Insteon acquired and servers coming back up

[Techman]

Here's the complete news update from Insteon

Hi everyone,  I know it has been a few weeks since I provided an update to the entire Insteon community. We have had our heads down on a variety of efforts and it is time to let you know where we are at again. We hope you are as excited as we are about the direction we are headed!  Hub Subscriptions  Again, thank you to those who have already placed orders! And if you have not placed one, it is not too late to place an order and prevent an interruption of your Hub services. Please order before August 1 at: https://www.insteon.com/store  On-Hand Inventory  We have great news to share!  We expect to be able to take orders for on-hand inventory by mid-August. We are converting to a new e-commerce shopping platform that will give us improved functionality and we are currently working on that integration. As a reminder, our on-hand inventory will be limited by product types - and limited availability on top of that. And as previously mentioned, we do have orders in process at our factories for additional units and a greater scope of product, but those are much longer lead times before they hit our warehouse.  Customer Support  We are slowly (but surely) working through our backlog of customer email and form submission inquiries. While we have made progress, we realize it’s far from ideal so we are making dedicated efforts to add resources and improve our processes.  We recently moved to a more robust customer contact platform that will allow us to respond in a much more streamlined and efficient manner. If you have unanswered inquiries, please expect to get more details from us in the coming days.  Insteon Forum  We are excited to share that the Insteon Support Community forum is back online! We are still working on a few integration bugs since we moved to a new server, but we are ready for people to get back to posting and supporting each other. We encourage you to login/sign up to utilize this peer-to-peer resource: https://forum.insteon.com  Also, be sure to join the Insteon Facebook group for additional community support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/757676351098971   Surveys  We will be conducting surveys on topics ranging from app feature requests to inventory priority requests. Things like what third-party software and hardware you use so we can help prioritize our further integration with them. Or, to let us know what devices you’d like us to add support for in the Insteon for Lighting app. We want your voice to help guide us in our roadmap.  Ken CEO, Insteon Technologies   Insteon Technologies 4790 Irvine Blvd. Suite 105-665, Irvine, CA 92620

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Techman

[Techman]

The Insteon forum, which is now active, can be found here:

     Home - Insteon Discussion Community

 

[Dub]

1 hour ago, Techman said:

Here's the complete news update from Insteon

Thank you for posting @Techman.  I have been getting the emails, but haven't received this on yet.  Hopefully this one is just delayed temporarily. 

[PBeyard]

On July 9, 2022 I sent Insteon a contact email asking if they planned to sell devices again. (I am aware that subsequent updates have indicated that they do.) I just received an email response. It was apologetic for the delay, and said the following:

Check their blog, here: https://www.insteon.com/blog, for answers to frequently asked questions. They are on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Peer-to-peer discussions are at the Facebook Insteon User Group and on Reddit at r/Insteon. It asks customers to first explore these avenues for answers.

It ends asking that those with unresolved questions re-send those so they will go into the new customer contact solution.

It came from someone named "Joanne".

[Dub]

9 minutes ago, PBeyard said:

It ends asking that those with unresolved questions re-send those so they will go into the new customer contact solution.

Thank you for sharing.  As a mentioned I haven't gotten the last email update yet.  I had gotten previous messages.  I would expect these types of issues as they get their systems in place.

This sounds like the support queue has more issues than they can resolve without a purge and starting over with a customer contact solution.

Unless we hear otherwise, I'm inclined to take this as a good sign and they want to address lingering problems and get the resolved issues out of their view.

 I would guess a lot of issues that were reported have been resolved.

[ase]

18 hours ago, Dub aka WHaas said:

Thank you for sharing.  As a mentioned I haven't gotten the last email update yet.  I had gotten previous messages.  I would expect these types of issues as they get their systems in place.

This sounds like the support queue has more issues than they can resolve without a purge and starting over with a customer contact solution.

Unless we hear otherwise, I'm inclined to take this as a good sign and they want to address lingering problems and get the resolved issues out of their view.

 I would guess a lot of issues that were reported have been resolved.

I would expect a lot of the queue was issues that occurred during the bankrupt period and probably have been solved via other means, but ended up in the system one way or another. These Troubleshooting and ticket systems can become overwhelmed very easily, with each ticket taking hours to close because you need to make contact and then figure out if any real issue exists. Often times it is simple user error and takes time to figure out that.

If I were them I would post a blog post and e-mail all addresses with open tickets to resubmit any issues after a purge. Any users that truly need help will resubmit, the rest will just fall off and not be an issue. I think that is likely what they will do. 

