Insteon HUB (2245) cloud servers shut down

[MrBill]

12 minutes ago, Markee said:

Any hope to reactivate the hub?

you can still take the HA route, its more detailed as I understand it to get each Insteon added back

[MR_CW]

14 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I'm not clear what the servers have to do with anything? If you were using an Insteon hub as your ISY/Polisy interface then spend $40 on a USB PLM and life goes on as before.

Does the insteon Hub even if not connected to the server, act as the interface to ISY? If so it seems like I may need to go the USB route. I hope that is more stable than the HUB with the capacitor problem

[Athlon]

5 minutes ago, MrBill said:

you can still take the HA route, its more detailed as I understand it to get each Insteon added back

From reading this it seems the Hub will act as a PLM for Home Assistant (good news for Hub owners):

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/insteon/#:~:text=The only configuration item that,the modem's ALL-Link database.

Disclaimer - I'm not a HA expert - I know very little about it.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Athlon

[MrBill]

Just now, Athlon said:

From reading this it seems the Hub will act as a PLM for Home Assistant (good news for Hub owners):

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/insteon/#:~:text=The only configuration item that,the modem's ALL-Link database.

 

Yes, here is a better reddit post than I linked yesterday.

I'm going to try to set up the hub to HA scenario tomorrow at my son's house.   He has actively refused having an ISY at his house (I even told him I'd give him one) because he won't load java for any reason.

[Athlon]

@MrBillAbout a year ago I set up HA on a spare RPi. My goal was to have a bridge between TP-Link and a Velux blind device for better scheduling. It was easy to get HA on the RPi, but I found the programming of it to be tedious for just one application.

I'm fortunate in that I have an Apple TV and an old Iphone 6s, so I wiped the RPi and went with Homebridge on it instead - much much easier to set up IMHO.

If your son has Apple devices, that's also an option for him. 

[MrBill]

9 minutes ago, Athlon said:

If your son has Apple devices, that's also an option for him. 

He is, but he also has a houseful of Insteon.  Still got to have a method to get Insteon into the picture.

I have HA using the Universal Devices Integration.  Originally installed because I needed a better 'out of house' mobile experience.  I did spend hours configuring dashboards.  In retrospect it was worth it tho, this is the first Wife Approved automation phone app.   I laid the dashboards out in a way that makes sense for our house, she uses them! and even has one trigger as a a complication on her Apple watch.

[Athlon]

2 minutes ago, MrBill said:

He is, but he also has a houseful of Insteon.  Still got to have a method to get Insteon into the picture.

 

Ahh - didn't realize you are already familiar with HA.

Homebridge read all of my Insteon devices, by the way (because of my PLM?). I just don't use it for that, I use my Policy instead.

[g800]

23 minutes ago, MrBill said:

Yes, here is a better reddit post than I linked yesterday.

I'm going to try to set up the hub to HA scenario tomorrow at my son's house.   He has actively refused having an ISY at his house (I even told him I'd give him one) because he won't load java for any reason.

Thanks Mr Bill

Two questions:

If I didn't factory reset the hub but did network reset the hub, will the HA method still work?

If one purchases a raspberry pi 4 (which is really just a basic computer with some ports) what's the method to link the hub? There was a reference in the reddit post to something about network to power line, but not sure what that means. Does one just connect the Ethernet port on the hub to somewhere on the raspberry pi and then by inputting the username and pwd for the hub into HA, it reads it somehow?

I'm also not clear on how to set up HA on a raspberry but I think that's well covered on other sites so will try that when I receive my raspberry

Thanks to everyone for all the knowledge and support. This has been nuts

[MrBill]

2 minutes ago, g800 said:

If I didn't factory reset the hub but did network reset the hub, will the HA method still work?

I don't know.  I'm not an expert on 2245 hubs.. my son uses one, but i haven't set HA up for him yet.  I wouldn't think 'network reset' would wipe the devices from the hub tho.

