Think and rethink/Kudos to this community.

[ase]

I have to say I am impressed with how this forum has handled the influx of users and the shutdown of Insteon. Far better handling of basic questions than in the past.

As for many of the users fleeing Insteon Hub, understand there are options in how to use the existing hub as a PLM. The option are growing by the day.

However, one if the most powerful aspects of Insteon was it's ability to be linked locally. Insteon at it's heart is not hub dependent. Obviously some functions rely on outside intervention.

I would advise anyone not to just start ripping out Insteon devices. Take a step back an weigh the options. Absolutely none of the alternatives out there have all of the features and reliability of Insteon. I will bet there will even be instances where people will rethink their systems to just local programming.

The thing is not to be hasty. I know if you programmed everything via hub that functionality without one seems impossible, but it isn't. 

The key as we move away from Insteon is to move away with education. There are many different options and each one has it's ups and downs, each one has a best use case and a case where it fails.

For those who are new to this forum or new to the vast devices on the market one of the best things you can do is do your research and understand your needs.

When you have done that you most likely will come to the inevitable conclusion that Polisy is the best path forward. It functions as an ISY controller with the ability to add nodes for many different devices and protocols.

Now I have seen several pieces of misinformation.

Nokia: SmartLabs licensed Nokia's name. Nokia hasn't made any announcement of purchase of SmartLabs or any of the IP.

PLM: At the time of Insteon's shut down there were no 3rd party producers. I have seen several people point to Smartenit as a potential source of 3rd party PLMs. Their hubs and devices required either a Insteon PLM or USB stick. 

Patents: Insteon is patented and the patents do expire in a few years. Technically that implies that anyone could reverse engineer it and produce products. Reality is more complex. We don't know what other protection the protocol may be under. The patent time line only applies to the United States market anyway. However, one could make an argument of abandonment of the technology, that would be some expensive legal proceedings.

Bankruptcy: I have done a PACER search and no bankruptcy documents have been filed for Insteon or SmartLabs or the parent. In this case it wouldn't make any sense for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would allow assets to be seized at any level as SmartLabs is wholly owed. Not something Richmond would want.

Chip Shortage: First thing to understand is the current shortage is not a product of an actual shortage but, a product of a set of factors that lead to a huge surge in demand. Chip fabs are running near or at 100 percent. In 2019 we did have an actual chip shortage due to environmental factors. The biggest issue for home automation is that no one in the industry is a huge buyer. As the fabs push out orders they are giving preference to bigger orders. Think AMD, Samsung and so on. And yes I know Samsung is both a huge chip maker and in Home Automation, however they buy from other fabs and Home Automation is a secondary business in comparison to Cellphones, TVs, Appliances and Audio equipment. 

Personally I think Insteon was done in by ambitious plans that failed. The eye was taken off the ball at the absolute worst time. 

Think about it. 2017 buyout. 2 years of reducing Insteon product lines most likely focusing on rebranding and introducing new products. 2019 an actual chip shortage caused actual execution delays. Then comes covid-19. If I had to guess SmartLabs probably had been burning cash since 2018. The whole time competition is getting stiffer and brand image is degrading.

[Brian H]

Many of the Smartenit Insteon/X10 modules. Where built on a base 2412 PLM or 2413 PLM. Including their own PLM offering. Using their own designed daughter board attached. So no new ones maybe made available to the end users. If the source of base PLM modules is gone.

The chip shortage is a real problem. One of the last third party X10 enhancement modules makers.  Said their next chip order was scheduled for May 2023.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Brian H
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[ase]

3 minutes ago, Brian H said:

Many of the Smartenit Insteon/X10 modules. Where built on a base 2412 PLM or 2413 PLM. Including their own PLM offering. Using their own designed daughter board attached. So no new ones maybe made available to the end users. If the source of base PLM modules is gone.

The chip shortage is a real problem. One of the last third party X10 enhancement modules makers.  Said their next chip order was scheduled for May 2023.

Smartenit quit making any integrated insteon products over a year ago. They began requiring PLM or USB at that point. I bought the last of their insteon USB stock about a month ago. 

The chip shortage as I said isn't actually a shortage, it is a surge in demand.

IEEE did an excellent job explaining it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/amp/global-chip-shortage-charts-2656535754

During the 2019 shortage we began drawing on the warehouse surplus. Then in 2020 when covid-19 disrupted the supply chain that essentially drained that supply.

Fabs take orders by size as they have to change out the line for each chip run. So say Samsung is going to get priority for their 5g RRUs over say Jasco for Z-wave chips. This means Samsung has zero issue selling RRUs to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile for hundreds of thousands of towers at the same time Jasco will have a hard time building a thousand switches.

This is less of a shortage and more of a supply/demand mismatch. 

Personally I am frustrated to the point of pulling my hair out. Almost all of my tinkering and building depends on those low production chips that keep being pushed to the back of the line.

All of it points to vast mismanagement of resources at these large fabs from the get go.

[lilyoyo1]

3 hours ago, ase said:

Smartenit quit making any integrated insteon products over a year ago. They began requiring PLM or USB at that point. I bought the last of their insteon USB stock about a month ago. 

The chip shortage as I said isn't actually a shortage, it is a surge in demand.

IEEE did an excellent job explaining it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/amp/global-chip-shortage-charts-2656535754

During the 2019 shortage we began drawing on the warehouse surplus. Then in 2020 when covid-19 disrupted the supply chain that essentially drained that supply.

Fabs take orders by size as they have to change out the line for each chip run. So say Samsung is going to get priority for their 5g RRUs over say Jasco for Z-wave chips. This means Samsung has zero issue selling RRUs to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile for hundreds of thousands of towers at the same time Jasco will have a hard time building a thousand switches.

This is less of a shortage and more of a supply/demand mismatch. 

Personally I am frustrated to the point of pulling my hair out. Almost all of my tinkering and building depends on those low production chips that keep being pushed to the back of the line.

All of it points to vast mismanagement of resources at these large fabs from the get go.

For once i agree with you though i wouldn't call it mismanagement. There's a huge cost savings when it comes lean manufacturing. 

I have a client that owns a steel company in Ohio. We were talking about things and he was telling me how much his company saved when they transitioned to a lean manufacturing company. They pay 3x as much when something goes wrong because everything is a rush but those are 1 off events. The costs savings (including downtime from outages), is still much greater than when they kept products on hand. You're talking about tens of millions in savings for these large companies. 

For him, and most others, COVID was the perfect storm for good and bad. Being lean made his company much more nimble to react to market changes but this pandemic was so great, many were forced to throw out all playbooks and try things just to see what would stick

While I'm not into mfg. I get it. I used to carry a large amount of inventory. Now, I carry a couple of spares and for warranty purposes and order everything else when needed. While I'd love to have my stuff at the price i used to pay, because I no longer need the space i had, I'm still saving money even though it costs me more per unit (though it helps that I'm doing new houses so i was able to adjust pricing accordingly).

Edited April 19, 2022 by lilyoyo1