA broadcasting if video streaming isn't available.  There is always a plan B.

[upstatemike]

With no plugin modules I wonder how Ninsteon manages bridging across the two power legs? I suppose you could hope to get lucky and have two switches end up on opposite legs and be in RF range of each other to provide the coupling but that seems iffy at best. 

[Kevin Connolly]

In the construction field it isn't unheard of for a company to open another company just to avoid or get out of agreements/liabilities they have under the "old" company. If I were to look Smartlabs  moves, as an outsider, since being taken over and installing a new CEO I'd really have to say that their moves and motivation(s) seem now obvious. It's a huge move on their part...and huge moves come with huge risk, at minimum, with consumer acceptance.

If their new bridge is/will be compatible with the existing line-up of Insteon devices than they lower "some" risk with the existing Insteon user base since the listing price of their bridge is $40...and I think most of the casual users will, maybe grumbling, move to Nokia's closed system if that's the case.

 

[upstatemike]

Last business day in October and the site still says "shipping late October" so preorders should be shipping now. Hope to hear back soon as folks start to get their items and test them out!

[upstatemike]

Oops. The Nokia store no longer says "late October"; it now just says "Email me when available". 

[Kevin Connolly]

Yikes

[Teken]

[upstatemike]

Still says "Email me when available". I wonder if they will launch in time for Black Friday? You would think Nokia would want to leverage the holiday season in introducing this new line.

[MrBill]

maybe we should name it NINO instead of Ninsteon... Nokia In Name Only... they don't have much control.

[larryllix]

maybe we should name it NINO instead of Ninsteon... Nokia In Name Only... they don't have much control.

El niño?

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[upstatemike]

Less than a week until Black Friday! Excited to see what the sale prices will be on the Nokia switches and keypad.

[upstatemike]

No Black Friday deals. I guess Nokia isn't planning to target consumers directly. Must be an "Integrator Only" product.

[MrBill]

1 hour ago, upstatemike said:

No Black Friday deals. I guess Nokia isn't planning to target consumers directly. Must be an "Integrator Only" product.

I heard they discontinued everything... old line and new... they're going out of business... you said so yourself!  ?

[Techman]

4 hours ago, upstatemike said:

No Black Friday deals. I guess Nokia isn't planning to target consumers directly. Must be an "Integrator Only" product.

It's difficult to have a Sale when you have nothing to sell

[upstatemike]

17 minutes ago, Techman said:

It's difficult to have a Sale when you have nothing to sell

They can sell pre-orders at a Black Friday discount... unless they aren't sure if they are ever going to get the stock to fulfill pre-orders?

[mwester]

Silly people.  Nokia is European -- they don't celebrate American (or Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Watch for the introductory sales starting for the Xmas season!

[asbril]

1 hour ago, mwester said:

Silly people.  Nokia is European -- they don't celebrate American (or Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Watch for the introductory sales starting for the Xmas season!

While Nokia is European, from the cold Scandinavian woods, they for sure have US offices. The Insteon devices, widely "advertized" in these columns (!)  are 110 V and therefore for the North American market. So the Silly people may not be all that silly  .

[Brian H]

I thought they had the universal power supplies. So both 120 and 230 volts 50 60 Cycles would work.

Only thing I could see different would be the RF frequency matching the local countries standards.

[oldMan]

Maybe the stuff that you ordered is out on one of those container ships on the west coast.

[LFMc]

16 hours ago, mwester said:

Silly people.  Nokia is European -- they don't celebrate American (or Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Watch for the introductory sales starting for the Xmas season!

 

14 hours ago, asbril said:

While Nokia is European, from the cold Scandinavian woods, they for sure have US offices. The Insteon devices, widely "advertized" in these columns (!)  are 110 V and therefore for the North American market. So the Silly people may not be all that silly  .

Nokia isn't "selling" anything and has almost nothing to do with this product line. They just sold their name to be used by Smarthome/Insteon.  It's silly to me for posters to keep referring to the product line as "Nokia's" as if that makes it magically better or to come from Europe.  So viva NiNo or Nokeon or Instakia, etc, etc. ?

[mwester]

Sarcasm, folks.

To be serious -- the Nokia name-branding feels like the last gasp of a technology left to die.  No amount of naming and branding is ever going to address the fact that the power-line technology used by Insteon doesn't work very well in the face of the "new normal" (switching power supplies muddying the zero-crossing point on the power-line).

And opinion: every company I know that is having inventory/availability issues is scapegoating the "chip shortage" -- and I believe that SmartHome is no different.  I suspect the truth is that it's a convenient thing they (and some of the smarthome fanbois on this forum) use as a smoke screen to keep some degree of consumer confidence up as they sell off remaining inventory in a desperate attempt to raise the cash necessary to introduce the newly-branded version of the same old (failing) technology.

Finally, I realize that my comments are skirting dangerously close to the verboten topic of politics, but the fact is that at this juncture, politics has infected every aspect of life, to the point where neither sports nor my hobby serves as an escape.  I've been far less active on this forum because over the summer, I spent a lot more time fishing -- where the mosquitos and leeches are less irritating than even my hobbies have become.    I may be forced to take up ice-fishing soon.  And for those interested in cross-over stuff -- no, there are no Insteon nor any Nokia fishing products.  And neither (yet) are there any node servers for fishing...