[Dub]

42 minutes ago, ase said:

f I were them I would post a blog post and e-mail all addresses with open tickets to resubmit any issues after a purge. Any users that truly need help will resubmit, the rest will just fall off and not be an issue. I think that is likely what they will do. 

Agreed.  

I am hoping they get their communication kinks worked out, cause some folks are judging them harshly right now.  Personally I'm giving them a break and time to get on their feet before making judgements.  While also hoping for the best.

That said I am a little concerned I was getting update emails, am a paid hub subscriber, but have not gotten the most recent update.  It's not that I can't get the information from here or other sites, but I'm making an effort to follow what is happening.  The risk I see is the users that are not getting these updates from elsewhere....ultimately back to being a communication problem that I hope they resolve.

[MrBill]

1 minute ago, Dub aka WHaas said:

That said I am a little concerned I was getting update emails, am a paid hub subscriber, but have not gotten the most recent update.  It's not that I can't get the information from here or other sites, but I'm making an effort to follow what is happening.  The risk I see is the users that are not getting these updates from elsewhere....ultimately back to being a communication problem that I hope they resolve.

I'm sure you have an alternate email address, you might try adding that to their general list (the signup is in the footer of any Insteon.com page).  If you find you receive Insteon emails there, but not at your primary address then you have a question you can ask them, your address may have bounced at some point and that address got flagged for no email.   I had that happen once when my Microsoft subscription didn't auto renew due to an expired card, for some reason Microsoft rather than email that notice on my primary email they were emailing at the alternate security address only, which I wasn't monitoring.  I didn't realize there was a problem until 4 months later when they actually shut off my primary paid email account.  This caused all email to bounce for a few days and some email continued to bounce for a week or more for reasons I never figured out.   Anyway I tell the whole story because it was hardest to get smarthome.com marketing emails restarted.  The bounces got my addressed flagged in the Do Not Send black list, eventually they finally figured out what to do to resolve the problem, but it took several months of emails back and forth to customer service before they finally realized the blacklist which I needed to be removed from.

[Dub]

22 minutes ago, MrBill said:

I'm sure you have an alternate email address,

😃

@MrBill You are a master troubleshooter!!!  I like your approach and appreciate the context to the answer.

It's a good time to use my Burner Mail service to create a temp address I can turn off if needed.

[Michel Kohanim]

All, we may have some good news about PLMs (next week). Stay tuned.

With kind regards,
Michel

[midrar]

9 hours ago, Michel Kohanim said:

All, we may have some good news about PLMs (next week). Stay tuned.

With kind regards,
Michel

Good news about PLM’s next week, new Eisy controller coming soon. All I need now is access to devices, ex switches, keypads, etc. This is definitely a breath of fresh. 

[noobmuch]

On 7/19/2022 at 8:58 AM, MrBill said:

I agree.  I sent them a feedback last week on that subject exactly.  I even suggested they divide the old product list into four groups 1) Priority 2) second wave 3) maybe's 4) "for sure not returning" and publish those lists.  I even suggested that if it generates an avalanche of additional feedback that that was not really a bad thing because people are talking about it and they may learn something.

I'm quite sure there is a misstep or two along the way.  They appear to be trying tho.   It's only been 40 days since the deal closed.  There is no doubt the most important thing to do was return the hub servers to online state.   Second priority was dealing with Chinese companies to restart manufacturing.  Have you ever dealt with a Chinese Company?  I have, they are masters of telling you what they perceive that you want to hear and then trying to adjust reality to meet the commitment they made when they told you what you wanted to hear.

The newsletter signup option appears in the footer on every page on the insteon.com site.  I did point out the email signup link on the bottom of the front page, but at that point I hadn't yet noticed it's actually an element of the page footer and thus appears on every page, thanks for pointing that out!

I would think they could do a preorder/deposit to see what their demand is on certain products right out of the gate.  I am sure others also have a few things then would like to add or replace.  This could allow them to let the market decide what to make so the have more accurate forecasts. There would need to be a refund mechanism if the decide there is not enough demand to do a production run to avoid us from providing interest free loans.

This could also provide some quick capitol upfront to offset their burn rate until they have money coming and products going out.

[MrBill]

38 minutes ago, noobmuch said:

I would think they could do a preorder/deposit to see what their demand is on certain products right out of the gate.  I am sure others also have a few things then would like to add or replace.  This could allow them to let the market decide what to make so the have more accurate forecasts. There would need to be a refund mechanism if the decide there is not enough demand to do a production run to avoid us from providing interest free loans.

This could also provide some quick capitol upfront to offset their burn rate until they have money coming and products going out.