3 minutes ago, g800 said:

If one purchases a raspberry pi 4 (which is really just a basic computer with some ports) what's the method to link the hub? There was a reference in the reddit post to something about network to power line, but not sure what that means. Does one just connect the Ethernet port on the hub to somewhere on the raspberry pi and then by inputting the username and pwd for the hub into HA, it reads it somehow?

Your Hub remains plugged into your local network just as it is today.  You need to find the IP address of the hub via your router and tell Home Assistant what it is.   Use the Username and password from the label on the bottom of your HUB, not what you've been using with the cloud server.

6 minutes ago, g800 said:

I'm also not clear on how to set up HA on a raspberry but I think that's well covered on other sites so will try that when I receive my raspberry

Yes it's very clear how to set up HA on a pi... Follow this process: https://www.home-assistant.io/getting-started/

PS, buy the 4gb Pi4

PS2: add the Google Drive backup Add-on ASAP: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/add-on-home-assistant-google-drive-backup/107928

[upstatemike]

41 minutes ago, MR_CW said:

Does the insteon Hub even if not connected to the server, act as the interface to ISY? If so it seems like I may need to go the USB route. I hope that is more stable than the HUB with the capacitor problem

The Insteon Hub will not act as an interface to ISY/Polisy. You need a PLM which will be your Insteon interface and ISY/Polisy will provide connectivity to Alexa via the ISY Internet portal. The old Insteon hub is not used. The old Insteon servers are not needed. 

If you use a USB PLM then be sure to get the Polisy Pro controller. The older ISY994 controller requires a serial PLM which will be difficult to find at this point.

If you want to try to reuse your Insteon Hub as an interface you will have to try another platform such as Home Assistant or Homeseer. Help for doing that should be available on their respective forums.

[JSchumann]

Well, I reset mine last night.

Looks like I need to Upgrade to POLISY

Regards,

John

Edited April 16, 2022 by JSchumann
Hub servers dead

[g800]

27 minutes ago, MrBill said:

I don't know.  I'm not an expert on 2245 hubs.. my son uses one, but i haven't set HA up for him yet.  I wouldn't think 'network reset' would wipe the devices from the hub tho.

Your Hub remains plugged into your local network just as it is today.  You need to find the IP address of the hub via your router and tell Home Assistant what it is.   Use the Username and password from the label on the bottom of your HUB, not what you've been using with the cloud server.

Yes it's very clear how to set up HA on a pi... Follow this process: https://www.home-assistant.io/getting-started/

PS, buy the 4gb Pi4

PS2: add the Google Drive backup Add-on ASAP: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/add-on-home-assistant-google-drive-backup/107928

Thank you!

[Teken]

Good luck finding a RPI!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MrBill]

5 minutes ago, Teken said:

Good luck finding a RPI!

Luckily I ordered a pi4 4gb yesterday and amazon delivered it same day.  There were only 5 in-stock when I ordered tho.  Pi's have been in short supply, but they can be found and yesterday I got lucky.

[Teken]

Luckily I ordered a pi4 4gb yesterday and amazon delivered it same day.  There were only 5 in-stock when I ordered tho.  Pi's have been in short supply, but they can be found and yesterday I got lucky.

You paid the premium vs the retail price?

[MrBill]

5 minutes ago, Teken said:

You paid the premium vs the retail price?

Pi4's have been more expensive across the board than they were when I bought the last one (dec 2020)-- I noticed that last fall when I evaluated "Home Assistant Yellow".  I wouldn't call Amazon pricing premium tho it might be a few dollars more than I would pay in-store at Microcenter, but Microcenter is a two hour round-trip.   Perhaps Amazon.ca has different pricing strategies for pi's?

[g800]

49 minutes ago, MrBill said:

Luckily I ordered a pi4 4gb yesterday and amazon delivered it same day.  There were only 5 in-stock when I ordered tho.  Pi's have been in short supply, but they can be found and yesterday I got lucky.