That's probably a recipe for going out of business to be honest.  It will also anger users that 6 months later get a refund and call it exactly what you said it's not "an interest free loan".

I would imagine the priorities are basic switches such as 2477D and 2477S, as well as hubs and PLMs.  But those switches once existed in 5 colors each.   After that there are pages and pages of old product, some further confused by color options.   Do they include every last product?  If not, voting by pre-order is skewed because they didn't include all the options.

Further if the first wave of products take "months" as Ken has suggested it may be "a year" or even "years" before everything they have planned now to come back comes back.

I do think it would be great to have a voting method, I don't think taking orders for product that may never exist is a good method.  It's a sure fire way to create a group of unhappy people.  "I ordered the product AND PAID but now 12 months later I'm getting a refund"... all the while forgetting there was never a guarantee the product would ever be produced"

They do need wide-spread input on what the community wants to buy tho, and so far they really aren't collecting that in a constructive way.  That reminds me tho, I was also going to read the insteon forum daily after it came back, but i forgot that self-pledge after just one day!

[lilyoyo1]

6 minutes ago, MrBill said:

  That reminds me tho, I was also going to read the insteon forum daily after it came back, but i forgot that self-pledge after just one day!

I didn't even know it came back. 

[MrBill]

2 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I didn't even know it came back. 

https://forum.insteon.com/

[lilyoyo1]

1 minute ago, MrBill said:

https://forum.insteon.com/

I still had the old link saved. Just people with hub issues so far. You're not missing anything

[MrBill]

16 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I still had the old link saved. Just people with hub issues so far. You're not missing anything

Probably to be expected since people don't read and August 1st was the 'no longer free' deadline.

[apostolakisl]

19 hours ago, Michel Kohanim said:

All, we may have some good news about PLMs (next week). Stay tuned.

With kind regards,
Michel

Does this mean the new Insteon owners are selling/licensing the PLM chip to UD for the UD PLM?

[larryllix]

Does this mean the lack of chip sourcing was just BS or just ordering person dependent?

Strange how it could suddenly be "fixed".

ROFLMFAO!

[apostolakisl]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

Does this mean the lack of chip sourcing was just BS or just ordering person dependent?

Strange how it could suddenly be "fixed".

ROFLMFAO!

Could just be an announcement of a deal.  Not that the chips are ready to go.  Also, could be that the chip/part shortage was not the proprietary Insteon chip.  We shall see.

[LFMc]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

Does this mean the lack of chip sourcing was just BS or just ordering person dependent?

Strange how it could suddenly be "fixed".

ROFLMFAO!

In keeping up with the latest news, both Intel and AMD have now both forecast about a 20% downturn in near future chip production due to so many ongoing order cancellations. So you can probably spread that across most of the chip production industry. Not a good sign for the tech economy but it does mean that some orders are probably moving to the front of the queues. Of course that is probably only the tip of the iceberg as many buyers were placing duplicate and triplicate orders with multiple vendors hoping that one would come through and then they cancel the other orders. These chickens are coming home to roost. 

[Dub]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

Does this mean the lack of chip sourcing was just BS or just ordering person dependent?

Strange how it could suddenly be "fixed".

ROFLMFAO!

HAHA!  I'm sure there were supply chain problems even it it were products sitting on containers in the ocean or lack of cash to pay for manufacturing or chip sourcing.  Take a pick!!  😂

There is a couple of options I have read speculations on here and other places about sourcing....Michel mentioned in one post there was some Nokia gear I think in storage that needed fees paid....So I dont think Michel's teaser of PLM news next week is directly related to supply chain constraints or lack there of.  Anything else I would say would pure speculation on my part.  But ultimately it sounds like there is equipment that is made and not held up somewhere in the manufacturing process.

I did read an interesting article about chip manufacturing and it is COMPLEX...beyond my understanding,  but no doubt you can't order chips today and get them tomorrow if there is an immediate need and no stock. Will be glad to share the link if anyone wants it, but here are some quotes are below in italics.(You could probably just Google one of the quotes if interested as the article was on Time Magazine site)

My take is Michel is transparent with his customers and will tell us what he can when he can.  What the old regime did at SH/Insteon.....who knows, but personally I have seen the supply chain blamed for tons of things real and imagined.  The supply chain constraints are real and chip manufacturing is slow, but the specifics on SH/Insteon chip problems we probably will never know the whole story.  The new Insteon regime I can imagine getting new manufactured equipment will take the months communicated because the process is so complicated with chip manufacturing.  *Disclaimer, I am making the assumption the Insteon chips are as time intensive or somewhat as time consuming as I understood from the article quoted below.

“I use an analogy like baking a cake,” says Belfi, an automation engineer at chipmaker GlobalFoundries. “The only difference is our cake is about 66 layers.”

"But new chip fabs take years. Analysts now worry that the auto chip shortage will slosh back to consumer electronics, affecting manufacturing all the way to Christmas. “Never seen anything like it,” tweeted Tesla CEO Elon Musk."

*Fabs is the term for for chip manufacturing 

"In 1990, 37% of chips were made in American factories, but by 2020 that number had declined to just 12%. All the new pieces of the growing pie had gone to Asia: Taiwan, South Korea and China. Chip fabs aren’t just factories, but linchpins of American self-reliance."

"Humans intrude only when something goes wrong. The showstopper is a problem with one of the lithography machines, which set the pace of the whole operation. Each costs more than $100 million. “When one of those go down, it is all hands on deck,” says Belfi.Yet when COVID-19 hit, the fab never stopped. "

"At GlobalFoundries, the journey from raw material to finished chip—what engineers like Belfi call the “process flow”—is typically 85 days and encompasses more than a thousand steps."

One last takeaway if you made it this far...getting additional fab capacity takes a very long and lots of money so adding capacity to a strained market is not fixed quickly.

[Techman]

"news" could mean a deal has been reached. Not necessarily that the product availability is imminent.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Techman

[Dub]

11 minutes ago, Techman said:

"news" could mean a deal has been reached. Not necessarily that the product availability is imminent.

Agreed.  I took it that way as well.

[apostolakisl]

50 minutes ago, Dub aka WHaas said:

HAHA!  I'm sure there were supply chain problems even it it were products sitting on containers in the ocean or lack of cash to pay for manufacturing or chip sourcing.  Take a pick!!  😂

There is a couple of options I have read speculations on here and other places about sourcing....Michel mentioned in one post there was some Nokia gear I think in storage that needed fees paid....So I dont think Michel's teaser of PLM news next week is directly related to supply chain constraints or lack there of.  Anything else I would say would pure speculation on my part.  But ultimately it sounds like there is equipment that is made and not held up somewhere in the manufacturing process.

I did read an interesting article about chip manufacturing and it is COMPLEX...beyond my understanding,  but no doubt you can't order chips today and get them tomorrow if there is an immediate need and no stock. Will be glad to share the link if anyone wants it, but here are some quotes are below in italics.(You could probably just Google one of the quotes if interested as the article was on Time Magazine site)

My take is Michel is transparent with his customers and will tell us what he can when he can.  What the old regime did at SH/Insteon.....who knows, but personally I have seen the supply chain blamed for tons of things real and imagined.  The supply chain constraints are real and chip manufacturing is slow, but the specifics on SH/Insteon chip problems we probably will never know the whole story.  The new Insteon regime I can imagine getting new manufactured equipment will take the months communicated because the process is so complicated with chip manufacturing.  *Disclaimer, I am making the assumption the Insteon chips are as time intensive or somewhat as time consuming as I understood from the article quoted below.

“I use an analogy like baking a cake,” says Belfi, an automation engineer at chipmaker GlobalFoundries. “The only difference is our cake is about 66 layers.”

"But new chip fabs take years. Analysts now worry that the auto chip shortage will slosh back to consumer electronics, affecting manufacturing all the way to Christmas. “Never seen anything like it,” tweeted Tesla CEO Elon Musk."

*Fabs is the term for for chip manufacturing 

"In 1990, 37% of chips were made in American factories, but by 2020 that number had declined to just 12%. All the new pieces of the growing pie had gone to Asia: Taiwan, South Korea and China. Chip fabs aren’t just factories, but linchpins of American self-reliance."

"Humans intrude only when something goes wrong. The showstopper is a problem with one of the lithography machines, which set the pace of the whole operation. Each costs more than $100 million. “When one of those go down, it is all hands on deck,” says Belfi.Yet when COVID-19 hit, the fab never stopped. "

"At GlobalFoundries, the journey from raw material to finished chip—what engineers like Belfi call the “process flow”—is typically 85 days and encompasses more than a thousand steps."

One last takeaway if you made it this far...getting additional fab capacity takes a very long and lots of money so adding capacity to a strained market is not fixed quickly.

Good news is that there are 10's of billions of dollars in new chip fabs in the works for the US.  I believe the $17b Samsung fab in Austin is already underway and Samsung has declared that they would like spend more than $100b in new chip fabs in Texas.  That is just Samsung.  So perhaps in 2 or 3 years . . .