I bought one earlier today. Tons of supply out there

[dotScott]

On 4/15/2022 at 1:15 PM, Athlon said:

Igonsteon

Now that's funny. ?

How about Instegone?

[Ed Ventura]

Hey everybody, in case you have serial PLMs with capacitor issues or that failed for some reason, let us know at fix-my-PLM@iprop.tech.

We may have a solution for you.
Components will be available from Monday (Apr 18th) on.

 

Thanks

[brians]

Having been using Insteon for 15-16 years, and ISY/Polisy for most of that time, I find this news about Insteon sad. Having never used an Insteon Hub, I am curious why shutting down their servers has this affect on the hub? Does the hub constantly need to talk to the cloud in order to function? With ISY, the only things I believe would stop working if they shut down their portal is Amazon/Google integration, easier remote access, and ability to install PG3 Polyglots.

 

 

[Javi]

42 minutes ago, brians said:

Having been using Insteon for 15-16 years, and ISY/Polisy for most of that time, I find this news about Insteon sad. Having never used an Insteon Hub, I am curious why shutting down their servers has this affect on the hub? Does the hub constantly need to talk to the cloud in order to function? With ISY, the only things I believe would stop working if they shut down their portal is Amazon/Google integration, easier remote access, and ability to install PG3 Polyglots.

 

 

Thier app only uses the remote server. There is a non-published local api (the HA route) but judging by the fact that reset renders Hub useless it's possible Hub requires server connection for initial setup/linking (Configuration files?).  

As for ISY/Polisy without Portal: Node servers could still be installed by URL just no store.  Ability to add native third party portals may be disabled. Would not be hard to run something on the Polisy box to act similar to a native portal integration i.e PyISY -> HA.  UD Mobile will continue to work on HTTP local networks or HTTPS remote connections with valid certificate.

[MrBill]

31 minutes ago, Javi said:

but judging by the fact that reset renders Hub useless

I don't believe that's true, it's just very difficult to re-add all devices (harder than the process we go thru it seems from posts I've read on reddit, but it's possible.     One difficulty people are encountering tho is the schedules seem to be stored in the hub, and I don't think anyone knows how to access those, and perhaps the HA integration leaves that part out... Meaning to get rid of existing schedules the user may end up at the pain point of factory reset/re-add devices of the hub just to get rid of existing schedules.

I'll know more in the days and weeks to come.  My son refuses to have an ISY at his house over java.  I even offered to buy him one several times over the years. He's allergic to java apparently, not sure where that came from, but he dislikes coffee too, perhaps he's confused about the relationship.  We are going to convert his installation to HUB --> HA.

[MrBill]

I just went and read the Insteon Integration page at Home Assistant, and some additional information from reddit.   If auto discovery works, adding devices is not difficult.  If Auto Discovery fails which apparently is common on hubs then the device must be added via Device Override.  Although some fields are much "optional" they are only optional as far as the interface, to get full features one must lookup the values for "cat" and "subcat" from Insteon documentation and enter those to successfully add the device.  In the ISY world, the ISY knows those even for a manual add based on the dropdown choice.  Additionally appropriately most users don't know where to find that info, which is the specs section of the full user manual for the device (not the Quick start guide). 

 

 

CC: @Javi (additional info)

[brians]

41 minutes ago, MrBill said:

 

I'll know more in the days and weeks to come.  My son refuses to have an ISY at his house over java.  I even offered to buy him one several times over the years. He's allergic to java apparently, not sure where that came from, but he dislikes coffee too, perhaps he's confused about the relationship.  We are going to convert his installation to HUB --> HA.

He probably heard something that Java is insecure. I would ask him why he had no issues in the past with connecting his home to the cloud at the mercy of smarthome.

 

[MrBill]

1 minute ago, brians said:

He probably heard something that Java is insecure. I would ask him why he had no issues in the past with connecting his home to the cloud at the mercy of smarthome.

I think the real problem is he's a drag and drop type of millennial and he's seen the admin console and thinks its dated, but he does vocalize it as java that he doesn't want.